SACRAMENTO, California—Chess luminaries Bobby Fischer and Florencio Campomanes—friends till the end—must be fuming in their graves.
How dare someone call their game a non-sport?
Simon Greatwich, duck for cover! Arrows, as thick as landak (Palawan porcupine) spines are headed your way.
Greatwich, a Filipino-Briton and midfielder for the Philippine Azkals, got so flummoxed by the Wesley So affair he ranted on Twitter.
Simon says why was it news when the young chess grandmaster appealed to the National Chess Federation of the Philippines to allow him to switch allegiance to the United States Chess Federation soon as he becomes an American citizen to improve his game?
“Chess! Really?” Simon tweeted. “How is that even classed as a sport! Snakes and ladders should be a sports, too, then.”
Filipino chess followers-cum-netizens swiftly fired back. Then all hell broke loose.
Defenders of the board game played to perfection by Fisher, the enigmatic American and whose world federation was managed for years by “Campo,” the mercurial Filipino chess leader, were quick with their counter moves.
In so many words, the netizens were quick to say that Greatwich sucks and soccer, a sport of men and women kicking and advancing a ball to the goal line is inferior to chess, a game of men and women pushing figurines on a board.
Greatwich should stick to football where they are way behind in the world rankings, says NCFP president Prospero Pichay Jr. in a Facebook chat.
(As of this writing, Philippine football is 129th in the world after the Azkals failed to win the recent AFC Challenge Cup.)
On the contrary, local chess is 28th in the world, according to Pichay.
And Greatwich’s tweet? “No need to dignify a stupid comment,” said the NCFP head.
Greatwich’s potshot in a place where chess is popular and played from the barber shop to the board room, has a familiar ring in many parts of the world.
It’s because classical chess has not won the nod of the International Olympic Committee as an Olympic sport since it lacks the essential feature of physical activity, although curling, oftentimes called “chess on ice,” is an Olympic sport.
“Chess is a mind sport,” says Pichay. “In chess if you are not physically fit you won’t last.”
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Now I know why former sportswriter Bert Eljera, a resident of Las Vegas, Nevada, never hooked up with me and a mutual friend, ageless scribe Eddie Alinea, while we were in town to cover the Pacquiao-Bradley rematch last April.
Bert, whose journalistic journey has taken him from the old Bulletin Today in Manila to a number of newspapers in America, including the Orange County edition of the Los Angeles Times, has a medical hurdle to overcome.
He needs a new kidney since the donated organ transplanted 12 years ago is failing.
In a state that requires up-front money, Bert needs at least $15,000—plus expenses—to be considered for kidney transplant at University Medical Center in Vegas.
“Your donation is a debt I will likely not repay, but it will be something I’ll consider a gift of a lifetime,” Bert said on Facebook.
If you would like to send help by PayPal, Bert’s e-mail address is beljera123@yahoo.com.