One More for PBA Book of 'Firsts' (Sports Weekly, 1980)

Sports Weekly Magazine

August 29-September 5, 1980

Peter N. Acosta

 

 

            For a season which pad produced more than its share of unusual occurrences, PBA ’80 came up with yet another as Crispa reached for its third straight victory halfway through the double round eliminations of the Invitationals.

 

            The Jeansmakers, winners of their first two games in the series, didn’t make it, blowing a 114-110 decision to the visiting tall and tough Adidas quintet. It was, however, Crispa’s setback that made this a game that will no doubt go down in the PBA’s book of “firsts” but what happened in the closing minute and a half.

           

            It was a stupefying windup.

           

            Consider these:

 

            With 1:28 left in the game clock and Adidas out front by seven points, 109-102, Adidas playing coach Bill Sweek reacted angrily to a mandatory timeout rule after he had called an injury timeout on George Gooden. This was after an earlier foul call had set up Crispa’s Sylvester Cuyler to a stint on the free throw line.

 

            Claiming that he didn’t call a timeout, Sweek banged the officials’ desk with his palms and then kicked a rule book in the air.

 

            For this outburst, Sweek was slapped with two technical fouls by referee Ting Cruz which Atoy Co, playing one of his best games in the series, converted. After which, Cuyler took his turn on the foul line to sink his two free throws.

 

            With that unusual stint from the free throw line which came on two technical and a regular foul committed on a player in the act of shooting, Crispa brought down Adidas’ lead to three, 109-106.

 

            But although losing its coach who was thrown out of the court by referee Cruz, Adidas refused to crack up. On the next play, when the game was resumed after an uproar sparked by Sweek’s tantrum, Gooden, one of the two shortest men in the Adidas lineup, knocked in a short jumper to give his team a five-point lead, 111-106, the time down to 1:11.

 

            Co pumped in one from the side to again close the gap, and it looked like Crispa had a chance to further narrow down Adidas’ lead when the Shoemakers were forced into a violation of the 25-second-must-shoot rule after Co’s shot.

 

            But when Byron “Snake” Jones missed a forced jumper and the 6’5 Randolph Owens made good a three-point stint after scoring and then converting from the 15-foot line on a foul called on Jones, Adidas had the game on ice.

 

 

 

            It was a numbing finish for a Crispa team which, after a slow start, had taken a nine-point lead at the half and then had gone into the last period with a seven-point margin at 90-83.

 

            A 12-4 flurry in the first four minutes of the fourth sent Adidas out front by two, 96-94, and then by seven twice, the last time when playing Coach Sweek went into that costly tantrum that almost cost Adidas the game.

 

            Earlier, Crispa’s Philip Cezar also caused an uproar when he touched off a brief brawl among some spectators in the ringside seats behind the goal after he had reacted violently against a heckler.

 

            Compared to this, however, Sweek’s outburst was something.

 

            Sweek, of course, had an explanation for it. “I never called a timeout,” he declared. “If that was a local rule, they should have informed me about it earlier.”

 

            He was still fuming when he said, but somehow, his ire at having been ejected seemed to have been saved by his team’s victory on two clutch hits by Gooden and Owens.

 

            One thing he can’t understand though, he said, was how it seems his team almost always get a lot of foul calls from the referees. “It’s always been like this,” he said. “We’re supposed to be the taller team, and yet, we get all the fouls.”

 

            With his clutch jump shot, Gooden, a former draftee of the Detroit Pistons in the NBA upped his evening’s total to 20 points, the highest for Adidas. For Crispa, the top man was Co who finally recorded his first 30-point output in the five-team Invitationals.

Enter Adornado, the New Wrangler (Sports Weekly, 1980)

Sports Weekly Magazine

May 23-30, 1980

Peter N. Acosta

 

 

            It was his 199^th game as a pro.

 

            It didn’t seem like the time to be all keyed up, but this was exactly how William (Bogs) Adornado felt when he took the hardcourt last Thursday evening at the Big Dome.

