Streak Shooter

This year marks my second time to celebrate Christmas with my mother here in the United States. It's been almost two years since I left my career as a sportswriter for a popular tabloid and be with my mother in California who petitioned me for many years to finally join her here. I admit, I do miss those days when I was attending a lot of Christmas parties because of my job as a sportswriter. Aside from my office Christmas party for the tabloid I was working for, I was also invited to attend similar holiday events put up by my friends in the PBA and other sports. Here, things are extremely different. I am at home most of the time trying to guard the house while my mother is working and my sister is living in with her boyfriend in San Francisco. When my mother is on a day off, I help her clean the house on Fridays then we go to Costco together to shop for grocery items. Then on Saturdays, me and my mother go to Mass together at a nearby church. Sundays are usually spent wi...

THE National Football League will finally have a Philippine TV carrier this season. A day ago, TV5 announced in its social media sites that it will air one NFL game every Monday, Tuesday and Friday live at 8 am with replays over its sister cable channel Hyper for Cignal subscribers. NFL games have been irregularly televised in the Philippines because obviously, many Pinoys don't understand the rules of American football. Previously, ABS-CBN tried airing the NFL on its defunct Studio 23 but the games didn't catch on with many viewers. And now, TV5 is gambling on the NFL as it tries to keep pace with ABS-CBN's Sports+Action 23 which airs the NBA, UAAP and NCAA games. Under TV5's schedule, the following NFL games will be televised: Monday mornings (Sunday Night Football on NBC) Tuesday mornings (Monday Night Football on ESPN) Friday mornings (Thursday Night Football on NFL Network) The Sunday morning, US time, games will not be televised on TV5 since the...

STARTING this week, DZSR Sports Radio underwent a massive makeover. The government-run radio network Philippine Broadcasting Service (PBS) merged DZSR with DZRM Radyo Magasin to produce a new station, Radyo Pilipinas 2 on SR's old 918 khz frequency while shutting down the old 1278 frequency of DZRM. A Facebook friend of mine sent me the new schedule of Radyo Pilipinas 2: 6am: Radyo Tabloid w/ Ed Satira 7am: RP News Nationwide (RP1 Simulcast) 8am: Sports 918 w/ Dennis Principe & Ria Arevalo 10am: Home EcoNanay w/ Marinela 11am: Game On: Isyu at Balita w/ Judith Caringal 12nn: RP News Nationwide (RP1 Simulcast) 1pm: Buzz Magazine w/ Rene Garcia 3pm: Sports Roundup 4pm: Isport Lang with Cecille Quimlat and Peter Lucas 5pm: Kilos Pronto (PTV Simulcast) 6pm: Talk NBA w/ JP Manosa 8pm: Post Game w/ John Mogol 9pm: PCSO Lotto 9:20pm: Music 10:00pm: Sign Off Under this new schedule, RP2 is 70 per cent sports and 30 per cent news and information but as a long-time follower of...

Being here in the US after one year makes me miss the old grind of being a sportswriter back in Manila. As I posted before, I had no choice because my mother wanted me to stay in California for good as she is not in good terms anymore with my uncles and aunts back home. One time while my mom and I were clearing out some old things owned by my late stepfather here in our California home, I saw an old clipping of an article that came from the defunct magazine Scoreboard written by Bill Velasco where my name was mentioned. At that time, Bill was a columnist for Scoreboard and I was in my last year in college at the University of Santo Tomas. Bill was also active in the PBA as a producer and anchor for Vintage Sports, which covered the games at that time. Here are excerpts: "James is a bespectacled and (hopefully) graduating (journalism) student from the University of Santo Tomas. The sportswriting fraternity in general considers him a pest ... because of his persistent, ...

Will ABS-CBN air more NBA games this season? (photo courtesy of AP) The ongoing court case between ABS-CBN Sports and Solar Entertainment over who really owns the television rights of the NBA could have an effect on the league's millions of Filipino fans. ABS-CBN and Solar have filed counter-suits against each other over the case of carriage fees that the network reportedly failed to pay to the Wilson Tieng-owned company. As a result, Skycable -- an ABS-CBN-owned company -- pulled out both BTV and NBA Premium -- both Solar-owned channels -- from its lineup and many Sky subscribers have since moved to other cable providers like Cignal and Cablelink. ABS-CBN responded to disgruntled NBA fans by airing additional games on its Sports+Action Channel during the last playoffs while Fox Sports also aired some games but only twice a week because of Solar's contract with the NBA. As of now, there's no sign on whether both parties are willing to settle the case so there...

