Sunday, March 02, 2008 Ben Dimas: A coach no one can forget By Ramon Dacawi
BASEBALL catcher Ben Dimas did explain last week why his slow clocking of about a minute still won him the bronze in the 400-meter low hurdles, eight seconds behind then decathlon champion Jaime Pimentel and another rival who took the gold in Manila.
"I had to be at the victory stand because we were only three runners," the retired teacher, lifetime farmer and forever baseball fan chuckled over that stint on the track in the 50s.
Far better in catching strikes and balls or tagging out batters at home plate, he quit running, except on the diamond. Later, as teacher and coach, he started shouting expletives at boys coming in late for practice or smelling of alcohol, or fumbling with a ball.
That's why two of his former wards -- catcher Joe Ambasing and short-stop Macario Fumucao -- were looking for him beside the diamonds of the Cordillera regional games last week in La Trinidad, Benguet. How can they forget a coach who acted like an army drill sergeant even without a chevron?
"He would rouse us up at five in the morning and lead us to the cold showers and would pelt us with pebbles for staying too long in the roofless outhouse," Ambasing recalled.
That's why, several years ago, Fumucao and first baseman Fred Waclet rode tandem on a motorcycle from Bontoc, Mountain Province to the Benguet State University (BSU).
For them and the other boys who endured -- and therefore couldn't forget -- what the coach did to them, it was payback time.
Dimas was coming home from the university coffee farm he developed to prove Arabica could grow under resinous pine trees.
He found them waiting in his cottage, acting like they owned the place. He was about to ask what the hell it was when the boys stood, clapped their hands, and raised a streamer that announced: "Happy retirement, coach".
He fell silent, clumsily standing there, not knowing what to say. The boys grinned, finally giving the coach his come-uppance of silence.
On the white banner's spaces, they had signed their names: Binstead Lo, Lester Chaokas, J. Botengan Jr., Clement Abad, Greg Bilango, Silver Aben, Claro Nabus, Harland Pawid."
The streamer now drapes a wall of a small room at the back of the coach's home at Longlong, Pinsao here.
It's where plaques and other awards, mementoes and photos of Dimas and his wife Evelyn are also kept -- away from public view.
Dimas fell in love with his wife (nee Botengan) in Bontoc, when both were young teachers at the Mountain Province High School.
It was where Dimas transformed a bunch of Bontoc boys into a fighting squad that would reign supreme for three years in the Northern Luzon Athletic Association (NLAA) meet.
At the 1963 NLAA meet, the coach took in Ambasing, then with the Baguio City High, and Fumucao, then with the La Trinidad Agricultural School, to complete the team.
Dimas himself started playing at the Baguio High, prodded on by his father Antonio, himself a member of Class 1919 of the former Mountain Province High School here.
Antonio, who became a teacher, was in the team of Eugene Pucay, the diminutive Ibaloi patriarch who earned the sobriquet "Phantom of the Diamond" for his base-stealing feats during the 1920s.
The younger Dimas recalled that his team used to play against his father's nine as part of their training at Burnham Park.
He didn't know or didn't believe then that there's such as a thing as a curve ball. He learned it in one game against the elders, when he faced his dad's namesake and pitcher -- Antonio Capulo.
Before he knew it, before he could step back, the pitched ball suddenly turned. It hit him on the leg. When the pain subsided, he had learned a lesson -- to move closer to the pitcher for the swing, before the ball curves.
Later, he heard a recurring story that Capulo had earlier struck out the legendary Babe Ruth when the latter visited Manila.
When his dad sent him to pursue a Bachelor of Arts degree in agriculture at the University of the Philippines (UP)-Los Baños, Dimas took position as catcher with the varsity squad, the only Igorot in the team. In his spare time, he checked attendance in the swimming class to earn for his clothes.
"When I came home with new clothes, my old man asked where I got the money to buy them," he recalled. "When the teacher was absent, I just told the students -- who didn't know I knew nothing about swimming -- to swim."
Despite his love for baseball, his team proved mercurial, losing or finishing second in some tournaments. He attributed the erratic record to the lack of passion from teammates based in UP Diliman.
"They were not keen at training," he said. "They retired my number -- 22 -- when I graduated," he added.
"I was offered teaching jobs in Mindanao and Palawan, both of which I declined. I came home to farm but had no capital so I went to Bontoc to teach when then Governor Bado Dangwa opened the high school."
He taught the Bontoc boys and girls the quiet joy of farming and the thrill of baseball and softball -- less bloody substitutes to "fagfagto", the native stone-throwing game.
Among Manong Ben's plaques is the Benguet Leadership award the province bestowed in 1988, when he sat beside be-medaled Ibaloi trackster Melecio Besara, who received the same honor for his feats in athletics.
"People started to notice when he successfully raised coffee under pines," Dimas citation began. "The myth has been that no fruit trees or other economic crops could be grown under pine trees because of their overpowering shade and acidic needle leaves."
"This son of Ibaloi parents from Guisad, Baguio City has come out with various technologies in agro-forestry since he was named project director of the BSU Agro-Forestry Project in 1977 and as Chairman of the BSU agro-forestry technical course in 1980."
Several other plaques cited him for introducing the table terrace method in agro-forestry, development of the agro-forestry approach now adopted in towns of Benguet and Mountain Province, reforestation of denuded areas with fruit trees, and for introducing the ameliorative and protective role of agro-forestry in reforestation.
These days, in-between delivering to and fetching from school two of his nine grandchildren, Dimas tends his orange and coffee patch at Longlong.
Evenings, he and his wife watch the newscast or a PBA basketball game. Now and then, he wonders when the cable TV lines would arrive to connect him to the major baseball season in the US.
The season opens in April, a few weeks before he turns 73 on May 19. But the slow-moving linesmen must have never played baseball.