           

            “I was tense,” he said. “I shouldn’t be, but I was really tense.”

 

            It was not difficult to understand why.

 

            The principal reason was what happened to his career two days earlier. In one of the most startling developments of the 1980 PBA season, Adornado, who, since the start of the local pro league in 1975, has always been with Crispa, was acquired in a mid-season deal by U/Tex.

 

            Other than an announcement by PBA Commissioner Leo Prieto on Adornado’s acquisition by U/Tex, no other details of the deal between Crispa and U/Tex were bared.

 

            The presumption, however, was that in acquiring Adornado, U/Tex also bound itself to assume the terms and conditions set forth in Adornado’s playing contract with Crispa and may have thrown in more to get this player whose scoring potential the Wranglers need because, according to Coach Tommy Manotoc, “we execute a lot of pattern plays and we need a shooter like Bogs.”

 

            On the part of Crispa, it was silent on why it let go of Adornado, but the decision must have been a painful one because along with Atoy Co, Philip Cezar, and the other Crispa originals of PBA ’75, Bogs played a key role in bringing about the team’s glory years in the league.

 

            Adornado was with the Redmanizers when they pulled off their now legendary grand slam feat in 1976, a coup that involved a sweep of all the PBA’s three conference championships that year.

 

            But tragically, although he figured prominently in the making of that storied feat, the following season saw Adornado agonizing on the sidelines over a knee injury that he got from an accidental bump by U/Tex’s Romeo Frank, who’s now his teammate.

 

 

 

            The incident left him with a torn ligament under the left knee which prevented him from taking off as he used to and from running laterally.

 

            He tried special knee braces just so he can resume playing, but he found the brace (the same one now used by Frank) too heavy for comfort so eventually he decided to have a knee operation.

 

            It was Dr. Antonio C. Rivera, a noted Filipino orthopedic surgeon, who operated on Bogs at the Cardinal Santos hospital in Greenhills, San Juan. The operation only took three hours, but the recuperative period took almost a year and it wasn’t until the All-Filipino conference of 1978 that Bogs was able to return to the hardcourt.

 

            He played 50 games in his comeback year, but because he was used sparingly by Coach Baby Dalupan, he could only manage a 9.48 points per game average, way, way below his old averages of 26.94 in 1975 and 25.66 in the year of the grand slam.

 

            Last season didn’t turn out any better, exposure-wise, for Adornado. Although he saw action in 52 games, he was only good for 10.79 points per game average.

 

            Three months earlier, before the ’79 season opened, Bogs had expressed his disenchantment over his limited use by Coach Dalupan, which he said it may have been responsible for his slow return to his old form, and then had told Sports Weekly Magazine in an exclusive interview that he was seriously considering a transfer “if the terms are right.”

 

            Among the teams that expressed an interest then in Adornado was U/Tex. A week after the 1979 Christmas holidays, Adornado was supposed to have met with Coach Manotoc. But apparently, nothing came out of that because the ’79 season saw Adornado with a new playing contract from Crispa.

 

            The opening of the new PBA season saw Bogs getting more exposure and being sent in during tight spots in lieu of Atoy Co who was blowing hot and cold. He started against Toyota and Tefilin, but then was sidelined for the next three games.

 

            In one of his high scoring nights in the first round, he logged in 19 points against Great Taste but against U/Tex, he had only four points and against Royal Tru Orange, in his last stint with Crispa, he also had four.

 

            From the way things had gone for him in the last round, it seemed like it would be another agonizing year for Adornado, but then came his shift to U/Tex and now, his career has taken on a new turn.

 

            Exposing him as he had never been exposed by Crispa, Coach Manotoc fielded Bogs early and apparently, because of his first-time jitters with his new team, Bogs never really got to his first five tries. He eventually made seven points in the first half.

