General Admission
Factory of the unexpected
By Al S. Mendoza
AGAIN, the quirks of fortune.
Talk ‘N Text was the hands-down favorite, Petron the acknowledged patsy.
It was like seeing the Dallas Mavericks of Texas meeting the UP Fighting Maroons of Diliman, Q.C.
When the dusts of battle cleared, so to speak, guess who won?
Not Talk ‘N Text.
Not Dallas.
Petron and UP-Diliman both prevailed.
How did that happen?
Oh, well, sports is fun. But it is also a weird facet of life, if not the eerie part of our existence.
Sports makes us happy if we are merely to be a pure and simple spectator.
The thrill, the excitement, ends when we start siding with one team.
You become a fanatic, a rabid follower of a team, and that could pose problems.
It could ruin your health, if not slash your pocket.
Too much cheering as well as jeering could cause wear and tear to the lungs, not to mention heart palpitation.
What would start as simple bets like lunch or dinner could progress into wagers that might soon tell on your budget for the week.
So, the trick is control. Learn the art of starting well. But, hey, know when to stop, please?
Take the recent TNT-Petron Finals in the PBA Governors Cup.
TNT was the heavy favorite. How come it lost?
TNT had the healthiest team going to the best-of-seven and yet, it bowed to Petron—in seven games yet.
Petron went to battle with only 11 healthy men in harness as its four mainstays—Washington, Yeo, Hussaini and the Alaminos-born Tugade—were nursing injuries.
After shocking the experts by proceeding to arrange a deciding Game 7, Petron saw its roster decimated to just 10 with still 70 percent left in the decider.
Still, Petron managed to pull it out of the fire, in a manner of speaking.
The weak (on paper) dismantled not only the powerful but the superpower itself.
Rather bizarrely, Petron reached the finals with a huge help from TNT: In their semifinal match, TNT allowed itself to be beaten by Petron.
Reason? A Petron win would ensure a TNT-Petron clash in the Finals.
To TNT coach Chot Reyes, that match-up would ensure them of the Grand Slam dream.
Losing to Petron in the semifinals would eliminate Alaska from the TNT’s title picture radar.
That gave TNT the weakest Finals opponent in Petron (on paper), Alaska being the toughest (on paper).
But, as I said, sports makes things complicated at times. What appears simple arithmetic, if not analogy, on face value, will sometimes result to a shock. Beautiful shocker. Surreal could probably be the word for it.
Thus, in the end, sports is the surefire factory of the unexpected.
Petron’s victory is another proof to that.
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