Pacific Rims: Beermen Ballin' in Flip-Flops and the Philippines' Unlikely Love Affair with Basketball

by Rafe Bartholomew

A young man's journey through the Philippines' most unlikely basketball.

In Pacific Rims , Rafe Bartholemew, journalist, New Yorker, and veteran baller, ventures through the Philippines to investigate the country's love of basketball.

From street corners where diehards fashion hoops out of old car parts to the professional league where politicians exploit team loyalties to win elections, Pacific Rims gets the story-and gets in the game.

Genres: Sports, Basketball, Nonfiction, Asia, Biography Memoir, Asian Literature, History

408 pages, Paperback

First published May 26, 2010

Reviews

[Dorothy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I first learned of Pacific Rims when I stumbled upon a youtube video of the author promoting his book in Filipino. Rafe Bartholomew spoke my mother tongue in a way that would put some of my schoolmates to shame. I had to replay the video to confirm that not only was he speaking Filipino with a barely there American accent, but his grammar was also nearly flawless. I know firsthand that it’s not an easy feat to learn a foreign language, much less master it in a way that would earn the locals’ respect. That kind of mastery takes a significant amount of dedication and passion. The fact that he spoke so eloquently in the language that I am so intimately familiar with convinced me that I had to read his book. It was the least I could do to show my appreciation for how he not only chose to write about an important facet of Philippine culture, but also embraced it as his own.

First and foremost, this is a book about basketball. The fact that it is about Philippine basketball only makes it marginally more interesting for me. You see, I am not an avid hoops fan. I do enjoy watching games once in a while, but that is certainly not reason enough for me to proclaim my love for it. Like every Filipino, however, my life is intricately connected with it. When I was 11, I came to school with my hair in pigtails with twisted rows. It was a cool hairstyle my yaya came up with that morning. As soon as I got inside the classroom, my classmates started shouting “Iverson!” I had no idea who or what Iverson was at that time, but the name stuck with me for the rest of fifth and sixth grade. I never wore my hair that way again. When I was 12, I realized where I wanted to go to college while watching a televised basketball game with my father. The match was between the De La Salle Green Archers and the Ateneo Blue Eagles. When I was 16, my girl friends and I swooned over pictures of Chris Tiu, who at that time wasn’t quite the sensation he would later turn out to be. He wasn’t the best player but he was the best looking, so we didn’t really care. Two years later, when I was 18, I came into my History class and saw Chris Tiu sitting in the last row (why oh why did I have to be seated in front?). It was unbelievable. He ended up joining our class for one semester. That same year, I learned that a basketball ticket is worth more than a couple of hundred pesos. It costs a couple of hundreds and six hours of falling in line.

Basketball is also a big part of my family’s life. My brother had always been fat until he lost half his weight playing with construction workers and drivers in our subdivision’s basketball court almost every afternoon. He and Papa used to play in the mornings, when Pa would execute these fancy turns that were inappropriate for a man of his age and weight, until his back gave up on him and he had to stop most of his physical activities. It was good while it lasted, though, even if Papa did suck. It gave them something to do together.

I remembered all these things and many more (like the time a basketball hit me in the head right on the spot where my barrette was clasping my hair, the barrette broke and my hair was ruined) while I was reading Pacific Rims. The author’s description of makeshift courts in alleys, pickup games in every corner, short men doing incredible layups, and frenzied crowds screaming like there’s no tomorrow (or in my case, like there’s no school tomorrow), proved to me that he not only witnessed these things, he somehow understood them. Pacific Rims would have easily been a dull book if it wasn’t for Bartholomew’s passion for his subject. It was so palpable that it was jumping off the page. He is a basketball addict; he confesses this early on. But he also comes from a very different environment, a different country, a different culture. It would have been easy, even understandable, for him to pass judgment; but I love how he wrote about our culture’s idiosyncrasies with respect, often even with fondness. He was only supposed to stay in the Philippines for a year; he stayed for three. Safe to say, I liked the book but I love the author. I can’t help but admire a man, a very young one at that- he’s only in his 20s, who would drop everything that is comfortable to travel halfway around the world and take chances in a country that is battered by bad press and travel bans. That’s something a little short of heroic in my eyes.

Thanks to Pacific Rims, I’m a little more aware of my basketball infested environment. There are some mornings when I’ll be reading the newspaper in our living room and I would suddenly hear that familiar sound of someone dribbling a ball. I would look outside the window and see a group of kids in old flip-flops on their way to the court. I would think, “This is how we play in the Philippines.” And it doesn’t even matter that we are a country of poor, short people. What matters is that there is a ball and there is a ring practically anywhere. We can work our way around everything else, for the love of the game.

[Nicolo · Rating 4 out of 5]

I couldn’t help but admire the author’s dedication to delve into the psyche of nation’s almost absurd love for basketball. He really dove into his subject and he probably would have gone native after experiencing what the Philippines had to offer. He ate the food, inhaled the smog in his daily commute and played hoops with ballers who wore flip-flops. Along the way, he moonlighted as an actor for an episode of a tele-novela, became a contestant for a noon time show and witnessed during a small town fiesta the spectacle of a transvestites versus midgets exhibition game that had the charm of professional wrestling and political incorrectness that shook the American to his core.

