PACIFIC RIMS

PACIFIC RIMS by Rafe
Bartholomew.

I finally bought a copy of the most-talked about b-ball book in the country, PACIFIC RIMS, authored by American writer Rafe Bartholomew. It was the first-ever book written about Philippine Basketball, its rich tradition and history by a foreigner. Bartholomew spent three years in the Philippines to complete the masterpiece. It was actually an extended stay as he was originally given only a nine-month Fulbright grant to write a book about "Pinoy Hoops". I got the hardbound book on a “sale” price of  P 719.00 (from its original price  of P 899.00) and it’s really a bargain for a hoop junkie life myself.

“Welcome to the Philippines, where the men are five foot five, the everyman's Air Jordans are a pair of flip-flops, and the rhythm of life is punctuated by the bouncing of a basketball.

“Rafe Bartholomew arrived in Manila with little more than a Fulbright scholarship and an urban legend that Filipinos loved basketball more than anyone else on the planet. He'd heard that the locals constructed jerry-rigged hoops out of any material they could get their hands on—car hoods, driftwood, twisted rebar—and built courts everywhere, from cluttered street corners to the slopes of volcanoes and in the thick of jungles.

“Allured by the idea of a country full of people who love the game as irrationally as he does, Rafe embarks on a quest to unlock the riddle of basketball's grip on the island nation—a journey that includes spending a season inside the locker room of a Philippine professional team, dining with politicians who exploit hoops for electoral success, traveling with a troupe of midgets and transsexuals who play exhibition games at rural fiestas, and even acting on a local soap opera. Sweating his way through countless hard-fought games of three on three played on homemade hoops for fifty-cent wagers, Rafe uses a mix of journalistic know-how and basketball ethics he learned from his dad to get on the court and behind the scenes of this unlikely phenomenon. After three years, he finds not only answers but also inspiration in Filipinos' against-all-odds devotion to the sport.”