It's no secret that New York native Rafe Bartholomew, author of the first ever book on Philippine basketball Pacific Rims, lived in the Philippines from 2005 to 2008. He was granted a one-year Fulbright grant to study Philippine basketball. He ended up staying for two more years, during which he learned the Filipino language. "My time in the Philippines was the best three years of my life," he said.

"Basketball is what brought me here, but the country is really what kept me here," Batholomew revealed at the first Philippine book launch of Pacific Rims on August 21 at National Bookstore Cubao. His fans and members of the media lauded the book and his love for the Filipino culture. He said, "It's hard to explain how it feels to have all these people say these wonderful things about (me). It's wonderful and it's also a little weird."

Judging by the book reviews, online buzz, and book sales, Bartholomew seems well on his way to becoming the adopted foreigner of the Filipino community worldwide.

Read on as Bartholomew--or Paeng Bartolome, his Filipinized name that some of his friends call him by--talks to event host Lia Cruz, the press, and the public at the book launch about thinking of playing pro basketball in the Philippines, talking to Willie Revillame, and surviving PBA superstar Willie Miller's naked rite of passage.

(To read SPOT.ph's one-on-one interview with Bartholomew, click here.)

What compelled you to spend three years of your life in the Philippines to write about the Filipino fixation with basketball?

It started off with my own love for basketball. My father was a player, and he brought me to a gym every day from the time I was eight years old. And then I started discovering more about basketball in the Philippines when I read a book called Big Game, Small World. It described kids playing in the street wearing their tsinelas and the way people would do anything to get a game in. It was just so inspiring to me. I didn't know I was going to be here for so long because I was supposed to stay for only nine months. I just found so much. The basketball culture and the culture in general are so rich. I enjoyed being a part of it and learning so much that I didn't want to go home  Honestly, if I hadn't left, I would probably still be doing basketball research.

What are the highlights of the book?

Part of the book has this narrative of the Alaska season. It was 2007 and the Alaska Aces actually won the championship so there was good love around for them. You get to see the interaction between the import Rosell Ellis and different players. He's so serious and he has sort of a quiet feud with Willie Miller who is the funniest guy in the planet. So there's the team dynamic and also the history. I talked to Kurt Bachmann and some of the older Olympians like Freddie Webb about the role basketball has played in the Philippines for decades, even going back to the '30s.

Can you name one thing that struck you during your stay in the Philippines?

The funniest, this is an easy basketball example. It was the first time Willie Miller ever surprised me with his nakedness, which is a common occurrence for many of his teammates. I was in the locker room before a game and someone tapped me on the shoulder. I turned around and I'm like, "Oh it's the MVP!" I was just starting with them so I didn't really know him or anyone very well. He's just there and he's like, "Hi Rafe!" and then he slapped me on the shoulder and went to the shower and all the guys were laughing. It was a rite of passage.

Rafe Bartholomew with Danton Remoto, one of the teachers at the Ateneo de Manila University whom Bartholomew thanked in his book for "(teaching him) so much about Philippine history and society."

How did you manage to get sources for the book?

I read as much as I could. Atlas Sports Weekly and Champ magazines were very important to me. Also, I got to meet a lot of the players who shared all their stories: the rumbles, the times they got elbowed and every trick of the trade. It was amazing to watch them open up because they're used to being asked questions like "How many points did you score?" and "What did you think of the game?" but not always questions like "How did you feel when you won that?" They would talk for hours. I think I had a four-hour interview with Ed Cordero once. It just kept going and going and going. It was great.

How did you get into all the basketball circles?

Whenever I was interested in learning some aspect of the game, I could ask my adviser Sev Sarmenta and he'd point me in the right direction and introduce me to someone.

A lot of sports journalists helped me too. I could always turn to journalists like Sev, Bill Velasco, and Quinito Henson. I ended up interviewing almost all of the big basketball columnists here. After I interviewed them, we would keep seeing each other and they'd keep giving me a heads up on things to look into.

What did you think of the gays versus midgets showdown in Cebu you went to?

I guess I was bothered by it. During the first 10 minutes of the game, I was laughing with the crowd, and then the game just went on and on and on. The players looked tired and just wanted to go home. It was a little too much for me to handle. That's when I said in the book that it was probably when I felt the most foreign in the country. At that time, I had been here for over two years. I was starting to feel like I understood things and then I went to this game, and I felt like I couldn't understand this at all. I was a little disappointed with myself and I also just couldn't handle it.

Why do you think no Filipino has ever written a book about Philippine basketball?

Hindi ako sigurado. Para sa inyo, pangkaraniwan ang basketball katulad ng kanin. (I'm not sure. For Filipinos, basketball is part of everyday life like rice.) It may not have occurred to people that such a part of their everyday life was very, very special. The same way that I don't go outside in New York and go, "Oh, I want to learn about this culture." I hope this book leads to more books written about Philippine basketball because there's a lot more to say.

How did you pitch the idea of studying Philippine basketball to the selection committee that gave you the Fulbright grant?

That was a challenge because the Fulbright is an academic grant and most of my colleagues and batchmates were studying economics, micro finance, migration issues, very academic-sounding stuff. And here I was saying I wanted to write about basketball. I think I just had to give them the evidence that basketball plays a really important and unique role in Philippine society. Luckily, I made a good enough case to pass the first round. A Filipino panel judged the second round; I think once they saw it, I was in pretty good shape.

What was the audience in your mind when you were writing this book?

I was writing it for an American publisher and knew that they were planning to primarily sell the book in the United States so I was writing it for that audience in some ways. If I were writing it for the Filipino audience, I probably wouldn't have to explain terms. No reason to be like, "Longganisa is a sausage." But at the same time--I never really told my editor this and I don't know if he knows it or not--the people I wanted to be impressed with this book were the Filipinos, people who understood what I was trying to write about better than I do.