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

We found 11 Reddit comments about Pacific Rims: Beermen Ballin' in Flip-Flops and the Philippines' Unlikely Love Affair with Basketball. Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.

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

u/MothershipConnection · 21 pointsr/nba

One of my best memories of visiting the Philippines (my dad lives there half the year and I try to visit every other year or so) is playing pick up ball with the locals. Pick up culture there is completely different from pick up games here, it was a trip having games just continue on and on and having people just sub in instead of calling next or anything like that. Also playing in a gym built inside a shopping mall.

And they play a lot more zone defense and a lot less defense in general! People looked at me like a fucking mad man when I was crashing the boards hard and running the break, like some sort of Kenneth Faried/Dennis Rodman hybrid (in the States I'm much more Jason Terry). It helps at 5-8 I was one of the taller players in a lot of these games.

Rafe Bartholomew of Grantland fame has a pretty excellent book on Philippine basketball culture, I definitely recommend it!

u/geeineff · 8 pointsr/nba

I've been reading this book about basketball in the Philippines and the PBA and it is awesome. I really want to visit Manila now and just play pick up games all the time.

u/econartist · 4 pointsr/nba

He is an absolute legend in the Philippines (PBA). Rafe Bartholomew, who was a Grantland contributor, wrote a great book about the PBA and a good chunk of it is about Bates.

Amazon link

u/Liebo · 4 pointsr/booksuggestions

I've read a lot of nonfiction sports books. When a decent writer covers a fascinating sports topic they can be pretty hard to beat. Some of my absolute favorites:

Play Their Hearts Out by George Dohrmann Phenomenal story that shows the insanity of elite high school basketball and the recruiting machine.

Bringing the Heat by Mark Bowden Fly on the wall account of the Philadelphia Eagles' 1992. Some great insights into players like Jerome Brown, Randall Cunningham, and Reggie White and Bowden (who also wrote Black Hawk Down) describes on and off-field action very well.

Soccernomics by Simon Kuper and Stefan Szymanski A mix between Freakonomics and Moneyball as it relates to international soccer. If you have any interest in soccer or international sports/business its definitely worth a read.

Fever Pitch by Nick Hornby Reflections on intense fandom from a novelist. Soccer-related (and unfortunately this book is the reason why I am now stuck supporting Arsenal) but Hornby's musings definitely apply across sports.

Rammer Jammer Yellow Hammer Journalist returns to his Alabama roots to follow the Tide's football season in an RV amongst die hard fans. Great book about fandom and a chronicle of a season.

Pacific Rims by Rafe Bartholomew Just finished this one. Filipinos are obsessed with basketball and this book describes the depths of the national obsession as well as covering the 2007 season of the Alaska Aces in the Philippines Basketball Association. Asian professional basketball is a bit different than its NBA cousin and I found the book to be incredibly interesting.

u/cardboardbuddy · 3 pointsr/Philippines

There is a book about this (disclaimer: haven't read past the intro) : Pacific Rims: Beermen Ballin' in Flip-Flops and the Philippines' Unlikely Love Affair with Basketball by Rafe Bartholomew
https://www.amazon.com/Pacific-Rims-Flip-Flops-Philippines-Unlikely/dp/0451233220

u/indorock · 3 pointsr/MapPorn

Well, similarly the Philippines LOVE basketball - like basically obssessed with it, know everything there is to know about the NBA and its players & teams, and there are courts everywhere - but they suck at that too (can't blame them for being a short-statured race).

Here's an interesting book about the phenomenon

u/randomredditor69 · 2 pointsr/nba

Well, "Pacific Rims" is about his journey/immersion to the Philippines in search of this crazy-obsessive basketball culture he heard about in the States. He thought it was an interesting enough subject to cover so he convinced his Fulbright panel to send him here. I may be biased because I'm Filipino haha I'm 80 pages in and I love this thing.

Here's an Amazon link for the book and a webseries he did for NatGeo called "Pinoy hoops."

u/akoaymatangpusa · 2 pointsr/nba

Basketball is the number one sport in my country, the Philippines,
there's a book about it [Pacific Rims: Beermen Ballin' in Flip-Flops and the Philippines' Unlikely Love Affair with Basketball]
(http://www.amazon.com/Pacific-Rims-Flip-Flops-Philippines-Basketball/dp/0451233220), no other sports compare

Edit: I personally think volleyball is a close second not because of how much tv time it gets but because a lot of people plays the sport, football(soccer) is slowly becoming popular, i know baseball is pretty popular back then but it has declined.
Edit2:how could i forget about boxing? Manny Pacquiao is a demigod

u/handlesscombo · 2 pointsr/nba

you should check out this book. it explains why filipinos love basketball and why the sport flourishes as the number one sport in the country

u/lucksmithy · 2 pointsr/nba

Check out this book on Filipino basketball culture by Rafe Bartholomew.

u/cheese_sticks · 1 pointr/Philippines

If you want to read more about the subject, I'd suggest reading Pacific Rims by Rafe Bartholomew

It's a good read that explores how Philippine culture and basketball tie together.