Monday, September 17, 2007

Ginebra San Miguel (1985 - 1987)



1985-1987: Ginebra San Miguel

By 1985, Gilbey's was renamed as Ginebra San Miguel. Following the recruitement of the immensely popular backcourt tandem of Robert Jaworski and Francis Arnaiz, the fanbase of Ginebra grew. These were mostly Toyota fans that followed the two stalwarts. (The precursor of the wild Baranggay Ginebra that cheered themselves hoarse in the rafters were the old raucous Toyota cheering squads that rumbled with Crispa fans in the rafters of the Araneta Coliseum). With Jaworski and Arnaiz at the forefront, Ginebra's fanbase grew larger. It grew as the ex Toyota backcourt infected the team with the legendary Toyota fighting spirit:

In 1985, Ginebra established itself as the "people's team" when they displayed their never-say-die attitude on court. The biggest manifestation was when their leader, Jaworski came back from the nearby Medical City with seven stitches in his lip to lead the Gins to a come-from-behind victory against NCC. Jaworski incurred this from a wayward elbow inflicted by Jeff Moore in the second canto. But with them behind by 15 points going into the final seven minutes of the game, Jaworski re-entered the court and sparked a frenzy that to date, has yet been matched. The NCC team simply froze upon sight of the Big J and didn't know what hit them, eventually losing to the Gins.[2]

Jaworski and Arnaiz turned the moribund franchise into a competitive one almost overnight when in the first conference of the 1984 season, the All Filipino, they led the team to a runnerup finish against powerhouse Crispa.

However in 1985, Ginebra failed to enter the finals in each of the three conferences, despite the team's growing number of fan support, showing only a strong third place finish in the Reinforced Conference.

Michael Hackett also saw his name in the PBA record books by scoring 103 points in Ginebra's 197-168 victory against Great Taste on November 21, 1985. This was later broken by Swift's Tony Harris in a 1992 game, against Ginebra.

Former Crispa import Billy Ray Bates was brought in for the 1986 Open Conference. Each PBA team was allowed to get two imports for the said conference. Bates' other partner was Michael Hackett, who was the 1985 Open Conference Best Import. It is believed that the pair was the greatest import tandem in PBA history.

The super imports combined to lead Ginebra in the Finals of the tournament against the Lucio Tan franchise now known as Manila Beer, with the newly acquired Abet Guidaben and imports Michael Young and Harold Keeling. Bates and Hackett powered Ginebra to a convincing 4-1 win in the series to give the team its first-ever championship.

Unfortunately, Francis Arnaiz suddenly left for the United States before Ginebra won this first championship, ending his 11-year PBA career and popular backcourt tandem with Jaworski.

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