Making Headlines Out of Wangs, Cocks and Beavers

Baseball Season is On. How the Pinoys Fared.

Lincecum was great in his first game against the Astros, pitching seven scoreless innings. Shane Victorino had one hit and one run in the 11-1 win of the Phillies over the Nationals.

Waxing Poetic

Baseball Canto

Lawrence Ferlinghetti

Watching baseball, sitting in the sun, eating popcorn,
reading Ezra Pound,
and wishing that Juan Marichal would hit a hole right through the
Anglo-Saxon tradition in the first Canto
and demolish the barbarian invaders.
When the San Francisco Giants take the field
and everybody stands up for the National Anthem,
with some Irish tenor's voice piped over the loudspeakers,
with all the players struck dead in their places
and the white umpires like Irish cops in their black suits & little
black caps pressed over their hearts,
Standing straight & still like at some funeral of a blarney bartender,
and all facing east,
as if expecting some Great White Hope or the Founding Fathers to
appear on the horizon like 1066 or 1776.
But Willie Mays appears instead,
in the bottom of the first,
and a roar goes up as he clouts the first one into the sun & takes
off, like a footrunner from Thebes.
The ball is lost in the sun & maidens wail after him
as he keeps running through the Anglo-Saxon epic.
And Tito Fuentes comes up looking like a bullfighter
in his tight pants & small pointy shoes.
And the right field bleechers go mad with Chicanos & blacks
and Brooklyn beer-drinkers,
"Tito! Sock it to him, sweet Tito!"
And sweet Tito puts his foot in the bucket
and smacks one that don't come back at all,
and flees around the bases
like he's escaping from the United Fruit Company.
As the gringo dollar beats out the pound.
And sweet Tito beats it out like he's beating out usury,
not to mention fascism & anti-semitism.
And Juan Marichal comes up,
and the Chicano bleechers go loco again,
as Juan belts the first ball out of sight,
and rounds first & keeps going
and rounds second & rounds third,
and keeps going & hits paydirt
to the roars of the grungy populace.
As some nut presses the backstage panic button
for the tape-recorded National Anthem again,
to save the situation.
But it don't stop nobody this time,
in their revolution round the loaded white bases,
in this last of the great Anglo-Saxon epics,
in the territorio libre of Baseball.

Jason Bartlett

Jason Bartlett, shortstop of the Tampa Bays, had a career high in 2009. His mother is Filipino.

Pete Rose

Flyin' Hawaiian

Yes, although I was rooting for the Yankees in the last World Series (Blame it on the stupid ESPN version that the doltish Skycable Baguio got which only shows baseball games featuring the Yankees), I am also secretly rooting for Shane Victorino of the Phillies. Yes, this star centerfielder is big in Hawaii. Wailuku, his hometown, is also the hometown of Kent Suzuki. And of course he is half-Filipino and half-Portuguese. It's all part of Hawaii history. Pinoys are the sacadas and the Portuguese are the horse-riding supervisors of the pineapple and cofee plantations. Shane was a varsity track and field star in Hawaii which helped him become  of the fastest base runners today and the nicknames, Flyin' Hawaiian (Benny got the Hawaiian Punch) and Pineapple Express. And one of the richest Hawaiianos. He got a 3-year extension in the Phillies which pays him $5M this year, $7.5M in 2011 and $9.5M in 2012. And he likes Hollywood. This is his Grammy pose.

But then, the other prediction

PECOTA or the Baseball Prospectus have Boston Red Sox being the best in the AL and the Phillies in the NL. The Yankees, which is Number One in Yahoo!, will make to the playoffs via wild card. White Sox, Tigers and Brewers are tied for the AL Central top post while Texas Rangers will beat Seattle in the West. In the NL, it's the Cardinals in the Central NL and Rockies in the West.The Braves will be the wild card entry.

Geno

For a brief moment, there were two Filipinos pitching for the Giants. Other than Lincecum, there was Geno Espineli, said to be the first full-blooded Filipino to play in the MLB even if he played for only 15 games (two wins and 0 loss). What distinguished him, however, was the stirrups he used, that kind of old-style socks you see rarely on TV now. Geno is a Texan but both parents are Pinoy. He also joined the US Olympic Baseball Team

The Yahoo Sports Prediction

This is how Yahoo MLB sees it this season: from the last (Kansas) to the first (NY)

Star Wars

Benny!

It pains me to see this whenever I look for a baseball picture. As painful as this:

Eugene Pucay

Nonette, my friend, is asking anyone out there if they know about the contributions to softball of Lakay Eugene Pucay, who is included in the Baguio Builders Book precisely for his contribution to the development of softball in this part of the country.

Le Freak

Tim Lincecum is now in the limelight for bagging a $23 million, two-year contract with the post-Barry Bonds San Francsico Giants.The 2-time Cy Young Awardee is giving the headaches for the Seattle Ms because they passed up on him when they had the chance. The Freak, as they like to call him there, was even raised in Washington state and pitched for the Liberty Senior High School in Renton and later for the University of Washington. He was even a Mariner in 2005. The Harwich Mariners, that is, for the Cape Cod Baseball League. Right in the neighborhood, man. And the raison of this blog? Lincecum is a Fil-Am. His mother is Pinay and right now, he is the 2nd richest Pinoy athlete after Manny Pacquiao.