The Toyota Comeback - After Near Heartbreak, A Magnificent Wind-Up (Sports Weekly, 1979)

Sports Weekly Magazine

December 28, 1979 -January 4, 1980

 

 

            They sallied out in the 1979 PBA campaign with a pair of championships under their belt and, as things were the previous season, apparently programmed to become the second ballclub in the league’s history to pull off an epic grand slam of the PBA’s three conference titles.

 

            Having won in ’78 the All-Filipino and third conference titles, the Toyota Tamaraws took the hardcourt at the start of a PBA that just ended with two championships to defend.

 

            But three months after the season opened, they were out of one title as they lost the All-Filipino championship to their arch rivals, the Crispa Redmanizers, 3-2, in a best of five playoffs that went the whole high-pressure route.

 

            But more than losing a title, the Tamaraws found their hopes for a grand slam go pfft with their failure to hang on to the All-Filipino championship they had won the year before.

 

            Another setback in another finale, this one their best of five showdown with Royal Tru Orange which they lost to the Orangemen, three games to one, and the twin-titled Toyota team was like a casino habitue down to his last blue chip.

 

            And as if things were not grim enough for the Tamaraws, their third conference outlook became even dimmer when the opening of the league saw three of their players – Mon Fernandez, Abe King and Estoy Estrada – out of the lineup following disciplinary measures instituted against them, by Coach Dante Silverio who believed they didn’t play hard enough in the last conference.

 

            The three were first declared “absent” by Coach Silverio but eventually he let everybody in n why he had decided to can them: the performances of the three in the second conference left a lot to be desired in so far as consistency and desire to win were concerned.

 

            With Fernandez, Abe King and Estrada out, the Tamaraws suffered a scale-down in their rebounding potential. Still and all, despite this, the Tamaraws were able to come through with a true grit game that enabled them to wrap up a finals berth on the strength of a 4-1 won-lost record, their only loss coming at the hands of the Crispa-Walk Tall Jeansmakers.

 

            Up against what probably was the toughest field of contenders in the third conference, champion Royal Tru Orange, U/Tex, Gilbey’s Gins and the Great Taste Discoverers, it amazed a lot of PBA observers that the Tams were able to chart a straight and true course to the finals.

 

            Pitted for the second time in the season against Crispa in the third conference finals, Toyota’s depleted lineup finally told on the Tams when they got clobbered bad by the Jeansmakers who won by a whopping 28 points in the first game of the playoffs.

 

            That was an awful blow for the Tams, but three days later, they were jolted by a bigger one when Coach Silverio announced during a breakfast press conference at the Intercontinental hotel his decision to quit as coach and manager.

 

            The 40-year old coach, who had piloted Toyota to five league titles, cited as his reason for quitting a management decision to reinstate the three players he had earlier suspended.

 

            The Toyota management, through Delta President Ricardo Silverio, defended its move by stating that it had to be done in the interest of the fans who wanted to see a good title series.

 

 

 

            With Dante out and Fernandez, Abe King and Estrada back in, began their climb back into contention, and as luck would have it, they were able to get back at Crispa-Walk Tall at a time when Crispa had one of its imports, Irv Chatman, in sick bay.

 

            With Crispa springing a leak in the slot, the Tamaraws were quick to cash in and led by as much as 37 points before settling to a 28-point winning margin that levelled the series at 1-1.

 

            Chatman returned to the Crispa lineup in Game 3 of the title playoffs, but with the momentum now on the side of Toyota, the Tams made it 2-1 by spending the Jeansmakers, 107-102.

 

            Two nights later, they applied the title clincher, a tough 98-87, over the Jeansmakers.

 

            It was an epic comeback by the trials struck Tamaraws and what made the feat all the more memorable was that with the win, Toyota became the first PBA ballclub to win the third conference championship for three consecutive years. The first time the Tams made it was against the Emtex Sacronels in 1977. Last year they whipped Tanduay for the title.

 

            “It was a team effort. Everybody played inspired ball,” said acting Toyota coach Fort Acuña in a statement that summed up Toyota’s near plunge as the heartbreak team of the 1979 PBA season and the manner the Tamaraws transformed their brush with a crisis into a victory of storybook proportions.

Why Dante Quit - "To Preserve Honor, Purity of Basketball" (Sports Weekly, 1979)

Sports Weekly Magazine

December 14-21, 1979

Dante Silverio

 

 

            For years, doubts had been cast on the integrity of our basketball games, particularly in the major leagues. My involvement in the sport over the last few seasons provided me with an intimate opportunity to confirm these doubts, which, in some ways, had led me to take certain actions against some of my players.

 

            For one, I did not renew the contract of Danilo Florencio because of suspicions that he purposely did not give his best in some games. Rather than entertain these doubts, I decided to cut off my ties with him.

 

            Now comes an identical situation. Only this time, not just one, but at least three players, are the ones at the other end.

 

            Ever since I refused to use Ramon Fernandez, Abe King and Ernesto Estrada at the start of the Third Conference, I had been constantly under pressure from all quarters. Everybody interested in basketball – the fans, my co-coaches, officials, the broadcast and print media, and even some of our management people – had wanted to know the reasons behind my move.

