Thirty five years ago, a glamor team — a combination of some of the finest amateur players blended with the holdovers of the old Tanduay franchise — entered the Philippine Basketball Association and immediately caught the fancy of both long-time fans and young ones.
The squad would be known as the Purefoods Hotdogs, owned then by Don Jaime Zobel de Ayala, which purchased the old Tanduay franchise of Don Manolo Elizalde.
As the PBA was experiencing uncertainties with participation down to only five in San Miguel Beer, Ginebra San Miguel, Alaska, Shell and Great Taste, it was facing yet another challenging moment.
Over the past two years, the league had to find ways of filling up spots of teams leaving, either temporary or permanent, paving the way for the constant participation of the national squads as guest teams.
In 1988, the Hotdogs had secured the rights on the key players of the Tanduay Rhum Makers, Mon Fernandez, Freddie Hubalde, JB Yango, Willie Generelao, Padis Israel and Onchie de la Cruz, then exercised its rights of directly elevating players outside of the PBA without them joining the annual Rookie Draft.
They brought in four of the biggest stars from the Philippine quintet — Alvin Patrimonio, Jojo Lastimosa, Jerry Codinera and Glenn Capacio — and then exercised their options by selecting Jack Tanuan as the top overall rookie pick.
They also included Al Solis, acquired from Shell in a separate trade, who played a key role in the team’s first three seasons.
Chot Reyes, head coach of Gilas Pilipinas who previously worked as a young executive then at Purefoods, was able to convince then president Rene Buhain to join the PBA with the juicy offer and concession being given to the company.
The rest was history and the Hotdogs became the sixth member of the league.
In its first conference in the PBA, the Hotdogs participated without its prized forward, Alvin Patrimonio, who was caught in between the bitter tug-of-war between Purefoods and its rival company, Swift — his mother team in the old and now defunct Philippine Amateur Basketball League.
Patrimonio finally made his debut in the All-Filipino conference of that season, and not long enough, he would become Purefoods’ franchise player.
Despite its star-studded roster, Purefoods had a string of disappointing finishes as it couldn’t win the big one.
The Hotdogs had to wait for nine conferences before finally experiencing the feeling of becoming a PBA champion.
Different generations of Purefoods players were able to make the squad and turn it into one of the most successful ballclubs in the PBA.
Patrimonio would not only become the franchise player, but would also emerge as the next face of the PBA after Robert Jaworski.
He would go on to tie Fernandez’s four Most Valuable Player awards and would retire as a six-time league champion.
His former teammates, Lastimosa, who would play for the franchise for three seasons, and Codinera, who won five titles with the squad on top of being included in the All-DefensiveTeam 10 times, also joined Patrimonio in the first wave of the PBA’s all-time Greatest Players.
Players like Nelson Asaytono and Dindo Pumaren, their long-time teammates in the national squad, also had their share of great moments with the franchise.
Different generations of Purefoods players would go on to keep the team’s winning tradition and the last successful group was led by two-time MVP James Yap, who together with Kerby Raymundo established the new core group of the team before players like PJ Simon, Marc Pingris and Mark Barroca would come in later to help the team win a few more titles, including the grand slam in 2014.
Tim Cone, of course, was the architect of that grand slam as he was the only coach in the PBA to ever win two triple crowns in league history, but before him, there were a number of coaches who also etched their names in franchise history.
The late great Virgilio “Baby” Dalupan won his 15th and last PBA title while guiding the Hotdogs to their first ever title in the 1990 Third Conference while Ely Capacio gave Purefoods its first ever All-Filipino title in 1991.
Reyes started as an executive for Purefoods, but owes his coaching career a lot to the franchise he led to two titles as well as Ryan Gregorio, who won three titles.
Chito Victolero, now the caretaker of the fabled franchise, had won a title in the 2018 Commissioner’s Cup, and is looking for more.
He wants to continue the winning tradition of the franchise that has won 14 crowns, tied with Alaska at third for the all-time most number of championships.
This illustrious franchise had gone through quite a number of name changes, carrying different brands — from Hotdogs, to Tender Juicy Hotdogs, to Coney Island Ice Cream Stars, to Purefoods Oodles, to Purefoods Beefies/Corned Beef Cowboys, to B-Meg/Derby Ace Llamados, to Magnolia Star Hotshots to Chicken Timplados.
But to those diehards, who had supported and loved the team through the years, one name sticks to their minds — Purefoods.