His exposition is clear and concise, his brave and flawed attempts to translate local idioms notwithstanding. He tried and got some of them right and surprisingly only a few of the expressions wrong. Bartholomew manages to at least grasp the idea of a nation’s collective love for basketball. A true hoops enthusiast, the idea where basketball is the preferred sport of a country whose men had an average height of five feet and five inches intrigued him enough to convince his government to grant him a Fulbright scholarship to support his investigation of Philippine basketball.

A true basketball fanatic would enjoy this book. I really liked his coverage of a Philippine professional basketball team’s championship campaign. He had locker room access and the players were all too willing to share their frustrations and hopes. It’s a compelling read.

[Ruel · Rating 5 out of 5]

A brilliantly written tome about the Philippines' infatuation with basketball. Fulbright scholar and hoops junkie Rafe Bartholomew delves deep into his topic, seemingly leaving no stone unturned as he tries to get to the heart of a nation's obsession. From playing pick-up games with the locals to following a PBA team on its quest for a championship, Bartholomew's story of living three years in the Philippines had me longing for a return trip back to my motherland.

I loved how he detailed the many people he encountered during his time abroad: this is stellar feature writing that would make David Halberstam (legendary author of "Breaks of the Game," chronicling the 1979-80 Portland Trailblazers) proud. Whether I was reading about Bartholomew tracking down former PBA stars or verifying rumors of politically incorrect basketball games, I was always engaged and entertained. This is a must-read for hoops fanatics; it's a testament to Bartholomew's skills that a basketball book with nary an NBA anecdote could be so captivating.

[Joselito Honestly and Brilliantly · Rating 4 out of 5]

How must you you live your life?


You can try having a lifelong passion for something you can never excel in. Filipinos are short and basketball is a tall man’s game but the number one sport in the Philippines is basketball. The American author stayed in the Philippines to do research for this book and try to figure our this mystery yet could only come up with a conclusion that should have been obvious right from the start: that the Filipinos’s love for basketball is no different from his own. Yet the similarity ends there.

I am sure he saw it, but he didn’t say it (he had become friends with the who’s who in Philippine basketball—the rich, influential and powerful): the silliness of it all. Filipinos are short? No problem. Get some big American black players and naturalize them. So you see Philippine teams competing in international competitions playing with one or two big, black guys who can’t even speak the language. They seldom win games, mainly because even if they have one or two big fake Filipinos they compete with teams with ALL their players just as big and as quick and talented. The obvious solution to be competitive is to field an all-American big fake Filipinos, but the problem would be how to make it still look like a Philippine team.

Money is being poured into this hopeless sport instead of sports where Filipinos can compete with the world’s best without any natural disadvantage like billiards, chess or boxing. Fairly recently the country hosted an Asean basketball competition. The Philippine team kept on losing. But after each loss the newspapers, with the game on their headlines, would have write-ups in a tone that sounded more like the team was victorious (“The ____ team was stretched to its limits,” “The ____ team could only win in overtime,” etc.). The team didn’t win the tournament (placed second among teams from countries with little or no interest in the game) yet the players were feted at the Presidential palace and given one million pesos each.


Apart from the international schools where children of expats study, the Philippines has two most expensive universities—the Ateneo de Manila University (Blue Eagles) and the La Salle University (Green Archers). These are were the children of the rich and famous in the country study. Their alumni run big businesses, the government and anything in the country that has money in it. So when the teams of these two schools play each other in collegiate basketball, the perfumed set will come in droves and cheer their respective teams like it’s the NBA championships. Even the American ambassador to the Philippines would be there watching. And the quality of the game? Again, the author is very tactful. The proper word should be MEDIOCRE. But he didn’t say it, but you could sense he was having so much fun watching the farce—

“The game began, and when Ateneo secured the jump ball, the blue side whooped in joy as if big man Ford Arao had just hit a game-winning hook shot. The crowd’s feral enthusiasm was cranked up to soccer hooligan levels, even though the sloppy first-half play didn’t give either side much reason to cheer. La Salle’s backcourt, a pair of smurf-sized guards, T.Y. Tang and J.V. Casio (whose name sometimes appears as Jayvee and the abominable Jvee), were as abbreviated in height as they were in name. Time and again they drove into the heart of Ateneo’s defines only to miss off-balance runners or kick the ball out to three-point gunners whose shots rarely fell. Atone wasn’t much better. They pounded the ball into Arao and Rabeh al-Hussaini, effective but clunky big men who managed a few buckets despite shooting with a shot-putter’s touch. However dull the action, the fans preserved their fever pitch. They screamed for defensive rebounds, loose balls, and out-of-bounds calls that favoured their teams. When La Salle’s slinky six-foot-five Rico Maierhofer slipped free for a baseline dunk, the green mob burst into chaos.”


This is, however, a well-written fun read if you can forget for the moment basketball’s deleterious effects upon Philippine sports.