 

            I must say once again that my action against the three was based on my belief that they did not play their best on several occasions. So rather than worry about their possible action on the court, I deemed it better to keep them out of the team.

 

 

 

            I felt that by so doing, I helped preserve the purity and honor of the sport, which, I think, are more important than just winning.

 

            Without the three players, our team has reached the final, and in the process, has come close to proving my point. However, circumstances beyond my control have denied me the opportunity to continue my personal crusade. Our management has decided to give Fernandez, King and Estrada the chance to play again because it believes our club should not be left alone to carry the fight which other teams in the PBA should be waging collectively.

 

            Management may have other reasons for taking this action.

 

            I felt, however, that involvement in sport carries a duty to the public such as keeping it above reproach. Because of the difference in my belief and that of management, I feel it would be to the best interests of all parties concerned for me to relinquish the position of coach and manager of the Toyota basketball team effective immediately.

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.

Toyota's Arnold Tuadles: The Birth of a PBA Star (Sports Weekly, 1979)

Sports Weekly Magazine

April 20-27, 1979

Pyke F. Jocson

 

 

            It isn’t everyday that the PBA gets a prodigious rookie. In comes Arnulfo Tuadles, with the ferocity of Ali and the grace of Comaneci, fresh from the amateur, and the PBA wears a wide smile.

 

            The reason is there, as glaring as a Toyota headlight on a moonless night. The prize recruit from Frigidaire, in this age where the most promising basketeers are kept virgin to the lures of the PBA by surrendering themselves to the MYSD closet, bolted out of the cage asylum to join Toyota and give, whether the PBA accepts it or not, the skidding pro the much-needed push.

 

            Where Mon Cruz, Pol Herrera and Romulo Mamaril are virtually handcuffed, Tuadles is a free bird.

 

            Since last year, Tuadles has been a participant in Toyota practices. Dante Silverio’s long wait for the 6’2 forward-guard was worth it. All the hitches and the headaches which resulted into Tuadles’ release from San Miguel in the MICAA has been a big but silently-talked about issue, with only his being trade for 1978 amateur player of the year, Mon Cruz, coming into surface. It was almost a mission impossible. But Dante did it.

 

            The amateur can now have its MYSD pool. A Tuadles is in the PBA, and wouldn’t this be enough?

 

            That the boyish-looking newcomer is a cinch for the 1979 PBA Rookie of the Year award is a fact that other newcomers like Fritz Gaston, Mon Dizon and Ely Capacio should take with nary a knit on their foreheads.

 

            And what does the Rookie of the Year award really mean?

 

            For Tuadles, it would be a most fitting welcome, a heralded tribute that he is in, and how, in the PBA. Like Gil Cortez, Jimmy Taguines and Jimmy Manansala, PBA rookie awardees for 1976, 1977 and 1978, Tuadles knows that with the award, he will be entering a bigger and more challenging basketball arena.

 

            Tuadles, one of the twelve children of Anastacio and Emiteria Batoon-Tuadles of Danao, Cebu, is 22, and was a national player in the 1975 ABC Games in Bangkok.

 

            “I learned basketball at an early age in Danao through my brothers and cousins,” he said.

 

            The members of the Tuadles brood: Jovy, Luthie, Fred, Marylou, Fe, Arnold, Celso, Jeffrey, Eva, Calvin, Elsa and Eric.

 

            He was discovered while playing for the junior team of Danao Visayan Institute. Recruited to play for University of Visayas high, where he spent two fruitful seasons, Tuadles was voted Most Valuable Player in 1975. For three years, he played for the UV Lancers along with PBA sophomore Marlowe Jacutin who is now with Royal Tru Orange.

 

            “It was Emong Basa who really taught me the rudiments of the game. Before this, I didn’t take my basketball seriously. All I knew then was shoot the ball. Even at an early age, I developed this penchant to try new shots. It was only when I started dreaming of playing side by side with my idols like Jaworski, Paner and Estrada, that I started to take my basketball seriously,” he said.

 

            Tuadles is under a three-year contract with Toyota. One of his favorite possessions nos is a white Toyota Corolla.

 

            Kidded about his sizzling debut against Crispa, Tuadles humbly said it was tsamba.

 

            “Sinuwerte lang,” he said, half-blushing. I’m also thankful I was given the chance.”

 

 

 

            With all the hossanahs being sung Tuadles’ way, the friendly Cebuano healthily thinks that “I still have to improve my outside shot. I feel at home with my movements within the keyhole area and undergoal penetrations, it’s really my outside shot which I have to develop some more.”

 

            Queried on why he’s playing a lot better now than in the MICAA, Tuadles had a ready answer.

 

            “While it is true that basketball is a lot tougher and physical in the PBA, there will be a better chance for an offense-oriented operator like me to display my wares in the PBA simply because the amateur still has the zone defense which is harder to penetrate, while in the PBA, sini-single mo ang iyong guwardiya. But it is only in this department na nakakalamang sa hirap ang amateur. Because in the PBA, one has to develop all the aspects of the game. In the PBA, one has to be extra good in both offense and defense.”

