Codinera?s legacy lives on
By Eddie Alinea
PhilBoxing.com
Mon, 26 Mar 2018
Filomeno 'Boy' Codinera Jr.
Now that Adamson University has ruled both the UAAP men?s baseball and women?s softball tournaments, its third in 31 years, not a few savants sat down trying to decide who was the most valuable Falcon in the history of the school.
That?s quite easy.
The most artful Falcon of them all no longer hit a homer with the bases loaded, stole home in a championship game, struck the side out with the tying run on third or got long-time buddy and rival Baby Manzanares to pop out with the game or the title on the line.
In fact, the most valuable individual never played an inning decades since ending his playing career. All he had been doing was made out a lineup, moved an infield in, charted plays that gifted Adamson seven UAAP baseball championships and four softball plums. That?s besides winning, too, several commercial and National Open diadems.
Filomeno ?Boy? Codinera Jr. had been doing all those mentioned above as a player. Remember, he was the guy who inscribed his name in the Guinness Book of World Records during the 1968 World Softball Championship, held in Oklahoma, where the Philippines ended up fourth.
Codinera, Coach Boy to his players and member of his coaching sfaff, was also a member of the 1966 national baseball team that finished third in the World Championship held in Honolulu, Hawaii. He was also the main cog in the Philippine Blu Boys? offensive rotations in the country?s marching triumphantly to three Asian title conquests.
Most importantly, Codinera, ?Big Boy? or ?Blaha? (as in bahala na), or ?Minong,? who could have celebrated his 79th birthday yesterday (Sunday) is credited for laying the cornerstone of the San Marcelino-based school?s becoming a baseball and softball dynasty today.
Credit should also be given to him for charting the playing and coaching career of his long-time understudies Orlando Binarao in baseball and Ana Santiago in softball.
Binarao, who Codinera spotted as a promising campaigner in baseball talent-rich Zamboanga City, has won three-straight UAAP crown fro 2007 to 2010 or two years after inheriting the coaching job at Adamson. His title triumph this year raised his record to four and 12th overall for the Falcons.
Santiago, on the other hand, has led the Lady Falcons to their 14th crown since assuming the mentoring job from Codinera in 2003. She started her coaching by winning five of her first six assignments, including a four-peat from 2003 to 2007.
The Lady Falcons? title victory this season was their eighth straight breaking he previous seven-peat feat of he now inactive Manila Central University.
More significantly, the Falcons? and their lady counterparts? double jewel goes into the books as Adamson?s third since Codinera and his boys and girls gave the school its first in 1987. They attained the rare feat again in the 2008-2009 seasons.
Codinera first rose into international fame when he belted out seven doubles in three games, including one against the eventual champion United States during the Second Men?s World Sofball Championship in Oklahoma that earned for him and the country a page in the Guinness Book of World Records, the first Filipino athlete to have been so honored.
He is to be remembered, too, as the guy who cracked a grand slam home run in the Philippines? dramatic 6-0 conquest of Mexico during the 1972 World Championship held at the Marikina Sports Center where the Blu Boys duplicated the fourth place finish fashioned out by their 1968 predecessors Oklahoma City.
No less than then President Marcos and then Rizal Provincial Gov. Isidro Rodriguez, softball association president, were among the some 32,000 spectators who watched Codinera?s heroics.
Blaha?s love for baseball and softball continued even after his playing days turning into mentoring and guiding, too, the numerous national teams in both sports to Asian and Southeast Asian championships.
?If I have to live another life, I will, for sure, be playing baseball and softball,? Minong confided to sportswriter friends in one of their drinking sessions by way of expressing his undying love for both sports.
Codinera married tall and beauteous Beatriz Guzman, a schoolmate at the University of Santo Tomas where, other than baseball and softball, he also played basketball. The union produced high-rocketing basketball-playing siblings Harmon, Jerry and Pat, who all saw action in in the PBA. Lone girl Pamela is now based in Los Angeles with her mom.
Click here to view a list of other articles written by Eddie Alinea.
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