[Barb · Rating 4 out of 5]

Part travel writing and part history, Pacific Rims is the culmination of the author’s journey to the Philippines in search of why basketball is popular in a country where men’s average height is 5’7.” Maybe shorter. Rafe Bartholomew learns how the game was introduced to the country and that the Philippines was once a basketball powerhouse. He travels the countryside and discovers courts made from scraps such as a discarded car’s hood. Basketball, he finds, is everywhere and is popular across the social classes. He learns about social stratification, social norms, pop culture. He follows one of the teams in the Philippine Basketball Association for the duration of their season, and so is able to write about professional as well as recreational ball.

I’m not a big basketball fan, but I’m Filipino-American and was also curious about basketball’s popularity in the Philippines. I had no idea, and neither did Bartholomew, just how big a part of life basketball is. Although the sport’s jargon is used throughout, even if you don’t know what a baby hook is, it doesn’t matter. The narrative is easy to follow and though the author covers a lot, the book overall, is well organized. The numerous footnotes, however, grew tedious.

[Evan · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really wanted to give this book 4 or even 5 stars because I enjoyed reading it that much. I'm taking 1 star away for each of the following reasons.
First, I think I may have a bias. Part of the joy of reading this book was I was familiar with the settings and people [I have lived in the Philippines for the last 12 years]. I have watched many PBA games and played ball on courts ranging from the well-lit, covered courts with breakaway rims to the home-made backboards nailed to trees. I have been to many of the places the author describes and have met some of the people in his book. I too have often pondered the strange, almost religious connection between the Philippines and basketball. This made me feel like an insider as I read the book and may have made it more readable for me than for someone unfamiliar with the Philippines. That said, I still think it would be am enjoyable read for anyone.
Second, I was disappointed that a non-fiction [partly historical] book by a Fulbright scholar contained no references. There are no footnotes, endnotes or even a bibliography. While the author mentions some his sources, I expect books like this to be properly referenced.
Overall this was a very enjoyable read and I finished the book very quickly.

[Benito Jr. · Rating 5 out of 5]

When I was growing up in the Philippines, every guy in my neighborhood played basketball. As a writer one is trained not to use absolute terms like “every” or “all,” but this is surely a statement of empirical fact. Maybe those guys were too busy now, or their knees, like mine, had given way in middle age, but at some point in their lives, they had picked up a ball and chucked it through a hoop. And in every neighborhood, there was one. Even I can still remember the makeshift basketball court near my house: planks salvaged from some construction site and nailed to a tree, a frayed net clinging to a rusted hoop bent funny from all the dunk attempts, skinny street dogs weaving between the players’ skinnier legs, worn-out tsinelas and fake Reeboks raising little puffs of brown dust, overshadowed by the clouds of diesel smoke as a jeep rumbles down the street, and the game is temporarily interrupted to make way for the vehicle.

To tell you the truth, I saw that court probably only two or three times. Everyone played except for me. My neighbors apparently thought I was some sort of invalid because I never went outside; this was because I chose to stay inside and read. (A true story, but a really long one, and this is not the time or place.)

This all means that I’m probably hugely unqualified to write a blog entry about Rafe Bartholomew’s fantastic book Pacific Rims: Beermen Ballin' in Flip-Flops and the Philippines' Unlikely Love Affair with Basketball, because in the great scheme of things basketball occupies hardly any space in my waking life. Alley-oops, hip-checking, floaters, flip shots, crossover dribbles, triangle offense -- they may be botanical terms for all I know. I wouldn’t know a power forward from a point guard -– men’s deodorant brand names, maybe? I mean, I actually had to Google the name Phil Jackson.

But I did have a few years’ experience cheering on the basketball team Ginebra (then renamed Anejo, or maybe it was the other way around, I forget) -– a bunch of thugs, but lovable thugs nonetheless -– via a small black-and-white TV outside my house, with a friend who slightly resembled Rudy Distrito, while mosquitoes nipped at my shins. I remember Crispa’s Grand Slam, and the fallen Billy Ray Bates saying arrogantly on TV, “I’m Superman, I’m Superman, I’m Superman.” See, I have a little background.

But back to the book, which I love, and maybe not for the right reasons: Pacific Rims is very well researched, for starters. The history of basketball and the American educational system in the Philippines, long-standing rivalries between teams, local politics in Boracay, the elaborate import system (where a player from America gets to play for a Philippine team during a so-called “reinforced conference”, Robert Jaworski as a phenomenon, the meaning of diskarte, corporate sponsorship, the relationship between players and their loyal fans, the tragic tale of Billy Ray Bates -– they’re all here. And I write this with barely disguised professional envy because the social-history aspect of Pacific Rims is all so breezily and skillfully done.

No, it’s not the sort of book that would satisfy a history or political science requirement; there just aren’t enough numbers in it. (And yes, the former academic in me would cite that as a bit of a problem: I wanted citations; I wanted statistics.) But it’s such an enjoyably written chronicle of lived experience, stuffed with observational detail, that it’s hard not to want students to read it in order to understand the Philippines a little more. It’s something academic writers could learn from, really. The humor (and Pacific Rims is frequently hilarious, so funny I would laugh out loud on the train) -– well, that’s a little more difficult to learn.

