Wednesday, August 08, 2007 Malilong: Sports heartaches and Tiger’s club By Frank Malilong The Other Side
THANK God for Tiger Woods.
Even if he kept me awake from 2 to 7 a.m. for four straight days, Tiger deserves my deepest gratitude for ending my string of sports heartaches during a bleak two-week span.
It started with the fancied Czar Amonsot getting dispatched to the canvas and eventually to the hospital by the savage fists of Australian boxing champion Michael Katsidis. Next, the Philippine national team, composed of highly-paid pros from the PBA, got wiped out from the Fiba Asia Championship, breaking the hearts of a basketball-crazy nation hungry for success in the international scene.
Then last Sunday, the Mandaue idol they call the Magnum Force ran into an opponent who turned out to be of superior caliber and promptly got blasted to smithereens. Rodel Mayol was a sorry sight, gamely trying to rise from the ring floor but failing, his legs having betrayed him.
Mayol’s loss hurt especially because he clearly enjoyed the upper hand in the early rounds especially in the sixth when he knocked down his Mexican opponent Ulises Solis. The referee scandalously ruled it a slip but the television replays clearly showed that the defending champion fell down because he got tagged.
The non-call, however, proved academic as Mayol took a solid punch to the face and landed in the canvas with an ugly thud. I could almost hear the collective sigh of Filipino boxing fans from Aparri to Jolo. Sayang, so close and yet so far.
Was Mayol cheated? Yes. Was he cheated out of victory? No.
This tendency to blame the referee is not healthy. I read Sun.Star reporter Rommel Manlosa’s article on the alleged “fishy” officiating against Filipino boxers and I found the claim, reportedly made by some Cebuano boxing fans, amusing.
I watched one of the bouts in which a Filipino boxer was supposed to have been at the receiving end of a raw deal from the third man on the ring and until now I couldn’t figure out how some people arrived at that conclusion.
I paid good money for a seat close enough to the ring and while I do not pretend to be a boxing expert I knew deep in my heart, after busting my lungs cheering for him, that Z Gorres did not win against Fernando Montiel.
Obviously, so did many of the fans who watched that fight at the Cebu City Sports Center.
We are not known to be shrinking violets and if we had as much as smelled a bad deal, we would have had bottles raining from all corners. No such thing took place; not even sporadic boos but a subdued silence met the decision.
I heard the same excuse about our failure in the Fiba tournament. But for a last minute technical called by the Greek referee, it is claimed, we would have been on our way to the Beijing Olympics. I saw that game (against Iran), too and I agree that the call indeed looked questionable. But like all the viewers, I did not hear what our bench said and so it is not fair to torch the referee for making the call.
So back to Tiger Woods. Pimples are again sprouting in my face and back but they’re little to pay for the joy of watching Tiger play. And win. I don’t play golf and a bad back tells me I never could. But you don’t need to be a golfer to appreciate a brilliant shot.
And Tiger was brilliance personified on the last day of the Bridgestone Invitational, parlaying difficult positions into routine pars en route to a bogey-free round. When he raised his club at the 18th hole, I thought I saw a magic wand. All my heartaches vanished.
