Sports psychologist Dr. Francis Santamaria said yesterday Manny Pacquiao’s spirituality and sense of purpose are his biggest abstract weapons that will lift him to victory over Ricky Hatton in their IBO lightwelterweight title fight in Las Vegas on May 2.

“The mind of an athlete must be like a Christian missionary’s,” said Santamaria who has worked with PBA players and national athletes in boxing, taekwondo, tennis, bowling and swimming. “He must focus on his works, his long-term mission and listen to his flock’s advice. He also knows that the right time and space will be coming and he should not hurry.”

Santamaria advised Pacquiao to stick to the basics of “here and now” and avoid distractions that could blunt his competitive edge.

“His being spiritual and sense of purpose, how his performance impacts on the country, his hometown and peace and order, are a great self-fulfillment,” continued Santamaria who has served more than 200 companies in the course of his career as a management consultant.

Ok, so he eats up all this B.S. from the psychologist. No harm done, right? Well, it's awesome how he never points out that the same guy managed a team of Philippine amateur boxers who got their asses handed to them in an Olympic qualifying tournament last year. I suppose they did not think about being a Christian missionary strongly enough?

But it's really his TV work that gets my beef. Seriously, about ten years ago, I watched a boxing match on TV where he was amazed about a fighter's bobbing and weaving, so he commented, “Wow, baka pinapanood ni [name of boxer] si Vergel Meneses, ang galing niyang mag-head-and-shoulder fake, eh!” (“Wow, he must watch [Former Philippine Basketball Association MVP] Vergel Meneses a lot, he's really good with his head-and-shoulder fakes!”)

Right.

It's silly how, when you listen to him on television, you can figure out how little he actually knows about the sports he covers, considering that he's been a sports analyst for about twenty-five years now. For example, when he was on the panel for a recent tuneup game by the Team Pilipinas basketball, he kept on harping that the reason James Yap was chosen for the team was because he could play both the shooting guard and the point guard positions.

Except that anyone who has ever watched James Yap for any regular period of time would know that JAMES YAP HAS NEVER PLAYED POINT GUARD! Not for Purefoods in the PBA, not for Welcoat or ICTSI in the PBL, not for the UE Red Warriors in the UAAP, and not even from his high school days in Iloilo. And if you know his game, you'd figure out why: he's an all-world scorer (the best in the PBA today), but he's a mediocre ballhandler, passer, and playmaker--only the things that any coach would look for in a point guard. It's odd that Quinito doesn't even know his game. Yap is not only one of the best players in the game, but he's also the most popular (with fans) and the most despised (with critics)--which makes him pretty much the most relevant PBA player of his generation. Quinito would have just been as wrong if he had claimed that national team coach Yeng Guiao picked Yap so he could introduce the coach to Kris Aquino's showbiz friends, Ruffa Gutierrez in particular.

Anyway.

It seems like Quinito's not really into the sports that he covers. You'd see it with the crap he occasionally pulls when he covers a game. On days when he'll be covering a game, he'd put out a column or a piece about whatever game he'd be covering that evening. And then during the game itself, he'd keep harping on the points and the angles that he raised in his column, thoroughly ignoring everything else in the game that he didn't cover in the column. It works well enough when he's right, but more often than not, he's wrong.

So Quinito's, like, the worst sports journalist ever, right?

No, not by a mile. But then it wouldn't be as funny if this blog had been name "Fire Musong Castillo".

Who's Musong Castillo?

Let's take that up some other time.

So if you don't want to get Quinito fired, what's the point of this blog?

I wanted to come up with something that's pretty much the opposite of all the things I mentioned above. Hopefully I could come up with a smart, funny, entertaining and irreverent blog that's passionate about Philippine sports.