Tuesday, March 02, 2004
Pages: Bad meant on week: Swatting shuttlecocks
By John Pages
Match Point
Here’s how my bad week ran, full of bad surprises, ran so bad last week.
The other Sunday, swamped with hordes of Rotarians for the annual Rotalympics, I barged into the Sports Center. Without warning, I’m thrust into holding a reed-thin fly swatter. Yep, that steel-framed shaft used to smother ‘em feathers. Fellow Cebu West Rotarian Francis Onglatco and I dash about court, plunge to the cement, we hustle, even reach match point before bowing to the eventual champs, Metro Cebu’s president Lambert Lim Lam Thai and secretary Martin Ledesma.
The following night, I’m welcoming our Brotherhood of Christian Businessmen and Professionals (BCBP) group. Jourdan Polotan, he with that broad-shouldered stance and left forearm thicker than an arm-wrestler’s, prevails upon us good Christians to talk bad. He says bad is good.
Bad? Good?
BADMINTON MECCA. You see, Jourdan’s Class-A at bad. Credentials complete with an eight-year stint at the sport’s mecca, in Indonesia.
Harry Uy, Rene Asprer, Ven Carbon, Eddie Yap, Ric Sala, and myself are swayed – even tempted – to do bad.
Harry, a gung-ho mountainbiker, and linksman Rene finally succumb. Promising Jourdan a midday office sneak out for an hour’s sweat. Ven, Eddie, Ric and I roar with laughter.
Tuesday, 3 p.m., I’m loitering around Nike Park shop in Ayala when my eyes zoom in on a dazzling, white-topped, sulfur-yellow-soled pair. “Sapatos na pang smash, sir,” the attendant says. “Mao na’y pinaka top-seller.” Pinaka na, I tell myself, top-seller pa gyud.
Wow! She adds they’re outselling all other models. Bad.
The same day I get a text message from Louie Moro who inquires about the Thirsty Cup this weekend. An all-around competitor – golf, basketball, formerly tennis – Louie’s advanced into one of the city’s tops at playing bad.
It’s Wednesday, 12:30 p.m. Jasmin and I are having lunch at home when she’s raring for this month’s opening of Metro Sports Club – the 11-court venue along Salinas Drive in Lahug – to shatter the courts four times weekly with sister Michelle Mendez.
I’m at Bo’s Coffee by nightfall, scanning Cebu Daily News. I turn to the back page and stare openmouthed. In full-color, as if posing for a Yonex ad, are Cholo and Chuchay Verches. Cholo is caught in a picture-perfect backhand demolition job at the City Sports Club tournament. I text Cholo and the reply shoots back, “Just dnt luk at d score.” Ha-ha, it’s that bad? We both crack a smile.
BEWITCHED. Thursday 4 p.m., I’m with SM City Cebu’s leasing honcho, Eppie Acusar. Tall, poised, with that ever-radiant smile, Eppie, from the looks of her, is bursting with health.
Before all the business talk, SM’s ace recalls her days pulverizing that yellow ball with Jaime Quinones at the Country Club. And how she, like Jourdan to our group, was bewitched, swinging to the bad sport, now shattering those white weathers.
I’m jolted off my seat when Eppie hints at SM’s possible opening of the Trade Hall to – lo and behold! – this bad game. Yep, the bowling alleys at one end and this at the other.
With the Hall’s colossal area mostly unused during weekdays, rooftop ceiling, cool temperature, why, I tell Eppie, that ain’t a bad bad move.
It’s Friday afternoon and I’m back at SM for the three-day sale. I plod along The Store Shop, stroll to JB Sports, jog to Sports House, laze towards Toby’s – all these shops carrying crates and cartons and cabinets and containers of rackets and gear and bags and bad stuff.
The week ends when I finally linger inside Chris Sports, my go-to place for that tennis re-gut, say hi to young proprietress Michelle Yap, and later chitchat with their supervisor.
She tells me the clincher, the finishing stroke, the deathblow: since a couple of months back, tennis stringing jobs are being outnumbered one is to three by bad.
I felt like weeping.
For then I realized, this sport may be bad, but it’s certainly turned Cebu on.
(john@playhouse.edu.ph)
(March 2, 2004 issue)
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