I was joking with Manila Bulletin's Jonas Terrado during the Mapua-San Sebastian game today at the FilOil Invitational when he said, "Na-Jim Joyce yung Mapua."
I laughed at the remark. In case you've been living under a rock the past few days Major League Baseball is in the midst of debate and controversy over the blown call by Joyce who called a runner safe when he was clearly out. It wasn't a simple mistake. It cost the Detroit Tigers' Armando Galarraga a perfect game! That means 27 batters up; 27 batters down without having reached first base.
After the laughter died down, I told Jonas, "At least Joyce has some integrity. And while Joyce's error was a huge huge mistake these guys... (the FilOil tournament refs) are superduper incompetent."
They blew so many calls that it cost the Mapua Cardinals the game in regulation and in overtime. Case in point. The Cardinals' Allan Mangahas drove to the basket during a fastbreak play and was pushed from behind (he also got smacked on the head) but no call was forthcoming and the ball instead went to San Sebastian. Then later still, Mangahas had the ball again in front of the Stags' bench when two Baste players pushed him out. The ref instead whistled the Cardinal for stepping out of bounds. Those are just two and there were a lot. In the first quarter, a Cardinal drove to the basket and was fouled as the basket went in yet he was whistled for an offensive foul (how could it be when his legs were taken out from under him). And they totally missed Calvin Abueva attempting to kick a Mapuan and another instance where he nearly took out another Cardinal by collapsing on his knee.
Cardinals coach Chito Victolero was soooooo pissed. As was Koy Banal.
I stopped counting at seven blown calls. I'm sure the refs were in double figures in blown calls. A triple double maybe. Bwahaha!
Then the game after was an even bigger joke. Not to take anything away from the La Salle Green Archers -- they played well. But the Arellano University Chiefs played like they were some inter-barangay team and maybe that's disrespect to an interbarangay team but the Chiefs didn't look like a college team. They played dumbass hoops by throwing up stupid shots with no rebounders or even hope. They thought the ball was some hot potato and they forgot to put on gloves or even use tongs. The Green Archers were just waiting for them to self-destruct. La Salle should have run them off by a 100 points. They should penalize teams for dumb play. What's disappointing is that -- this team is better than that. I've seen them play before on so many occasions. Bad day at the office? Maybe but we were all bored shitless at the media room and the bad play was so glaring that everyone went inside to log on to Facebook or play some computer games.
You know that baseball rule in the UAAP where if you're up by 10 at the end of fifth or sixth inning then they call it off? Okay, maybe they can launch the mother of all comebacks so calling off games after being down by 50 is not happening. But after the half, La Salle hiked their lead to 34 so I left.
Somewhere in the world a baby is being born, there's a cock that will crow, some couple is necking, cancer is claiming another life and Didier Drogba will not play in the World Cup.
Thank God next week it's win or go home time. Enough with the crappy play.
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