I guess I should probably talk about the sports writing itself; for reasons already discussed above, it’s not exactly my cup of tea -– though I’ve long been envious of sportswriters, who can get away with murder in newsprint -– and as such (to me) constitute the weaker parts of the book. Pacific Rims more or less follows the arc of a playoff series, and in the closing innings -– sorry, minutes -– of the book Bartholomew focuses closely on locker-room dynamics and the intricacies of specific games themselves, quarter by quarter. Again, not my forte – I can barely visualize what’s going on sometimes – but Bartholomew manages to make his cast of characters (Willie Miller, Tim Cone, the rest of the Alaska team) come alive.

When Bartholomew discusses the Senate hearings, in the early 2000s, on “Fil-shams” -– Philippine Basketball Association “import” players that are ostensibly Filipino American but don’t have a drop of Filipino blood in them – it’s less some typical anecdote about bureaucratic corruption, and more of an illuminating discourse about mixed race, citizenship and nationalism in the Philippines. It’s a fascinating section, which has a lot to do with the richness of the subject matter, of course, but it’s also because Bartholomew chooses to further explore the public perception of Filipino Americans in the Philippines (a subject close to me) in the chapter. (Scholars of the Philippines will also be pleased to note that Pacific Rims is far from being Manila-centered, as Bartholomew plays as an import in provincial tournaments as well.)

My point is that Bartholomew has an inquisitive streak that goes far beyond sports or the obvious political angle. What he accomplishes in Pacific Rims is something generously holistic; aware that cultural phenomena can’t be understood in isolation, he chooses to cast a wider net. There’s a wide-eyed openness to the contradictions and foibles of Filipino culture and the new world around him that suffuses the book. That’s something academic writers can learn from as well.

I think Western journalists of the last few decades tend to lapse into certain cliches when they write about the Philippines: their double take at an Asian country so Westernized in its outlook, their ease in latching onto a single image or phenomenon -– Smoky Mountain, karaoke, Manny Pacquiao -- to generalize about the country as a whole, with a lingering sense of First World condescension throughout. Bartholomew is well aware of these pitfalls – in fact, he acknowledges some -– but he elegantly steers clear of them. When he expresses his occasional ethical discomfort (especially in a cringingly funny section on a midget-versus-transvestite basketball tournament), he takes pains to contextualize why this flagrantly politically incorrect competition is simply seen as good-natured humor in the country.

I’ll pick a random example of how sharp his eye (and writing) is. (Seriously, it’s random -– I didn’t even dog-ear this section in my copy, and I have many dog-eared pages.) In the course of following a new import player for the Alaska Aces, Bartholomew writes about how, during the Alaska players’ practices, the penalty was lusutan -– “where the loser would have to crawl through the spread legs of his conqueror.” As he writes, “It was a nostalgic ritual from pickup games… that reminded these pros of the days when they played for nothing but bragging rights and love of the game. Short of speaking fluent Tagalog and downing… balut…, there was no better way for [the new import:] to say ‘I’m one of you guys’ than to make lusutan…”

And then Bartholomew continues:

Togetherness is one of the most rigid social norms in Philippine culture, and it played a major role in the chemistry of PBA teams. There’s a powerful urge in Philippine society to be part of the group, whether it’s a family, a bunch of classmates, or a basketball team. Being alone is a minor tragedy to many Filipinos. …when I’d show up at Alaska practice and greet the players, we’d make small talk and they’d ask what I did the previous night. My typical response included eating dinner and writing a bit. ‘You were alone?’ they’d ask, and either raise their eyebrows in bewilderment or say that it must be said to eat by myself. It wasn’t that bad for me, but to them it sounded intolerable. Likewise, many of the players were surprised to learn that I didn’t have any family in the Philippines…. For many Filipinos, being separated from family was a trauma you only chose to inflict upon yourself when economic hardship forced you abroad to support your loved ones, as in the case of the country’s roughly 10 million overseas migrant workers.

And so on. It’s this observational acuity that anchors Bartholomew’s writing throughout. To put it another way: he has it down so right.

All in all, Pacific Rims isn’t a great book about basketball in the Philippines; it’s a great book about the Philippines, period. The fact that it’s an enjoyable summer read, written with a terrific eye for detail and a deadpan wit (but god, the puns are kind of bad) -– that’s the equivalent of a three-pointer right there. The book is partly subtitled “the Philippines’ Unlikely Love Affair with Basketball,” but the real love affair here is Bartholomew’s clear affection for the Philippines.

[EOB · Rating 2 out of 5]

Such a fantastically rich subject, and so squandered in the hands of an egregiously and sometimes willfully ignorant author. This could - and should - have been a very different book, if the author had even a passing knowledge of Philippine history, or any investment in the subject beyond (a) being a frustrated wannabe pro baller with idiotic hopes of 'stepping in' to a PBA game; (b) apparently liking to date Filipino-American girls, which he basically offers up ~80% of the way into the proceedings (vomit.) He wears his smirking laziness and privilege as proudly as Colonel Qadaffi wears those fucking glitter epaulets: no shame and no perspective.

These two stars are basically rewarding that the book exists and was commercially available to me. But those two stars are grudgingly awarded in light of things like the following:

- He admits freely and often that he (in so many words) scammed his way into a research grant so he could hang out with basketball stars (& maybe get a chance to play!) and is unabashed in talking about how he misleads and _actually bribes_ his way into maintaining his funding.

