My earliest recollection of basketball was a Rudy Distrito clutch shot to win Ginebra a title. The shot created so much pandemonium and I was a Ginebra fan ever since.
That was in 1991, I was only 8 years old.
I've been following the PBA on and off the past years and have managed to watch some live games back when I was in High School. My mom, a die-hard Ginebra fan herself, scored us tickets from scalpers to watch Ginebra during their dark ages. A time when Robert Jaworksi was still playing and his son Dudut in the starting line-up.
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| Entertainment during breaks |
Flash forward to 2018 and a random conversation suddenly led to a bet. Two of my friends have yet to watch a PBA game live. I checked the schedule and there was an upcoming Sunday game between Ginebra and San Miguel. I bought the tickets and it will be me and Irene (Ginebra) vs. my friends (San MIguel) for dinner and the tickets.
This will be fun.
The double-header featured Meralco vs. Globalport which was a good warm-up for my friends. It was also a good time to catch some snacks and toilet breaks before the main event.
It is very rare to see a Ginebra team leading in the first few quarters with a huge, difficult to catch-up lead. Most of the time they are down by double-digits or the game is on the balance. It's as if they are playing coy to live-up to their Never-Say-Die battle cry.
In this game, they were down by as much as 16 points!The first few quarters were difficult to watch. A trash-talker myself, I was silenced by the score.
I was almost prepared to accept the fact that Ill be treating my friends to dinner. But NSD is forever. Somehow, someway, the boys managed to pull it together despite their outmatched and depleted line-up. A last ditch effort by San Miguel was unsuccessful and was the final scare.
Barangay Ginebra just won us dinner!Time to up the ante and watch the playoffs!
