It is virtually impossible to find a superstar athlete these days for whom some disdain can't be mustered. Michael Phelps gets busted. LeBron James gets the benefit of the NBA's preferential refereeing. The Williams Sisters get surly. Rafael Nadal showed some audacity by suggesting tennis adjust its schedule to his liking. And Derek Jeter is a Yankee.But there is Manny Pacquiao, all 5 feet, 6 inches and 140 pounds of him. What is there about him not to like?
He is at the top of his game, the fight game, after a 2008 campaign that saw him fight three times in three different weight classes (super featherweight, lightweight and welterweight) and win all three to gain two world titles along the way. In the non-title bout at welterweight, he knocked Oscar de la Hoya into retirement.
He does his thing in exciting style, echoing Aaron Pryor, which earned him the respectful nickname PacMan.
He comes from poor beginnings in the Philippines and is as humble as a monk.
"I just try my best to make the fans happy with my performance," PacMan told me Tuesday in a phone conversation from his training camp in Southern California. "That's one of the main things I fight for, is to make people happy and proud of my sport, a sport that I'm lucky enough to be in."
As a result, he is winning over people in droves like a recent successful presidential candidate did in arenas you wouldn't expect. To be sure, by the time AT&T Park in San Francisco opened Tuesday evening for the Giants' game against San Diego, the last-place Giants' gift to fans who made it a sellout with Filipino Heritage Night tickets was selling on eBay for as much as $40, or twice the price of the Filipino Heritage ticket. It was the ubiquitous bobblehead, but of someone rarely caricatured: a junior welterweight boxing champion not even from here, Pacquiao.
That is how popular the "human tsunami," as fight analyst Larry Merchant so perfectly dubbed Pacquiao, has become. Now, he is drawing legions of fans beyond even the Philippines, where he is so much the rage that his fights famously have brought about informal ceasefires between sniping Muslim rebels and Catholic government forces. Now, he is the reason for sold out arenas, as will be the case, promoter Bob Arum announced Tuesday, on May 2 when Pacquiao meets Ricky "The Hitman" Hatton from England for Hatton's title at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas.
"'The Battle of East and West,'" Arum boasted of his latest PacMan fight, "is on track to break all existing pay-per-view records."
Oscar de la Hoya and Floyd Mayweather set the record. That's how big PacMania could be two weekends from now.
But here is the ultimate reason for me to applaud Pacquiao: he is willing to risk it all for a selfless reason, his people. Pacquiao reiterated that he is going to make a second run for national office next year in his homeland. His first in 2007 was unsuccessful.
I've always been drawn to athletes who aren't fearful of using their platforms as bully pulpits for causes greater than the enrichment of their bank account. Paul Robeson. Curt Flood. Muhammad Ali. Tommie Smith and John Carlos. Joey Cheek. Here is one in Pacquiao willing not only to voice his concerns but put them on a ballot as well.
"I plan on running for Congress again because that's what's in my heart," PacMan said in a very measured and respectful tone that reflects his demeanor. "I want to help people.
"I know that politics is difficult and corrupt even sometimes. I want to change it. I don't want to run for Congress to make any money; I have my own money. I'm okay. My family is doing well. I'm just here to help."
In Pacquiao's first bid for office he was booed at a rally by some in his country who didn't want him to align himself with a particular side, or shelve his outrageously successful boxing career that brought so much good feeling to the Philippines. It was a sign that he risked his good standing.
"I don't think he should be entering politics," Dr. Belinda Aquino, director of the Center for Philippine Studies at the University of Hawai'i at Manoa, told me Tuesday. "He will lose some credibility. I'm afraid he may be being used."
Aquino pointed out that in the Philippines' multi-party political system competing parties are always looking for some means other than their platforms to attract voters and garner power and often those means are celebrities who can be convinced to run for office. Former President Joseph Estrada was known as the Ronald Reagan of the Philippines because he, too, was formerly a B-movie actor. Vice President Manuel De Castro was a one-time Larry King of Philippines' television. Other actors and athletes are in smaller elected offices nationally and regionally.
"I'm sure there's a motivation for people to get Pacquiao involved in politics," Dr. Aquino said.
PacMan said he is unconcerned. As much as he is driven to box by a desire to please ticket buyers, he said he is driven to public service by a desire to pull up those in the poor part of the Philippines where he grew up, once watching in horror as his father slaughtered the family dog for sustenance.
"That doesn't matter if it has a bad affect on my popularity," he said. "My ultimate goal is to help people, and to be able to find a way to assist the people in need, because I came from that area and those people are desperate for help."
