Pacific Rims: Beermen Ballin' in Flip-Flops and the Philippines' Unlikely Love Affair with Basketball Paperback – Illustrated, June 7, 2011

Overtly, this book is two stories spun into a single narrative:- A general overview of the culture of basketball in the Philippines.- The story of a single season ("conference") where the author follows a pro basketball team, the Alaska Aces, through their successes and struggles on and off the court.However, perhaps the most important story in the book is that of a young man experiencing a new culture that he knew very little about before he arrived. The author arrives looking for something familiar, basketball, and through it discovers and attempts to explain much that is unfamiliar. The reader is taken along on this journey as well, and it's a lot of fun.I myself have been to the Philippines several times, and I picked this book up at an airport bookstore in Manila. Even though I already knew a great deal about the country, I was pleased to learn tons of things that I didn't know before. Filipinos will probably also learn plenty, and even if they don't they will enjoy the author's perspective their culture.You could undoubtedly write a much more comprehensive book about basketball in the Philippines than this one. The author makes a good effort to research the history of the sport there, but the brevity of his experience limits how much of an insider perspective he could really gain. Furthermore, his account of the present-day league lacks objectivity because he has become very close to the particular team that he covered. However, this does not negatively affect the book at all: it never pretends to give an objective appraisal of the league from a neutral point of view, but rather gives itself wholeheartedly to conveying a fan's sense of love for the game. This love rubs off on you as you read.This book was a pleasure to read, and I laughed at loud every few pages. I read it mostly in one sitting, on my flight home from the Philippines; for weeks afterward I told everyone I knew about it. I am now passing it around to my friends, and I ordered a copy from Amazon to send to another friend abroad. In terms of sheer enjoyment this was one of the best books I have ever read, especially in the realm of non-fiction.

This book is thoroughly enjoyable and it tackles a subject that has received little or no attention, in this particular case, that of the love affair with Basketball the Philippines seem to enjoy. Rafe Bartholomew does a very good job taking you into this world, trying to find out how it began and how it has impacted the culture. There is however, one point of contention that annoyed me a bit.The annoyance comes over a disagreement over if the Philippine Basketball Association is actually the oldest pro league after the NBA. This annoyed me at first, but was later informed that it was technically true, as most of the pro leagues in Europe that predated the PBA declared a bogus "amateur" status in order to keep sending players to FIBA sponsored tournaments like the world championship, Eurobasket, and the Olympics. This claim of the PBA's seniority is consistent in the book, and thus if you are a fan of Euroleague basketball you might find it disagreeable (despite it being technically true). But since this is a book about basketball in the Phillipines, don't let a minor nerd spat over who was pro first discourage you from reading a great sports book.Mr. Bartholomew not only completely immersed himself in the culture of Filipino basketball, but also of just everyday life. This is one of those books that in the search of something small, a bigger picture is found; a better understanding of overall Filipino culture, with all of it's complexity, beauty, color, and sometime horrible social contradictions. By not only telling you how Filipinos play ball, but also how they eat, how they have fun or his recounting of his personally harrowing (yet hilarious) experience playing a despicable character in Filipino soap opera, Rafe Bartholomew finds a bigger truth than the one he set out to seek.The book touches all of these without ever neglecting it's main purpose, exploring basketball in this island nation. A great read if you are a sports fan.

Part travel writing and part history, Pacific Rims: Beermen Ballin' in Flip-Flops and the Philippines' Unlikely Love Affair with Basketball is the culmination of the author's journey to the Philippines in search of why basketball is popular in a country where men's average height is 5'7." Maybe shorter. Rafe Bartholomew learns how the game was introduced to the country and that the Philippines was once a basketball powerhouse. He travels the countryside and discovers courts made from scraps such as a discarded car's hood. Basketball, he finds, is everywhere and is popular across the social classes. He learns about social stratification, social norms, pop culture. He follows one of the teams in the Philippine Basketball Association for the duration of their season, and so is able to write about professional as well as recreational ball.I'm not a big basketball fan, but I'm Filipino-American and was also curious about basketball's popularity in the Philippines. I had no idea, and neither did Bartholomew, just how big a part of life basketball is. Although the sport's jargon is used throughout, even if you don't know what a baby hook is, it doesn't matter. The narrative is easy to follow and though the author covers a lot, the book overall, is well organized. The numerous footnotes, however, grew tedious.