 

            For U/Tex fans, that performance may have looked like the Wranglers had gotten a “lemon” in acquiring Bogs, but early in the third, he finally exploded.

 

 

 

            Popping them in the way he used to during the glory days of Crispa, Adornado helped key a 10-point U/Tex breakaway and when Gilbey’s threatened to come back early in the fourth, he muzzled the threat with two key shots – a three-point goal and a soft jumper.

 

            It was a notable first time up by Bogs with his new team and expectedly, Coach Manotoc was elated.

 

            Although Bogs, according to Manotoc, still seemed out of shape, he said he was confident that Bogs would be “a big help in our bid for a semifinal slot.”

 

            As to why U/Tex got Adornado when his performance chart in the last two seasons showed nothing that would indicate that Bogs still has got that old zing on the firing line, Manotoc said the team needed him because it goes into a lot of pattern plays. And Bogs, the resurrected Bogs, fits very well into the Wranglers’ pattern for victory.

 

            And how does Bogs feel about leading his old ballclub?

 

            Naturally, he said, he was “sad” because he had been with Crispa for such a long time.

           

            But then, he stressed, “I cannot be warming the bench all the time. With more exposure, I know I can still be competitive.”

 

            Like him, the Wrangler camp is also hoping that he could still be, and even more so, that as he gets more and more time on the hardcourt, he’ll regain that shooting touch that made him one of local basketball’s most awesome pop-shooters.

The 'New" Bernard Harris: Walking Tall with Crispa (Sports Weekly, 1979)

Sports Weekly Magazine

November 30-December 7, 1979

Peter N. Acosta

 

 

            He got in the Crispa lineup via a majority vote of all the players of the Pasig ballclub, winning handily over Norm Kelly of the Honda Wildcats, and in his first game with his new team, Bernard Harris, formerly of Tanduay, repaid his new teammates’ vote of confidence with a performance that showed he just might be what the doctor ordered as the replacement for the discredited Cyrus Mann.

 

            “I’m happy tonight,” said the Crispa Walk Tall Jeansmakers’ end-of-the-season acquisition whose first stint in the PBA was with the defunct Seven-Up ballclub in 1976 before he made the switch the following year to the Esquires.

 

            If Harris was happy, there was no doubt that the Crispa front office men – owner Danny Floro and Coach Baby Dalupan – were doubly more so.

 

 

 

            For in his first time with the Walk Tall team, Harris proved his awesome potential as Irv Chatman’s partner when he anchored Crispa to a 116-88 romp over the second conference champion, Royal Tru Orange.

 

            Aside from banging a game-high 31 points, Harris hauled down 22 rebounds and came through with three assists.

 

            But what made Harris’ debut with Crispa all the more remarkable was that he outrebounded the indomitable Otto Moore – 22 to 20 – and played so smoothly with a team whose play patterns he was unfamiliar with.

 

            And Harris admits that despite his crackerjack showing for Crispa against Royal, he felt he had not completely gotten into the swing of the Walk Tall Jeansmakers’ game.

 

            “I’m still trying to blend with the team,” he said, while all around him, his new teammates exulted on the way he had more than ably filled in for Mann, whose contract was rescinded by the Crispa management towards the end of the last PBA conference when it realized it could not get him – despite earnest efforts – to kick his old drug habit.

 

            Harris went on: “It takes a while to blend with a new team. Crispa has an entirely different style from Tanduay. Although both are running teams, I believe Crispa has a little more depth and a little more sock.”

           

            Asked if before Crispa’s game with Royal he received any specific instructions from Coach Dalupan, Harris smiled. “None really. No specific instructions.”

 

            So how was he able to perform so well against Otto Moore, Royal’s dominating slotman?

 

            “Oh that,” he said. “Well, I’ve always felt that to cut down Moore’s effectiveness in the rebounds, you’ve got to box him out. I think I did that tonight.”

 

            On the observation that he appeared to have improved on his field goal performance with Crispa, Harris attributed this to his being able “to take more outside shots with confidence…feeling more at ease taking such shots with Crispa.”