- Yes: Bribes. He wrote about this! Do you know how little research funding is available to the PI, and what the consequences are _supposed to be_ for breaking the Foreign Corrupt Practices act on a US State Dept grant? Result: no consequences for whitey, just some jokey BS about 'that's the Philippines for ya'.

- During his "research", he gets a gig playing the extremely abusive Aspirational White Love Interest in a local _Ugly Betty_ variant TV show. It's much worse than I describe here. His take on the experience: "I felt kind of weird about it! Race stuff is weird! Oh well!"

- Among the worst: he talks extensively about the central role of bakla / queer fans in the PBA and regional competitions. And then spends twice as long talking about how he was too uncomfortable around gender-noncomforming people to actually shake hands or speak to any of them. Read: "I am too much of a homophobe to do the ACTUAL RESEARCH WORK THE STATE DEPT IS PAYING ME TO DO. But I am still somewhat of a good person for noting that for the record, right?"

And so nearly every opportunity for insight comes and goes like a Homer Simpson "Dental Plan - Lisa's Braces" internal monologue. The guy buries the lede like it's his fucking job.

He'll write almost a chapter's worth of material on the fraught relationship between African American 'import' players, Fil-Am imports, and Filipino local players, and work that in as a sidebar to a bigger chapter on circumventing recruiting rules. Or he'll let slip a couple of sentences about the dissemination of team sports as a military project of the US occupation continued by the Marcoses during an intro, and never even note that as interesting.

The Aesop at the end of this is: "the Philippines is kind of messed up, but it produced a unique kind of basketball which is kind of cool, so it's all good, I guess."

[Lyden Orbase · Rating 5 out of 5]

Philippines + Basketball = ♥

I had never heard of Rafe Bartholomew until I came across this book called Pacific Rims. Curious, how did a New Yorker find out how crazy Filipinos are about basketball? Who is this Rafe Bartholomew? I had to find out what he's saying about my country's favorite game.

Rafe Bartholomew wrote precisely what Philippine basketball is all about. He researched well, not forgetting even the tiny details. There are facts about PBA and the players that I didn't know until I read Pacific Rims. As I went through, I kept muttering to myself, "why didn't I know that?" It's like after the many games I had watched, I realized I knew almost nothing about PBA.

The book also has a chapter allotted for the Ginebra Gin Kings. If they're not the best team in the league, they surely have the biggest fan base nationwide. And the most loyal fans, I should say. If anyone should write about Philippine basketball, it's mandatory that the writer at least acknowledge Ginebra and Sonny Jaworski. And Bartholomew didn't miss that part.

But Pacific Rims is not only about basketball. Readers will also learn some history and culture, a bit of politics, and much about Philippine society and the people. Furthermore, Bartholomew wrote not only with his knowledge in sports and journalism, but also with his heart. Especially with his heart.

I admire the author's sincerity in writing the book. Surely, there are dirty stuff connected to Philippine hoops. The business moguls that support teams out of sheer profit, politicians who use basketball for their selfish gains, game fixing, under the table deals. But all of it put together will still not prevail over this country's pure love for the sports.

I think all basketball fans will appreciate Pacific Rims, especially Alaska Aces fans. It brings back so much memories of the 2007 Fiesta Conference, when Alaska won the title. I love the Aces and I couldn't help smiling over and over. This book is funny (my friend thought I had gone mad when I started laughing so hard), nostalgic, informative, heart-warming, and inspiring. Most of all, Pacific Rims is about true love.

***
Quote from the book:

"The two dominant teams of the era, the Crispa Redmanizers and Toyota Tamaraws, spent the PBA's first decade locked in one of the most heated rivalries in Philippine sports history. Whenever they clashed, crowds upward of 20,000 fans jammed every seat, catwalk, and staircase in the Araneta Coliseum. At the very least, fans knew they'd be treated to a seesaw battle played by the country's finest ballers; and, if the spectators were lucky, they might witness a brawl."

[Tom · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book starts with the author's Fulbright Scholarship thesis: Why is an island nation in the Pacific crazy about basketball? The author mentioned he was partially inspired by Big Game, Small World: A Basketball Adventure by Sports Illustrated writer Alexander Wolff. Rafe Bartholemew goes into the history of the game in the Philippines, its fan culture, and even tags along with a professional PBA team, the Alaska Aces, sponsored by a dairy company. The best team name may be the Ginebra Gin Kings, sponsored by the well liquor. Oddly enough all of the pro teams are based in Metropolitan Manila, and they generally all play in the same arena. The PBA has interesting rules, with an All-Filipino season (or conference as it is called in the PBA), and a season where each team can sign a foreign player or import, assuming the player is not taller than the maximum allowed height. The PBA often had controversy of whether Filipino-American or other members of the Filipino diaspora were Filipino enough to be considered a non-import player. The locker room atmosphere between the native born Filipino players and the players from the diaspora presented a fascinating dynamic and a contrast in cultures.

