You are hereFilipinos Love Pool & Efren "Bata" Reyes
Filipinos Love Pool & Efren "Bata" Reyes
It's a little hard to convey exactly how much Filipinos love pool. It's sort of a national obsession. In the States most people can name the top baseball, football or basketball players. Here just as much passion is invested in pool and boxing. No one doesn't know who Efren Reyes is (and many other top international players as well). Do your own random poll and ask people on the street who Johnny Archer, Mika Immonen or Efren is. Take a look at this short video. You may not speak the Bisaya dialect but you don't need to understand the words to hear the enthusiasm. In particular at the end when Efren sinks a crowd pleaser.
Efren has rock star status all over the Philippines, literally. Sort of like the screaming fans at an Elvis Presely concert. He's done numerous TV commercials for San Miguel Lite (a fine beer for sure). The gist of this crowd's cheering at the end are things like: we love you and you're my idol. Can you imagine such uninhibited adoration for any pro pool player in the States?
The people in the video arent actually speaking Tagalog. They are speaking Bisaya.
Wow, I am surprised that I missed the fact they are speaking Bisaya. Gapuyo ko sa Dumaguete para tulo ka tuig ug naka sabot ko ug Bisaya! Pagsulti ko gamay lang. I guess I just assumed they were speaking Tagalog and since I don't understand it, I never tried to make out the words (my wife translated it for me). I corrected the error. Close to 2000 people have visited the page and no one has informed me of the mistake until now, hahaha. Daghang salamat para commenting ka.
Yep! We admired him for being a magician.
My sense of Efren's "magic" is that often people (even the top players) don't understand the shots he makes so it seems like magic. I think he just sees things differently than most everyone else so he does things that others can't and maybe never even thought of. To me that's more impressive then magic. I also think that the Filipinos have such affection for him because even though he has every excuse to be conceited, instead he's decent, kind and humble. Buot-an siya.