 

 

 

            Along with the veteran Gene Moore, Harris played for the first time with Tanduay in the 1977 second conference but he never finished the season when he suffered an arm injury when the Esquires took on the Toyota Tamaraws in an out of town game in Bacolod.

 

            Last year, it was David Payne who teamed up with Moore for Tanduay, thus Harris was not with the Esquires when they made the finals of the 1978 third conference.

 

            But this time around, things may be different for Harris.

 

            He figures to play in a title playoff – with Crispa.

 

            “I think that if we continue playing the way we did against Royal, we have a pretty good chance of making the finals,” he said.

 

            Asked if his joining Crispa came after long-drawn negotiations, Harris said, “it was not hard reaching a decision to play with Crispa.”

 

            “I understand the whole team voted for me,” he continued. “I can only hope I can keep up the kind of game I played tonight.”

 

            As to his future plans or specifically, if he’d consider to continue playing for Crispa, Harris said, “that depends, but first, we’ve got to talk.”

 

            In his 29-game stint with Tanduay in 1977, Harris averaged 24 points a game, hauled down 282 rebounds, had 22 shot blocks, averaged 47.14% from the field and 66.67% from the free throw line.

 

            In this year’s second conference, he raised his average to 26.62 points per game, was 11^th in the list of rebound leaders with an average of 12.4 rebounds per game, seventh in the list of shot block leaders with 2.4 blocks per game and logged 32 minutes and 26 seconds per game in playing time.

 

            Because Tanduay didn’t make the round of four, Harris sat out the homestretch part of the second conference race. But this time around, he figures to be there and not only there, but at the forefront of Crispa’s vaunted bid to regain a PBA conference championship it last won in 1976.

An Insider's Story: Why the "Absence" of Mon Fernandez, Abe King, Estoy Estrada (Sports Weekly, 1979)

Sports Weekly Magazine

November 30-December 07, 1979

Peter N. Acosta

 

 

Ab’sent (ab-sent) adj. – not present; not in a certain way; away        

                                                                                                                        Webster’s Dictionary

 

            The official line is they’re absent, which means, according to Webster, they’re “not present,” not in a certain place; away….

 

            “Let’s just say they are absent,” said Coach Dante Silverio by way of explaining why, in Toyota’s first game in the third conference against the GIlbey’s Gin, three of the team’s key men. Toyota’s ace Filipino slotman Ramon Fernandez, 1979 All-Filipino most improved player Abe King and veteran forward Ernesto (Estoy) Estrada, Toyota’s 1978 acquisition from Royal – were missing from the Toyota bench.

 

            It was pretty much the same thing when the Tamaraws, after scoring their first win in the series with a crackling 125-120 decision over the upset-minded Gins, went on to their second victory two days later, this time, a 137-113 romp over the Great Taste Discoverers, third place finishers behind Toyota in the second conference.

 

            Pressed once again by the boys along press row why Fernandez, King and Estrada remained out of the Toyota bench, coach Silverio fell back on his previous explanation.

 

            “The official word,” said Dante, “is that they are absent.”

 

 

 

            Other than confining himself to this cryptic remark, the 38-year old Tamaraw coach declined to disclose the real or official reason for the continued absence of the three players from the Toyota bench.

 

            From sources close to the Toyota camp, however, this writer learned that one probable reason Silverio had all but opted not to use the three in the current PBA series where undoubtedly, they could further boost Toyota’s offensive and defensive power and add more depth to the team’s bench, is Dante’s apparent lack of confidence in Fernandez, King and Estrada.

 

            It all began, SWM’s sources said, during the best of five playoffs between Toyota and Royal for the second conference championship eventually won by the Orangemen by the count of three games to one.

           

            SWM’s sources said that a careful review by Silverio of the performances of the three during the series and immediately afterwards when he studied videotapes of the four RTO-Toyota title playoff games led him to conclude that the overall performances of Fernandez, King and Estrada “left a lot to be desired in so far as consistency is concerned.”