The book is interesting, noting how basketball has intertwined with Philippine politics. For example, often times political largesse takes the form of covered outdoor courts built in the centers of many villages, rather than something a little more functional. Many PBA players had success getting elected, as senatorial seats are nationwide elections and the PBA alumni often have incredible name recognition. It also goes into the crowd culture, where often many of the teams have fan groups, sometimes led by people outside of the mainstream, like transvestites. The book gets into social history, politics, and the impacts of colonialism and occupation by Spain, the US, and Japan have affected the nation and how this is sometimes reflected in the game of basketball.

As a side note, one of the foreign players during the PBA season Bartholemew followed was J.J. Sullinger, a former Ohio State player, Columbus native, and brother of Buckeye/Boston Celtic Jared Sullinger.

[Tom · Rating 4 out of 5]

I took a class once in college titled "Baseball and American Life." My professor, a 19th and early 20th century US history expert, used the lens of baseball's evolution to teach us critical themes in American development. I thought it an exceptional class, primarily, i think, because I bought wholeheartedly the "baseball as history" argument.

"Pacific Rims" is the Philippines' equivalent of some of the works I read for that college class. It tells the story of the author's immersion in Filipino culture through a year of intimate access to the Alaska Aces, a top team in the Philippines Basketball Association (PBA). Through the twists and turns of the Aces' season, the author introduces the history of basketball in the Philippines, describes the many ways in which Filipinos show their unique devotion to the sport, and recounts the unique experiences of a westerner traveling to far-flung regions of a geographically scattered archipelago. Most importantly, readers are confronted with the myriad complexities of Filipino reality such as: class divides, all-encompassing political corruption, identity issues, exploitation, and the value of sport in bringing joy to society. And "Pacific Rims tackles big questions like: What actually makes someone "Filipino?" Or at least Filipino enough to play in the PBA? Does laughing at an exhibition game between drag queens and midgets make one a bad person? How ought one respond to the special treatment afforded to fair-skinned foreigners in many parts of the world?

Manifestly, "Pacific Rims" is a book about basketball. And can be read as a good story of a colorful team's dream season. But there is so much more as well.

Recommended highly for anyone interested in world sports, the Philippines, and most of all, for hoops junkies!

[Chris · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was all I hoped it to be. It gives a thorough insight into Phillipines' basketball culture from the professional league to the most rural areas with kids playing on a homemade hoop. The author is a very passionate hoops junkie who received a Fulbright scholarship to spend 3 years living in Manila. His enthusiasm for basketball and the likewise enthusiasm he enlightens us from the Philipines is contagious. Several times I had to put down the book to go shoot hoops myself to fix the itch so to speak. The author was fortunate enough to be able to latch on (to cover them; not play) with a PBA team, the Alaska Aces, for a season, and he also gives you a look into the "every-man" hoops culture with travels to various basketball tournaments throughout the country and many pickup games in the streets of local neighborhoods. Throughout his journey, the author gives you a real sense of not only the Philippine game itself, but also of the politics, culture, and history that gives the game and the country it's shape. This book follows in the footsteps of Big Game, Small World: A Basketball Adventure, but far surpasses it in it's execution. The only criticism I have is the lack of female hoops. However, that's not a criticism of the book itself, but rather an unfortunate constitution of Philippine culture that does not allow women to play.

[Alex · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beemen Ballin' in Flip-Flops was a deep dive into an obsessive basketball culture. It explored the history of this love affair, and also told the story of the author's time in the country researching, living, and balling with the locals. It dragged a little when it focused on the history, though those sections did provide a nice context for the modern madness of the infatuation. It hummed when the author told about his own experiences, like being a hired gun for a fixed local basketball tournament.

The bulk of the story is Bartholomew's time imbedded with a Manila pro team. He describes walking into the locker room one day and seeing all the Fil-Am players sitting on one couch, rigidly respecting one another's personal space. On the other couch the Filipino players sit enmeshed in a tangle of limbs, cuddling. It is moments like this that make this deep dive so hilarious and insightful.

[Tyson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great book on the current history and state of Philippine Basketball and their love of the game. The author never really seems to get to the heart but he does a pretty good job of trying to get there. Anyone who loves the game or wants to get a peak at the love affair Pinoys have for the game this is the book for you.
Recommended.

[Rhona · Rating 4 out of 5]

How interesting to see my world through a foreigner's eyes. He accomplished the almost impossible - made me want to watch basketball again. I admired how the author was able to pin down Pinoy things with clarity and clever insights.

[Shawn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really liked the first and last third of the book. The middle third got a little long-winded for me with the author devoting too many pages to some topics.
But overall entertaining. Insightful, descriptive and humorous too.

[Peter Overzet · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rafe's immersion in Phillipine basketball culture has yielded a phenomenal book.

[Matt Zar-Lieberman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Having read and enjoyed Jim Yardley's Brave Dragons, which covered Chinese professional basketball, earlier this year I was eager to further explore the genre of "books about Asian basketball written in English," assuming such a thing was possible. Thankfully after some cursory research I learned about Rafe Bartholomew's Pacific Rims, which focuses on the Philippines' notable and somewhat-curious obsession with hoops. I finally got around to reading the book and believe that it is one of the best basketball books I have ever read. Bartholomew, currently a senior editor at Grantland, provides an incredibly entertaining look at the country's fascination with the sport with a book that is equal parts fly-on-the-wall season chronicle, deep examination of Filipino culture (athletic and otherwise), and travelogue, all of it worthwhile.

