A chapter of Philippine Basketball Association history was written by San Miguel Beer on Wednesday night, when the Beermen completed their magnificent comeback from 0-3 down in their best-of-seven Philippine Cup title series with Alaska.

That rally will forever be remembered not only in the PBA, but by every student of the sport all over the world.

It was the classic exemplification that it’s never really over until the fat lady sings; that there is hope whenever a game is still to be played and that one should never give up no matter what the odds.

Seeing the Beermen celebrate with their supporters and their faithful at the Mall of Asia Arena floor that night was hair-raising to say the least, just when the balloons were dropping from the rafters, just when the confetti were popped and when the bubbly was flowing.

You can’t help but be happy for them for all the hard work they put in, for continuing to believe when practically no one else would.

And then there were the vanquished, the gallant Aces who gave it their all each and every game and yet still fell short to become a sorry tidbit of that piece of history that the Beermen just wrote.

Alaska didn’t really roll over and die after taking that commanding 3-0 lead. The series was practically conceded to them, maybe even by the Beermen themselves.

Getting four strikes to get just one hit, to borrow a baseball parlance, simply was a favorable odd for any team, even if it was a squad as talented as Alaska.

The basketball Lady Luck simply did not want to smile on them. They also put in the hard work and played their hearts out but simply failed to reap the fruits of their labor in the end.

It started in Game 4, when they blew an 11-point lead with 3:31 to go and a four-point advantage after the first minute of overtime to lose for the first time to San Miguel in the conference.

For sure, the Aces and their fans are saying that there will always be another all-Filipino title to be won, that there’s always a next conference to be played.

But this one was painful, and as a keen student of the game, I really feel for them. The Aces deserve that title as much as the Beermen did.

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Alex Compton, the Alaska coach, was the first to make his way to the press room for the interview, with his San Miguel counterpart Leo Austria busy celebrating with his players and their fans on the court.

Always the jolly fellow, Compton showed up with his head bowed and talked in a way that made sure that everyone present could feel the pain that was in his chest.

It was un-Compton like, and if you happen to know the guy personally, it was even more painful hearing him talk that way.

“I’d like to thank the Lord for He is good,” Compton opened up. “I’d like to thank him for bringing me here and giving me these guys that I can coach.”

He talked with his head bowed. There were no jokes told and he kept his voice to the very minimum that every reporter and photographer there needed to stop what they were doing just to hear what he had to say.

“You guys have known me for a long time, I’ve been here (in the Philippines) for a long time. I won an MVP and a championship in the MBA,” Compton said. “I did commercials in my time (as a player) and had billboards (along highways).

“But to tell you guys frankly, I have never felt more empty in my life,” Compton said. “But I still like to thank the good Lord for this and for giving me my team, there’s no other group of guys in the planet I’d rather coach.”

Compton and his Aces should hold their heads high. It’s simply the way the ball bounces, the nature of the game. There will always be a winner and a loser in any competition.

It just so happened that they were the ones on the losing end on this one, and the way they lost it just made it more painful.

But life has to go on, and if one sulks too much thinking of a misfortune that just happened, it would be much harder picking one’s self up again. And by that, the next battle would have already been lost.

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Austria and Compton are great friends.

It’s a relationship that started at Rain or Shine during the franchise’s earliest years in the PBA.

Both embraced at centercourt just after the final buzzer of Game 7 had sounded, it was an act witnessed by the close to 24,000 fans that showed up at the ultra-modern arena.

Austria now has a 3-0 record over Compton, with Alaska managing to win just six games in three best-of-seven series that started in the Philippine Cup Finals last season.

Reporters were eager to know what the exchange was at halfcourt during that hug, and being the great friend that he is, Austria praised Compton for a job well done.

“I told him that we were just lucky,” Austria told the nosy reporters who pressed him for details on that short conversation. “I congratulated him for doing a good job. I told him that we were just fortunate in winning.”

You can see the genuine concern on Austria when he talked about Compton. One can sense the genuine friendship.

“I just told him to hang in there, to just keep working hard because his time will ultimately come,” Austria said.

After covering such a grueling series, it was definitely heart-warming to hear those gladiators talk that way.

It’s the side of sportswriting that gives more color to the already colorful world of sports. It’s statements like those that dramatize that men — human beings, that is — are still the best stories in sports and not the scores they come up with.