 

 

 

            “Osbok (the way Silverio is called by his players) has been in the game too long and is all too familiar with the playing styles, moods and idiosyncracies of his boys to know when any of them is not playing up to par deliberately,”said SWM’s informant.

 

            “Obviously,” he went on, “he discerned such a letdown in the performances of the three players during the playoffs.”

 

            Talking of Dante, the man and the coach, SWM’s informant pointed out that “one thing about Dante is he is the kind of guy who feels that because he has always gone all out to give his players everything they want, he expects nothing less than reciprocity and absolute loyalty from them.”

 

            “He is a very trusting man,” he said, “but once he loses his trust and confidence in you, that’s it, you’re out of his graces.

 

            SWM’s informant believes that more than anything else, it was Dante’s feeling that he can no longer depend on Fernandez, King and Estrada to play every game in the third conference as he believes they should, that primarily led him to shelve all three men if such a move may well mean an uphill struggle by Toyota to go into the finals of a PBA conference which it had won two years in a row – in 1977 and 1978.

 

            “And I can’t blame him,” he said. “After all, what’s the use of having players on the bench whom you can’t trust to deliver or play as they should?”

 

            “It’s hard to say,” said SWM’s informant. “But right now, what best describes their standing in so far as Coach Silverio is concerned is that all three are in the cooler.”

 

            As to how long they’ll be “in the cooler,” he wouldn’t venture a guess. “It all depends on Osbok (Coach Silverio),” he said. “Only he can decide how long the three will remain absent or when they’ll finally be present.”

 

            As things stand, there are thus far no signs that Silverio has relented in his decision to can the three, all of whom hold new three-year playing contracts with Toyota.

 

            A review of Toyota’s rocky performance in its title playoff series with Royal showed that on at least two occasions, Silverio all but blew his top over the performances of several of his key players, notably Fernandez and King.

 

            At one point, he castigated them publicly, airing his ire over their “strange” behavior, especially when in Game 2 of the series the Tamaraws blew a 21-point lead to lose by five points at the windup.

 

            “You saw the first half?” Dante asked a sportswriter after the game. “Beautiful, no? The real Toyota game. And then came that terrible third quarter in six minutes, what we earned we threw away by errors, loose defense and overconfidence.”

 

            In the fourth game of the series, Toyota also led by as much as 21 points before leaving the match and the title, and one notable feature of this encounter was Dante’s decision to put Fernandez on a leash almost all throughout.

 

            It may not have been too apparent then, but the decision that was to stir a lot of speculations in the third conference may have been borne right then and there.

 

 

 

 

            Here’s a chronological account of how Toyota’s Ramon Fernandez, Abe King and Estoy Estrada found themselves in the “cooler.”

 

-       A week after the second conference title playoffs where Toyota lost, three game to one to Royal Tru Orange, the members of the team, including Fernandez, King and Estrada, were called to a practice session at the San Agustin gymnasium.

 

-       After the practice, team trainer “Legs” Legaspi, obviously under instructions from Coach Dante Silverio, informs Fernandez, King and Estrada that they are no longer to report to future practices and games of the team until further notice.

 

-       The following day, the three requested for a meeting with Coach Silverio, apparently to seek an explanation as to why they have been more or less canned. Silverio was busy that day but agrees to meet them the following day.

 

-       At the first face-to-face meeting between Silverio and the three, Dante confronts them with his grave findings regarding the letdown in their performances during their title series with RTO and some key games of Toyota in the past.

 

-       On November 20, the opening of the third conference where Toyota played and won over Gilbey’s Gin, Coach Silverio informs sportswriters who asked him why Fernandez, King and Estrada were not in the Toyota bench that “the official word is that they’re absent.”

 

-       And “absent” the three have been since, although they remain on the team’s payroll and continue to receive their salaries.