Ever since I moved to the US in March last year, my life has gone through a lot of changes. Being alone and at home everyday is a far cry from my life as a sportswriter before because I have to guard the house while my mother and sister are at work. Finding work here has been a struggle because jobs are limited owing to the fact that we live in a rural area which is 30-40 minutes away from big cities like San Francisco and Oakland. A lot of stores and other businesses here in our area in California are starting to close down due to declining sales resulting from many people resorting to online shopping. And whenever my mother is at home, I help her with the household chores because she is already 70 years old and she's preparing me for my future. Right now, life in the United States has become a problem especially here in California where there are a lot of homeless people on the streets while other immigrants like me aren't as lucky. You see, my mother had to work ...

One TV show that I find enjoyable watching here in the US is The Jump, a daily talk show where reporters from ESPN talk about the NBA. The show originally took a break during the NBA off-season but due to the tremendous popularity of the league, ESPN decided to make it a permanent show all year-round. The Jump is hosted by ESPN veteran Rachel Nichols but right now, she is on a summer break so ESPN reporters like Ramona Shelburne, Amin El-Hassan and Brian Windhorst are pinch-hitting for her. Rachel Nichols (photo courtesy of her FB page): Host of The Jump on ESPN. Ever since the NBA season ended, the pinch-hitters have been talking mostly about the drama surrounding the Cleveland Cavaliers who are in turmoil because of Kyrie Irving asking for a trade and LeBron James speaking out about his possible move to another team in free agency and even talking about politics in the light of many Americans hating President Trump. Ramona Shelburne (photo courtesy of ESPN) Another ...

This is the Hilltop Mall which is located a few miles away from my home here in El Sobrante. I watched the news on KTVU Fox 2 which said that the mall was just purchased today. Me, my mom and my sister have gone to this mall a few times and I have seen for myself how few people are going to malls to shop because of the emergence of online shopping. Many stores are closed and in the Sears appliance store that we went to, the sales people gave us the runaround when we asked on how we can get a replacement for our refrigerator. I hope that once this mall is redeveloped and becomes a more modern place, I can get a chance to work there. Getting a job here in the US is so difficult because we live in an area where there is little traffic and public transportation. It has been hard for me to adjust to life here in California and now, I'm feeling homesick. But I have no choice because my mom had to work so hard to petition me here. Leaving behind my active life as a spor...

I came across an item in the sports website www.awfulannouncing.com where it was revealed that the popular sports network ESPN is set to downsize this year. Several on-cam talents are going to be displaced in all ESPN branches due reportedly to low earnings resulting from many viewers either switching to other sports networks like Fox Sports or watching live streaming through Facebook Live. ESPN started laying off employees in 2015 and this could affect the future of the network whose headquarters is in Bristol, Massachusetts with branches in New York and Los Angeles. Since last year, many ESPN talents have moved to other networks like Skip Bayless and Colin Cowherd who are now with Fox Sports. Bayless is best remembered for his frequent verbal jousts with Stephen A. Smith on ESPN's morning sports debate show First Take. Bayless has since topbilled Undisputed on Fox with his new partner, former NFL player Shannon Sharpe. Smith, on the other hand, has a new partner on F...

Mr. T (photo courtesy of ABC 7) WHEN I was in high school, one of my favorite TV shows was The A-Team starring the late George Peppard and Mr. T.  It was an action-adventure series that hit it big in the 80s and was aired on Tuesday nights on GMA 7 when the Kapuso Network was still airing foreign shows on primetime instead of locally-produced soap operas. Before The A-Team, Mr. T starred in the movie Rocky III as Sylvester Stallone's opponent, Clubber Lang. T's character was knocked out by Rocky in the ending. The A-Team was remade into a movie in 2010 where Mr. T's character was portrayed by UFC fighter Quinton "Rampage" Jackson while Liam Neeson played Peppard's Hannibal Smith character. Unfortunately, that movie did so-so at the box-office and a sequel didn't push through. Incidentally, that A-Team movie also had Bradley Cooper in the cast. The A-Team is still aired on reruns on some US cable TV shows nightly and the show still rema...

