THE extended stay-at-home time has allowed me to check some of my kababayans’ posts on social media these days. And among the things that piqued my interest were pictures of the old football field and tennis court back in a place where I grew up. The field used to look so big when I was growing up but now it seemed so small.
Still, the field holds a special place for my generation of kids who grew up there, and I hope it does too for the present. You see, back in the time when there were no gadgets or cable shows to occupy your time, we spent our summers on that field, and sometimes, most of the weekends during school days.
I think the peak of the field’s use was when our batch was in our senior year, and some of the older ones who were in college would spend their summer home. While there was a full 11-on-11 match ongoing, there would be another bunch of guys waiting to take the field and the unwritten rule was that the losing team in the previous game would be replaced.
While there was a football game ongoing, there would be a basketball match on the far end. And at night, it would be the tennis court’s turn to be the point of convergence.
In those days, there was practically no excuse for you not to play sports and as a result, our generation grew up playing not just one but at least two sports and it was sort of normal for us in our school meets to wait a few extra minutes for our football match to start because the other guys were still playing volleyball or basketball.
Before we got hooked on football, our sport of choice was baseball, and yes our football field also doubled as a baseball diamond. And we even had our own summer leagues, where Palaro-caliber teams competed.
Our place, then, had a strong baseball tradition with a few players advancing all the way to the national youth teams and our high school squads winning the Palarong Pambansa.
However, it all went downhill in the early ‘90s but the signs were there for years. Not only was age cheating rampant, it was sort of expected and memorizing new names and new birthdays as part of your tournament preparation.
Still, despite all of the ugly things adults did to the sport, there was a time when we all had our dreams of the diamond and our happy pill was time on the field. We would take turns at home plate, while the pitcher would try the latest pitch he had heard or had learned from training with another team.
Despite the absence of cable TV, we were familiar with Major League Baseball and I think a favorite topic then was the Filipino-Americans who made it and of course that favorite fantasy of seeing a Filipino make it.
I think not a few of us spent our daydreams fantasizing it would be us.
Sadly, baseball is still dead in our homeplace and like in most places, it hasn’t fully recovered from the death blow that was the 1991 Little League Scandal.
Football, on the other hand, is alive and well with our former teammates now serving as coaches and local association officials.