Goodbye Toyota (Feb. 14, 1984)

Valentine's Day turned out to be a sour one for Toyota fans after Tempo columnist Beth Celis first reported the team's decision to disband before the start of the 1984 PBA season despite a denial from team manager Jack Rodriguez.

Goodbye Toyota

By Beth Celis

Tempo

Published Tuesday Feb. 14, 1984

Toyota is out of the All-Filipino conference of the Philippine Basketball Association. And, for all intents and purposes, Toyota won’t be around the rest of the pro season.

A confidential source, who requested anonymity, yesterday, confirmed a Tempo report that Toyota is disbanding this year due to the hard times.

“It is definite. Management has made the decision to disband the team,” the source said. “It is irrevocable.”

Told that Toyota team manager Jack Rodriguez had denied any plan to disband the team, the source countered: “Let him deny it, the inevitable will come. Just wait and see.”

Only a miracle, according to the source, could stop the disbandment of Toyota. One option is to sell the Toyota franchise and all the players to an interested buyer, including Greggy Araneta, the President’s son-in-law.

It was gathered that Toyota has been negotiated with some clubs who have shown interest in its players.

“The talks are top-level,” the source stated, “with even the coaches of the teams involved unaware of what’s going on.”

The reason Toyota wanted to keep the disbandment decision hush-hush is because of the ongoing negotiations for player sale.

“The other PBA clubs may not negotiate with Toyota anymore if the team is disbanding,” the source said. “They would rather wait for the Toyota players to become free agents so they would be less expensive.”

Rodriguez, when contacted by this paper’s Rey Bancod yesterday, vehemently denied that Toyota is disbanding.

“I don’t know where you got the story,” Rodriguez said. “If there is one man who can disband the team that’s Don Ricardo Silverio and he is out of the country.”

The Tempo source said it was Rodriguez himself who recommended to management the disbanding of the second most winningest team in the play-for-pay loop.