Old dog Norm Fraunheim just beat me to the Manny Pacquiao punch.
Writing on 15Rounds.com, the Phoenix based fight journalist suggests that Sports Illustrated give careful consideration to to the Pinoy Idol as the 2009 Sportsman Of The Year.
Just shows you that great minds do think alike as I’ve been pondering this, how fitting a winner Megamanny would be, for this particular year.
But I want to go one step further than Uncle Norm.
I join in my learned colleague’s application but I underline and doubly emphasize it as well.
(Btw, the canine movie “Marley & Me” is not about myself and Fraunehim so stopping wagging that tale, I mean tail.)
I, Michael Lewis Cassius Marley, hereby demand that SI choose Pacman as this year’s Sportsman.
And I will email this column and Fraunheim’s forthwith to the imaginative SI Editor, the fabled Terry McDonell.
I have a feeling that, knowing McDonell’s journalistic history as I do, that if he is the ultimate shotcaller on who is chosen as the prestigious Sportsman for the magazine, then Pacquiao might be a lock.
Pacquiao’s athletic accomplishments match up with the achievements of Tiger Woods, of Kobe Bryant, of Albert Pujols, of LeBron James, of all the usual suspects from the more mainstream sports.
But what makes Pacquiao different and so worthy of this honor are the factors that SI’s sister publication, Time Magazine, recognized by putting Manny on the cover of its Asian edition recently. Let me briefly recount them, anyway:
1. He is the biggest sporting idol 97 million Filipinos have ever had.
2. His good and charitable works including his recent aid for typhoon victims.
3. He does loom as a possible future president of his nation.
4. He comes from a humble bed and never forgets it.
5. His modesty and his attirubution of all his success to a Supreme Being is no act.
Finally, let me add this twist.
No boxer and few athletes have captured the world’s imagination the way Muhammad Ali did in his epic career.
Muhammad Ali stood for important matters way beyond the thimble world of boxing.
Manny Pacquiao is a Muhammad Ali circa 2009 and his influence and popularity continues to grow.
Sports Illustrated should slap Pacman on the cover and declare him the 2009 Sportsman of the Year.
He clearly deserves it.
