IN THE HISTORY of the PBA, only a few teams were able to complete the historic grand slam.
Only one team was able to win the triple crown twice in a season — the Crispa Redmanizers in 1976 and 1983 — and only one man was able to accomplish winning the triple grand slam twice, Tim Cone, who established the feat in 1996 with Alaska and 2014 with San Mig Coffee.
Arwind Santos and company will try to put the San Miguel Beermen as only the second team to win the triple crown twice when they launch their bid in the season-ending Governors’ Cup.
The Beermen put themselves in a better position to accomplish the feat as they won their second straight title of the season.
Their 4-2 victory against the TNT KaTropa cemented the Beermen’s dominance after they claimed their fifth championship in eight conferences.
Mr. Santos, the Beermen’s team captain, said he wants to be part of history, one that would put him and the rest of his teammates as among the greatest teams ever.
“That’s something we want to achieve,” Mr. Santos told sportswriters. “This group, this batch hasn’t achieved it yet and we want to be part of history. We want people to remember what we’ve achieved and we want to be regarded as one of the best and be remembered by people even if we’re already old.”
Like the other San Miguel greats before them, Mr. Santos wants people to remember their contribution on this storied franchise. The Beermen had claimed their 24th title and one championship away from completing the ultimate task.
“If you win it, you will be compared alongside the other greats like (four-time Most Valuable Player Ramon Fernandez, Hector Calma, Danny Ildefonso among others. We’re using them as motivation and we want to get it as much as possible. We want to achieve something only few players and teams were able to achieve,” he added.
The writing on the wall is very clear and even if the Beermen try to avoid it, there’s no other direction but to win the grand slam this season and the league’s winningest team is favored to achieve it in the season-ending PBA Governors’ Cup.
Head coach Leo Austria, who had just won his fifth championship in handling the team in eight conferences, doesn’t want to think about the grand slam and would rather reserve his energy in preparing hard for the coming Governors’ Cup, which begins July 19.
“We’re not thinking of the grand slam because we’re celebrating this one first, but it’s in the mind of so many people. But we’re the only team which is eligible to win the grand slam this season. But it’s a long shot. We have to get ready and prepare hard for the next conference dahil this conference, there were so many teams which built up their teams,” Mr. Austria said.
This early, the players of the Beermen are psyching themselves up to get ready for the biggest battle.
“That’s always the goal for us every conference. We get ready for it. Anything less than a championship is a failure for us. We know the task at hand coming up. Not a lot of teams were able to win that grand slam. We’re one championship away. Just like these last two conference, we’re gonna go in prepared, work hard,” said guard Chris Ross, the Best Player of the Conference awardee.
Mr. Ross is confident that balik-import Wendell McKines, who played for Alaska and Rain or Shine, previously, can live up to the challenge.
“Wendell has been here for about a month so he knows how we play. He knows how the PBA is. He’s been here two or three times already. We’re gonna take it from there. We know the grand slam is gonna be hard. We’re up to the task and we’re ready to go once the conference starts,” added Mr. Ross. — Rey Joble