 

            Marriage for the good-looking bachelor?

 

            “Not now. I have yet to prove something in my chosen profession. I have to save muna. Girlfriend? Meron na. She just graduated from San Agustin in Iloilo. She’s staying there. When I finally get to save, I’ll bring her to Manila. I plan to settle here. Save more and have a house of my own. I can only do this if I really try hard, devote my time, make sacrifices to be, not only a good pro basketeer, but an esteemed one. I have for my models those basketball players who really have established themselves, thus giving security to their families, like Jaworski, indeed a pro in the real sense of the word.”

 

            The PBA is a bloody battlefield where only those with sterner stuff emerge unfazed. Tuadles knows this. Long before he joined the pro bandwagon, he had fashioned himself in such a way that the PBA won’t be a totally alien place to dribble in.

 

            Toyota is lucky to have the versatile forward-guard. As the Tamaraws’ filler for the void left by the “missing” Danny Florencio, Tuadles has no other way to go but up.

 

            The chance is there. And Tuadles only has to bite. It’s been sometime that the PBA has discovered somebody like Tuadles, somebody who has the grit and daring, somebody who has the knowhow, somebody just perfectly cut for the PBA.

 

            Indeed yes, somebody like Arnold Tuadles.

What Really Happened to Florencio and Toyota? (Sports Weekly, 1979)

Sports Weekly Magazine

March 30 – April 6, 1979

 

 

            With the release last Tuesday of the official lineups of the nine teams competing in this year’s PBA All-Filipino which showed Danny Florencio’s name out of the Toyota slate, what has long been an open secret has finally been confirmed. It’s all over between Danny and the ballclub he helped last year to its first of its two championships in PBA ’78.

 

            But as to the “why” of the Florencio-Toyota breakup, the reason will perhaps never be known although officially, what has been made to appear is that Danny won’t be seeing action anew with the Tamaraws because Toyota didn’t opt to renew his playing contract which expires Sunday, April 1, the date of the PBA ’79 All-Filipino series opening.

 

            When asked why he didn’t opt anew for Florencio’s services, Toyota coach Dante Silverio chose to keep mum. It was the same thing with Toyota team officials who could have shed light on the “real” reason Florencio has been dropped from the Tamaraw lineup but who, like Silverio, had also chosen to remain silent.

 

            Obviously, only one person – Florencio himself – could take the wraps off what had long been a PBA mystery. But Danny, for reasons known only to himself, had also chosen to stay tight-lipped.

 

            Seen once by a Sports Weekly magazine reporter while having lunch at a Quezon City eatery, Danny quickly slipped out of the restaurant when he caught sight of the SWM staffer. This led the writer to conclude that “perhaps, Danny doesn’t want to be interviewed or even to talk with any member of the press.”

 

            But why?

 

            To this question, several possible reasons have been advanced.

 

            The first is that “nahihiya si Danny.”

 

            If this is so, if Danny is really embarrassed, why?

 

            Another reason is that Danny doesn’t want to say something to any sportswriter that could further aggravate his situation. But then, if this is true, what is the “situation?

            When he was placed on the inactive list following Toyota’s last game in the first round of the double round qualifying series of the 1978 PBA second conference, the reason given by Toyota coach Silverio was that Danny had developed a “recurrent pulled muscle.”

 

 

 

            Florencio never got to see action in that game which Toyota lost by three points to the Great Taste Discoverers and not too long after, Silverio left for the south to coach an all-star team in a mid-season exhibition series of the league.

 

            When Silverio returned to Manila following the series and the second round started, the general expectation was that, by then, Florencio must have recovered from his “recurrent pulled muscle” trouble and would be seeing action again with the Tamaraws.

 

            But no such thing happened as the Tams opened their second round campaign with a reversal of their first round loss to GTD. In Toyota’s next game in the round against U/Tex, Florencio remained nowhere on the Toyota bench.

 

            He remained out all throughout the second conference which saw Toyota miss a finals berth and even in the third conference which the Tamaraws won.

 

            All throughout his period of inactivity, Florencio remained on the Toyota payroll because his contract remained effect up to April 1, 1979. But for all intents and purposes, he may as well have been out of the team.

 

            For since he last saw action with Toyota in the Toyota-U/Tex game where he only made three points after earlier averaging 22.5 points per game, he has not been to any Toyota practice. Neither has the Toyota team management shown any enthusiasm about seeing to it that he recovers fast from whatever is ailing him.

 

            Sunday, as a new PBA season opens with Florencio out of Toyota’s lineup or any of the lineups of the eight other teams in the PBA, it seems likely that the old question about the Florencio puzzle will be asked.

 

            Mainly, why didn’t Toyota renew Florencio’s playing contract?

 

            If it’s true that Toyota no longer wants him, how come none of the teams in the league never made any move to seek his services?

 

            Is it true that Florencio is through in the PBA? If so, why?