After the All-Star break, action resumes today in the NBA regular season here in the United States. And as the teams return to the court, news regarding trades have been hugging the spotlight lately. During the break, a big-name star in DeMarcus Cousins found himself traded by the Sacramento Kings to the New Orleans Pelicans while other stars like Derrick Rose, Jimmy Butler, Carmelo Anthony and Paul George have found themselves involved in trade rumors as well. In the Eastern Conference, the Cleveland Cavaliers are still at the top of the standings while the Boston Celtics, Washington Wizards and Toronto Raptors complete the top four where homecourt advantage awaits at the end of the season. Chicago, Indiana, Milwaukee, Charlotte, New York, Atlanta, Detroit and Miami are battling it out for the remaining four slots. Over in the Western Conference, the Golden State Warriors are safely at the top primarily because of Kevin Durant's addition while San Antonio, Houston and...

One reason why NBA players are able to get jobs is the fact that it has put up a developmental league called simply as the D League where each of the teams gets its own affiliate team. Under D League rules, players can be called up anytime to sign at least a 10-day contract with any NBA squad if they do well with their respective D League teams. And if those players do extremely well, their contracts can be extended until the end of the regular season and all the way to the playoffs. One case is Yogi Ferrell, a shooting guard who signed a two-year contract with the Dallas Mavericks after toiling in the D League before initially signing a 10-day pact and getting extended because of his solid play. Next season, the NBA D League will now be known as the NBA G League after it signed a marketing deal with the popular sports drink Gatorade. Aside from this, more NBA teams will put up D League affiliate teams. In contrast, the Philippines' pro league, the PBA, also has it...

So many things are happening in the NBA during the All-Star break. The NBA trade deadline is just a few days away and after DeMarcus Cousins and Serge Ibaka were traded, more big names could find themselves playing for new teams once the smoke clears. Names like Carmelo Anthony, Blake Griffin, Derrick Rose, Jimmy Butler and Paul George have been mentioned as possible trade bait. The Los Angeles Lakers just hired their legendary point guard Magic Johnson to become their president of basketball operations, virtually overhauling their front office. This is where the NBA trades are totally different from what happens in the PBA. During my experiences as a sportswriter for a tabloid back in Manila, I was a witness to so many trades in the PBA where lopsided deals and farm teams were the norm. And unlike in the NBA where teams can trade players anytime, in the PBA this is totally different. It is no secret that two corporations run the PBA -- the MVP and SMC groups -- so...

A big crowd graces the last NBA All-Star Game while last year's PBA All-Stars draws sparse attendance I watched the NBA All-Star Game on TV last Sunday and I can say that the NBA is miles ahead of its Philippine counterpart when it comes to putting up a good All-Star show. The NBA used the musical group The Roots to introduce both the East and West All-Stars while John Legend's halftime show was also well-received. The players didn't disappoint, like Anthony Davis, who scored 52 points while Kevin Durant's alley-oop pass to Russell Westbrook in the first quarter drew cheers from the crowd and from their West teammates. In the end, the West pulled off a 192-182 victory. Not as exciting as in past All-Star games, but the fans in New Orleans went home happy. ABS-CBN Sports also put up a very excellent coverage with the tandem of Boom Gonzales and TJ Manotoc teaming up for their seventh All-Star Game since their network took over the NBA free TV broad...

Tom Brady accepting his Super Bowl MVP trophy It's a Monday morning here in California, but a lot of people are still talking about the dramatic win of the New England Patriots over the Atlanta Falcons in Super Bowl LI Sunday night in Houston. Many news programs and even the sports debate shows are still featuring stories about the game, including the commercials and Lady Gaga's halftime performance. Because of the Super Bowl, other sports events in America took the backseat, The NBA games were played early in the afternoon with Paul Pierce's last game for the LA Clippers at Boston Garden ending with his last-second three-pointer in a Clippers loss to the Celtics. Even in the Philippines, the Super Bowl was still watched by a lot of people, thanks to the aggressive marketing of ABS-CBN Sports, which aired the game over its Sports+Action 23. Even Lady Gaga's halftime show was aired in its entirety. Commercials-wise, the Philippine airing of the Super Bowl had...

Miss France was named Miss Universe ALTHOUGH I'm here in California, I was able to update myself on the last Miss Universe pageant held back in Manila. As everyone knows by now, Miss France walked home with the crown while Miss Philippines Maxine Medina only reached the Top 6. Maxine Medina Although the event was broadcast live all over the world, here in California, the show was aired three hours late so I already knew the results even before it was aired on Fox Channel 2. Unlike last year's event where Pia Wurtzbach won, this year's show went on without a hitch and even host Steve Harvey redeemed himself with his witty humor that made up for his mistake last year when he erroneously announced that Miss Colombia won the title, only to say that Pia did win in the end. But I felt that the Miss Universe would have attracted more attention had it been held on a weekend so that more people could watch. And since it was held on a Monday, naturally ther...