Unless Bartholomew is lying to the reader, Filipinos are remarkably into basketball and the sport has found its way into virtually every aspect of life in the country. Soccer never really caught on, and basketball is unquestionably the nation's most popular sport. Courts can be found even in the most remote areas and are viewed as centers of social life, the country's ubiquitous jeepneys are often adorned with a random assortment of NBA team logos or just Jerry West's silhouette, and players in the very popular Philippines' Basketball Association (and some Americans like Clyde Drexler, who is revered by Filipinos for some reason) are cultural icons that hawk a plethora of products to consumers.

The fact that basketball is so huge in the Philippines is enough to make for an interesting book. If Bartholomew just traveled across the country and noted the country's prevalence of courts and games, how random NBA games from the nineties serve as midday filler on television networks, and the strong following for the PBA (the second-oldest professional basketball league in the world) he could have made for a decent read. Bartholomew goes far deeper in Pacific Rims, however, much to the reader's benefit.

A good bit of the book covers the 2007 "conference" (season) of the Alaska Aces, a PBA franchise led by American coach Tim Cone. This gives Bartholomew an excellent opportunity to describe the nature of idiosyncrasies of the country's major professional league. As was the case in China, Filipino professional basketball leagues do things a little bit differently than the NBA. Teams are limited to one "import" on their roster, though some cutthroat coaches will often bring in multiple foreigners to compete for a roster spot or hire a new import in midseason. Imports must also meet a height restriction, which appears to change from year to year and is far from impervious from abuse or corruption. Franchises are all run by business owners, leading to some unfortunate names such as the Burger King Whoppers and Rain or Shine Elasto Painters (the Alaska Aces are naturally named the Alaska milk company). There are musings about referee corruption and some fans are imbued with elements of soccer hooliganism. Bartholomew's sections on the league's history and his analysis of its present iteration are truly captivating reflections on how the professional game has been appropriated across the world. The author manages to develop a close connection with many Aces, especially their import Rosell Ellis, and he is able to provide a very intimate account of what turns out to be a rather exciting campaign for the team. Bartholomew possesses a very deep understanding of the game (he is a decent player who was recruited to play as a ringer in an amateur tournament in the resort island of Boracay) and his game descriptions are vivid, suspenseful, and entertaining.

In addition to following the Aces, Bartholomew devotes many pages to describing general life in the Philippines. He spent three years in the country on a Fulbright grant and was able to explore much of the country and its culture over the period. His hoops focus is not limited to the professional ranks, and Bartholomew plays many pickup games with various cross-sections of Filipino society and travels across the country (the PBA is based entirely in the Manila metropolitan area) to see that the national obsession extends far beyond the PBA's borders. These sections read more like travel writing, as he describes driving and biking across precarious terrain in pursuit of some court in the remote mountains, game where midgets face off against drag queens, or similarly-intriguing basketball attraction, and they are just as strong as the more conventional Aces chapters. Bartholomew also occasionally detours into discussing racial and cultural aspects of Filipino society, such as his guest appearance on a rather racist Filipino telenovela and the complicated relationship between the Filipino-Americans in the PBA and their countrymen. I felt that these off-court sections enriched the book more than anything else and provided a fuller account of Filipino culture.

In Sum

I highly recommend Pacific Rims to anyone interested in basketball or just learning about a foreign sports culture in general. You certainly don't need to be able to recognize former PBA imports like Cedric Ceballos or Darvin Ham to appreciate the book. Bartholomew can repeat himself at times and sometimes injects too much of himself into the book, but he ultimately has crafted one of the best basketball books I have read. The book's scope extends off the court to the sport's cultural and social impact and he is equally strong in covering both. Pacific Rims is ultimately a very well-executed book on a fascinating subject that is a pleasure to read.

8/10

[Parker]

Finished this one late last night. For me this book is gold because of the sheer amount that I learned not only about basketball (and what it means to its die hard fans) but about Philippine culture and history.

[Daniel · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a book for people who love basketball and love reading about other people who love basketball. This book was for my teenage self who would wake up every Saturday, bike to the high school court and spend hours dribbling, shooting, and daydreaming. Perhaps I also had a special love for this book because, having spent 4 formative months in Manila I had a clear picture of everything Rafe describes. This is a book about Filipino culture through the lens of Filipino's favorite sport.

Rafe Bartholomew is a New York kid with a New Yorker's love of basketball. It was that love that got him to somehow get a scholarship to go study basketball in the Philippines. This book is a chronicle of that journey. In it Rafe describes the players (both filipino and "import"), the coaches and staff of the Philippine Basketball Association. He follows around the Alaska Aces in their quest for a championship and we, the readers, get a clear picture into the PBA basketball culture. Interwoven with that story is his travels to the far reaches of the Philippines and the far reaches of Filipino history that come together to make the Philippines the basketball country it is to this day.

If Rafe has any faults it is that he loves his story and this people too much. He revisits old characters, and retells stories from different angles and adds every small detail. While I loved it for my own love of the Philippines, for any other audience he probably could have edited out about 20% and had a much more crisp story to tell (thus 4 stars instead of 5).

All in all, I recommend it!