Manny Pacquiao is champion of the people, too.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
4-22-2009 @ 8:08PM
Murph said...
Stone this is one of the few times I have to agree with you. Manny is a Bright light in a dark world. The things he does for his countrymen are Sainthood worthy
P.S
Ali while on top did nothing to help the racial divide in this country. Yes when he was old and shaking and speech impaired he changed his views. but back in the 60’s he was no better than a Klansmen
Reply
4-23-2009 @ 10:27PM
jzz3skys said...
Does he have any education? In other words, I read David W. Zang's biography of Moses Fleetwood Walker, the first black major leaguer (University of Nebraska Press, 1995) and he attended Oberlin College in the 1880s and then transferred to the University of Michigan Law School. Although he didn't have any political aspirations and I don't think he actually earned a law degree, he was no doubt qualified to run for office because he had more education than most Americans at that time.
That's a specific point that Lawrence Otis Graham makes about the subject of his recent biography, Blanche Kelso Bruce, the first black United States Senator to serve a full 6-year term in Congress, from 1875-1881. He was born a slave but found a way to attend Oberlin College for two years I believe. He, like Louisiana politician P.B.S. Pinchback were among the heroes of Reconstruction, for all the credit they've received from your generation. As one would expect, the book was panned in Black Issues. because there's no way the reviewer (an African American former Barnard College professor whose work I've read) can condone a book about a character as human (and flawed like the rest of us) and maintain her revolutionary credibility.
And finally, I also read the autobiography of Ayaan Hirsi Ali, born in war-torn Somalia and raised without her father, first in Saudi Arabia and then in Kenya -- you know, those women's rights-friendly countries -- where she was lucky to get a secretatarial school education. She sought and was granted asylum in the Netherlands where she earned a masters degree in political science from the Unversity of Leiden, the oldest and one of the most prestigious universities in Europe, and she had to learn Dutch first. And finally she was elected to Dutch Parliament.
Nobody had to lower any standards to elect them. What is it about a boxer/politician, especially in somebody else's country, that appeals to you? You seem to believe in a kind of cultural relativism that holds that if they can elect an uneducated B-movie actor who becomes a corrupt leader, then they can't do any worse with an uneducated boxer. What kind of standard is that?
And btw, you may have read Adam Mansbach's novel about the great-grandsons of Fleet Walker and his nemesis Cap Anson, who unwittingly become college roommates at Columbia University.
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5-08-2009 @ 12:51AM
Firebrand said...
Pacquiao might be an uneducated boxer at the moment who are widely regarded as a national hero in his country, new king of boxing, and pound for pound fighter in the world but who is to say that this uneducated boxer who aspires to become a congressman will not try his best to educate himself in order to better serve his people. After all, the people that you’ve mention Mr/Ms. Jzz3skys didn’t earned their education in a day.
What have those so called well educated politicians today did for their people lately? Increased taxes for the hard working people who barely managed to get by so that their rich educated selves can enjoy life to the fullest with regular people’s money. How about providing good strategies and solutions to our precarious economy? No, hmm hey what about decreasing unemployment rates and creating jobs in the states.
What have this uneducated and unassuming boxer who when fighting in the ring often keep his people's pride and honor in mind done lately? Shared his winnings with his people by establishing Emmanuel Pacquiao Foundation Inc., which provides scholarship grants to those underprivileged students. Personally and Actively distributed assistance in poverty stricken places be it food or cash money. Built free boxing gyms for aspiring Filipino boxers to help further their training without worrying costly gym fees. It also help decreased rates of drug used among the youth in his own town channeling their energy by getting fit instead of using drugs or do things that they can get in trouble. Invested his winnings in business creating job opportunities. Helped Unite an entire nation not to mention managed to create a temporary truce on the on-going war between Philippine government & Islamic Rebels every time he steps in the ring. Of course he also did endorsement commercials, movies, even recorded songs for his up coming Album despite hectic schedules (Hey the champ can’t help it!)
Jzz3skys …if you solely believe that high level of education is enough for an individual to be qualified in politics and lead their country to a better future then why most countries still lives in poverty and corruption? Having highly educated officials could only be an asset if their intentions are to genuinely help their people and country marched towards a better future. However, if the same highly educated politicians only wants to used politics to garner wealth and expand their influence (To which may I point out Pacquiao doesn’t need to) people who voted for these individuals will not progress that much in their current condition and could even possibly sink lower because they will always be the politician‘s last priority. What say you Mr/Ms. Jzz3skys?