Benjie Paras and Ronnie Magsanoc covering NBA Games for Philippine televiewers (Photo courtesy of ABS-CBN) Here in the US, there are lots of channels where basketball fans can watch the NBA games. There's ESPN, ABC, TNT and NBA TV for nationally televised games and CSN here in our California area for Golden State Warriors games. And there is also NBA League Pass but it entails additional money for subscription. The NBA has become so popular that other countries also air the league's games live. And the Philippines is no exception. In the 70s, 80s and 90s, NBA games were shown on Philippine free TV delayed by a week, All that changed when Solar Entertainment acquired the NBA TV rights in 2006 then put up the cable channels Basketball TV and NBA Premium TV that show 24 hours of NBA programming everyday. ESPN Asia also aired NBA games before the channel sold its Asian stocks to Fox Sports which continues broadcasting NBA games on Thursdays and Saturdays. On fr...

Rolly Manlapaz Even though I have been living in the US for the past 10 months, I still get updated about the PBA through my social media accounts and the internet that we have at home. There have been a lot of problems the PBA has been facing ever since I left, from the poor attendance to the officiating, the TV coverage and the leadership of commissioner Chito Narvasa. But more than those that I mentioned, one thing that the PBA lacks these days is the way the coliseum announcers have been performing. Many PBA fans have been missing the booming voice of Rolly Manlapaz, who served as PBA barker from 2003 until 2014 and has since been plying his trade in the college leagues. One time, Rolly told me that the main reason why he left the PBA was that the league discourages barkers like him to adlib, meaning the barkers should follow the instructions set by the PBA technical committee. When Narvasa was tapped to replace Chito Salud as PBA Commissioner, I expected him to br...

FINALLY, the Super Bowl has a Philippine TV carrier. ABS-CBN has acquired the Philippine TV rights to the world's most-watched football game which will be played on Sunday, February 5 (Monday, February 6 in Manila). The match will be shown over ABS-CBN's sports channel Sports+Action Channel 23 starting at 7:30 am followed by a delayed broadcast of the NBA games at 11:30 am. ABS-CBN's move of airing the Super Bowl comes at a time when the channel has been receiving a lot of praise for airing a lot of sports events like the NBA, UAAP, NCAA, ASEAN Basketball League, Shakey's V League, Top Rank Boxing and Philippine Azkals football. It is also a big step for the network in its battle for sports ratings supremacy in the Philippines against TV5, which holds the rights to the PBA, Olympics, FIBA, Philippine Super Liga and UFC. TV5 aired three of the last four Super Bowls but the Manny Pangilinan-owned network bypassed this year because its head Chot Reyes obviousl...

Next Sunday, February 5, Americans will be hooked on their television sets to catch the 51st edition of the championship game of the National Football League, popularly known as the Super Bowl. The Atlanta Falcons and New England Patriots will clash for the Vince Lombardi Trophy starting at 3:30 pm, California time, in Houston, Texas. The Super Bowl not only features good football, but plenty of commercials which are being shown on American television for the first time. And the halftime show promises to be a big extravaganza with Lady Gaga as the sole performer. Lady Gaga is best known to NFL fans for her passionate singing of the US national anthem, the Star Spangled Banner, during last year's Super Bowl in San Francisco where the Denver Broncos defeated the Carolina Panthers. The game will be televised on all Fox networks throughout the US and naturally, Fox will use its NFL theme music which, incidentally, was used by Fox Sports Philippines for the pre-game introduct...

Keanu Reeves in John Wick In Philippine television, one thing that viewers notice is how a lot of American movies are always dubbed in Tagalog. GMA-7 and TV5 have pioneered in this Tagalized dubbing while ABS-CBN does this occasionally. Last New Year's Day, rival networks GMA and ABS aired separate Keanu Reeves movies with the former airing 47 Ronin and the latter showing John Wick (see photo). Even TV5 has jumped into the dubbed bandwagon with the airing of American TV shows like The Walking Dead also in Tagalog dub. And this new year, more shows like Quantico, Supergirl and House of Cards are also going to be aired on TV5 in dubbed Tagalog. Airing dubbed movies on Philippine TV is nothing new. In the United States, there are TV channels like Telemundo that air Hollywood films dubbed in Spanish. Even other countries have channels that dub their movies in their native languages. I have been receiving mixed reactions regarding these Tagalized movies, with some saying t...