[Adrienne · Rating 4 out of 5]

The lengthy, breathless descriptions of basketball maneuverings could get pretty tedious to someone who isn't an aficionado of the sport already. And I'm always sketched out when someone who isn't actually an anthropologist just goes into another country and just starts making broad generalizations--even if they were there for three years. It's weird to be a first-gen and have some American go and describe your entire social class as "basking in the fruits of corruption" just because we're not all housekeepers and tricycle drivers.

But it's energetically and vividly written, and illuminating in the parts where it pertains to basketball. Happily I love sportswriting, and Filipinos, and can't help but like anyone who likes them too.

[Bookbed · Rating 3 out of 5]

"But why? Why are we so engrossed with basketball? Why are there courts in almost every corner of the barangay? Why do we see faces of basketball stars painted on jeepneys? Why are Tatay and Kuya so emotionally invested in this Finals, arguing every play and scolding anyone who dares change the channel?" Continue reading our post here.

Please note: We don't use ratings but for this purpose, we tag books with three stars by default.
Would like to be a reviewer/contributor to Bookbed? Sign up here!
We also accept review requests. More info here.

[Brian Wadman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bartholomew does a pretty good job getting into the story of the Alaska Aces in some year (2004?) in the Philippines. I just wish he wasn't such a tool when I watched his CNN stuff afterwards. Totally distorted my vision of him and prevented me from buying his book about his father's bar. Sorry Rafe :)

[Ray · Rating 5 out of 5]

More than just a basketball book, Rafe's insight into Filipino customs and culture paint a picture of life in the Philippines.

Interesting to read about the interactions and relationships of foreign born players with Philippine born players and fans.

[Harry · Rating 5 out of 5]

ASTIG is all I could say!! I didn’t expect to love this so much but Rafe’s writing really captured me. Wala akong idea that this book exists, let alone the 2007 conference that Alaska won, until I listened to an episode of Linya-Linya Show with the author. Sobra kong na-enjoy ‘yong episode na ‘yon and napabilib din ako kay Rafe kasi he was trying so hard to speak in straight Filipino which he succeeded. Ang tatas niya magsalita, nakakahiya naman sa mga artista na barok pa rin mag-Filipino kahit ang tagal na dito. Kaya kahit sobrang rare na makakuha ng copy nito, push na push talaga ‘ko magkaroon. Salamat sa Fully Booked for coming through! Buti may natago pa silang copy sa ATC, kala ko sa Amazon na ‘ko babagsak eh.

Balik sa libro, I don’t have a deep love for basketball, wala lang ako choice like most basketball-neutral Filipinos dahil our lives literally go around it. Lalo na sa amin na from obsessed schools na personality ang basketball championships kaysa academic achievements haha. Even so, I really really enjoyed this. Did I already say I enjoy this? I love his brutal honesty. I love the way he tells stories. I love that I can fee his love for basketball from where I’m seated as I go through the book. Kung iisipin, why don’t more writings exist to tell this story of basketball obsession sa Pinas? It’s such a missed opportunity given how rich and complex ‘yong culture natin. I’m so glad though that someone made an effort to deep dive on this and manage to give us this wonderful work. I think the foreigner perspective added more fun to this otherwise familiar tale we’ve all heard of. Basta ang ganda nito. Rafe’s passion, humility, and sincerity really translated well into the book. Ang instinctive at lalim agad ng connection sa ‘kin pagkabasa ko.

[Kara · Rating 4 out of 5]

Philippine basketball - a subject I didn't know could keep me hooked for nearly 400 pages. At times introspective, technical, even fun and funny... I found this honest, nuanced, and crafted with so much care. It's always a hit and miss when foreigners try to write of us, but Rafe found the right balance of (sincere) admiration and (respectful) incredulity. I liked how he accurately captured the language, humour, and spirit of the context he chose - impressive, as I definitely do not have the confidence that I could learn Tagalog in under 3 years as he did. A must-read for fans of the sport.

**Brought from Manila, read at the beach a few afternoons in BDC and Anse Vata

[Max · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a really fun book about basketball and Filipino culture. Recommended if you have an interest in basketball, but really fun and interesting within that context. The best parts are the anecdotes and mini-histories about various aspects of Filipino culture and history, with basketball often (but not always) tied in, and he does an excellent job of interspersing his own analysis of the various cultural dynamics at play.

[Michael · Rating 3 out of 5]

Most interesting when it touches on aspects of culture and race. For example, what defines a Fil-Am? Someone born in the Philippines to Filipino parents and raised in the US who doesn't speak Tagalog? Or someone born in Manila to non-Filipino parents and raised in Manila? How Fil-Ams who acted Filipino were no longer "Fil-Am." But it felt a touch long.

[Micah ☔️ · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not just the definitive book on its exceptionally charming subject. Pacific Rims gives you a fascinating snapshot of sport in the Philippines. But also a crash course in Filipino urban planning, politics, race relations, humor, soap operas and much more. Likely my favorite book about my favorite sport.

[che · Rating 5 out of 5]

loved it for personal reasons, namely:
* Alaska Milkmen
* basketball
* Philippines
* basketball in the Philippines

and the fact that i can relate too much to all of the above.