ONLY four men have won the Grand Slam in the 42-year history of the Philippine Basketball Association (PBA).
The late Virgilion “Baby” Dalupan, called El Maestro for his uncanny ability to bail his boys out of trouble with killing consistency, did it first in 1976 with the legendary Crispa.
Inheriting the same deadly Crispa unit seven years later, Tommy Manotoc scored the second Grand Slam in 1983. Also with Crispa.
It took another six years before the third Triple Crown affair was achieved, courtesy of San Miguel Beer under the wings of Norman Black.
Crispa, undisputedly not only the most popular ball club but also the most ferocious team in its heyday in the 1970s and 1980s, had disbanded in 1984 on management’s business redirections.
Dispersed as a result was the mightiest starting unit the PBA has ever seen: Crispa’s Abet Guidaben, Philip Cezar, Atoy Co, Bogs Adornado and Bernard Fabiosa.
If memory serves, Cezar, Co and Fabiosa went to Great Taste, Adornado to U-Tex and Guidaben to San Miguel Beer.
Thus, with SMB’s Grand Slam win in 1989, Guidaben became the first and still the only three-time Slam champion.
It was in the summer of 2004 that I last saw Guidaben. It was in New York, in a coffee shop beside the world-famed Radio City.
“Not many of my friends back home know I have migrated,” he had said to me then. “I miss home.”
Before we parted ways, he handed me a paper bag stuffed with four T-shirts.
“One each for you, for your wife, for your son and for your daughter,” he said.
Next, we hugged each other tight.
“You have always been special to me,” he said. “I will never forget your good words to me in your columns.”
One time, he surprised me with a visit in my modest QC home.
“How did you find my house?”
“I asked around,” he said. “I am also a detective, you know.”
We had coffee. Talked about life. Family. Danny Floro.
“Si Boss Danny [Floro]—the best person in the world iyon,” he said of the Crispa manager.
Danny, who was friend to one and all whose vocabulary does not include the word no, passed away in 1995 after a short battle with cancer.
Guidaben, before leaving my house that mid-morning, tried to sneak in “something” into my pocket.
“Upps, if you want us to stay friends forever, don’t do that,” I said.
“I just want to spread the blessings,” he said. “We just won the Slam, you know.”
“There are others more in need than me.”
He embraced me and said, “May God be with you, always.”
Years after our last meeting in that summer of 2004, news broke out that Guidaben had fallen seriously ill in New York.
I prayed hard. God listened. Guidaben would recover. Beautifully.
Last I heard, Guidaben, 6-foot-5, is well settled in the Big Apple, his house-to-house carpentry business doing pretty well.
After Guidaben’s San Miguel Beer scored the Grand Slam in 1989, Alaska would follow suit in 1996 with Tim Cone as the Aces’ coach.
Cone would proceed to establish a record by piloting San Mig Coffee to a Grand Slam triumph in 2014, in the process becoming the first coach to win two Triple Crown affairs.
Leo Austria had come close to becoming the fifth Slam champion, missing the third jewel in the 2015 season.
His track record is enviable: Four crowns in four tries, including winning the just-ended All-Filipino crown.
I believe Austria will also have his own “Slam”. It won’t be long.
THAT’S IT For the first time ever, all 12 teams in the Commissioner’s Cup set to start on March 17 can each hire an import as tall as 6-foot-10…. Even before San Miguel Beer could win the Philippine Cup, the nation’s favorite beer recorded a net profit of P17.7 billion in 2016—an enormous 31-percent increase from last year’s earnings. With the Beermen’s recent title triumph, beer-sale surge is expected to jack up all the more.
1 comment
I realized I am commenting on an old post, I just read your column only now. I think we should double check on what you said about Abet Guidaben being on that 1989 San Mig squad. He was actually traded to Purefoods for Ramon Fernandez in 1988, after facing Anejo Rhum in the finals. That is why Fernandez retired as Beerman and Guidaben became a journeyman after that.