Lots of stuff to get to, wala munang pasakalye:

• Got a nice shout-out this morning from my favorite play-by-play man (and fellow Baller contributor) Mico Halili, who dug deeper into Yeng Guiao’s way with words in his column today. He adds a few more quotable quotes from the fiery coach, including my favorite: “Bahala kayo diyan! Hindi ako tatawag ng time-out! Gawan niyo ng paraan yan!”

Continue reading "Thursday bullets starring Yeng Guiao, Tim Cone, and James Yap's lovelife"

The premier issue of Baller, the new magazine of the PBA is out now, and unlike most other “official” PBA stuff, this actually doesn’t suck. It helps that the project was developed and conceived with little interference from the league, and the people at the helm are experienced publishing industry veterans who knew how to put out a magazine. In fact, the man running it is Eric Ramos, the award-winning writer and former editor-in-chief of FHM Philippines, Pump, and Maxim Philippines.

Continue reading "Grab a copy of Baller now!"

Alaska chairman Fred Uytengsu was honored as Executive of the Year at Wednesday night’s PBA Press Corps Awards. Rather than just talking pleasantries with the scribes, Uytengsu unleashed a fiery speech that talked about Fil-Shams, lopsided trades, and salary cap violations. He even built up Pacific Rims to open his piece. Basically, the speech read like your typical Fire Quinito blog post; I was surprised he didn’t make any Val Sotto jokes.

Continue reading "Fred Uytengsu blasts Fil-Shams, lopsided trades, salary cap violations"

Over the last few days, GMANews.TV posted a couple of installments of my best-of-7 email exchange with Pacific Rims author and Internet heartthrob Rafe Bartholomew. In part 2, I argue – convincingly, in my opinion – that the reason the Philippines is such a basketball-crazy country is because of cute colegialas who watch the game. We also get into a discussion about whether PBA players such as James Yap and Dondon Hontiveros can make it to the NBA.

Continue reading "GMANews.TV back and forth with Rafe Bartholomew continues"

Quick programming note: I’ll be flying out early tomorrow morning for the day job, on a short video project somewhere in Mindanao. I won’t be back until Monday, which means that I’ll be missing the first two games of the finals. My boss, unfortunately, isn’t a big PBA fan.

Fortunately, there’ll be lots of Fire Quinito content that will be coming your way over the course of the next few days for my latest project at GMANews.TV.

Continue reading "Fire Quinito and Manila Vanilla face off at GMANews.TV"

After my trip to Thailand last week, I went straight to Boracay to catch up with my buddies for a quick vacation. Obligatory player sighting story: I saw Renren Ritualo a couple of times around the island, the second time, he was with his wife walking at D’Mall just past the booth where they have the basketball shooting machine. The guys at the booth were calling out to him to try out the shooting game, but he ignored them. I kinda wish he took them up on it; I would have loved to see Renren laying waste to the D’Mall basketball shooting game record.

Continue reading "Back from the dead bullets, starring Renren Ritualo, UAAP presidential contributors, Chot Reyes, Norman Black, and Cyrus Baguio"

Philippine basketball has started to develop a small but vibrant community on Twitter, and Fire Quinito rounds up the best messages, in 140 characters or less.

Continue reading "The Sweetest Tweets, featuring lover boy Rod Nealy, Vince the Prince, and James Ty III"

I spent more than a thousand words on my review of Rafe Bartholomew’s Pacific Rims, and it’s a good thing GMANews.TV still published it:

Continue reading "If, for some reason, you’re still not convinced you should grab a copy of Pacific Rims…"

Last night, an agent who reps several PBA imports had a series of tweets about another reinforcement campaigning in the Fiesta Conference. This import, she said, was definitely 6’8”, a couple of inches taller than the 6’6” height limit for foreigners in the tournament.

(Note: I’m not linking her tweets or mentioning her name because her profile is set to private.)

Continue reading "Is Alaska import Diamon Simpson over the height limit?"

• Noynoy Aquino was proclaimed the 15th president of the Philippines yesterday, which would make James Yap part of the extended First Family. Funny, even though he could end up winning his second MVP award and lead his team to a sweep of the two PBA tournaments, he still wouldn’t have had as good a year as his brother-in-law has had.

Continue reading "Thursday Bullets, starring Noy and James, Jeffrey Cariaso, and the comedic stylings of Dyan Castillejo"