Giants' World Series-winning pitcher has Pinoy roots

Tim Lincecum is a World Series champion pitcher, a two-time Cy Young winner in the National League, twice winner of the Sports News NL Pitcher of the Year and a 2009 Major League Baseball (MLB) All-Star starting hurler for the NL squad.


And another thing, the 26-year-old right-handed pitcher has Filipino roots.

While Filipinos dream of someday seeing one of our own playing in the National Basketball Association (NBA), here is Lincecum, a Filipino-American who is proud of his Pinoy roots, playing in the big stage of America's favorite pastime.

Despite his slight 5-foot-11, 170-lb frame, Lincecum packed a wallop among the MLB pitchers. He compiled 2010 season stats of 3.04 earned run average (ERA), 907 strikeouts, 293 walks, and pitched four shutout games for a 56-27 win-loss record.

Lincecum didn't stop there, helping San Francisco get deep into the postseason where he scored a 3-1 win over the Atlanta Braves in the NL Division Series and a 4-2 victory against the Philadelphia Phillies in the NL Championship Series.

Lincecum and the Giants then met the Texas Rangers, the American League champions, for the World Series crown.
He posted a 2-0 record in the two games – Games 1 and 5 – he started for the Giants, winning his match-up against American League ace Cliff Lee of the Texas Rangers.

He pitched a total of 13.2 innings, giving up a combined 11 hits and four walks as against 13 strikeouts. He also had a 4.82 earned run average (ERA) and surrendered a solo home run to Texas rightfielder Nelson Cruz in the seventh inning of Game 5.

The Giants steamrolled past the Rangers in the World Series, winning the best-of-seven contest, 4-1, clinching the title with a 3-1 win on Game 5 behind Lincecum and veteran shortstop Edgar Renteria.

But it was Lincecum who became the toast of the town among the Bay Area's Filipino-American community.

Known as "The Freak," Timothy Leroy Lincecum, is a fourth-generation Filipino-American. He became the latest international sporting icon with Filipino roots, joining the ranks of other athletic greats such as Manny Pacquiao in boxing and Paeng Nepomuceno in bowling.

According to research by Filipino-American historian Dawn Bohulano Mabalon, Lincecum's great-grandmother, Alberta Alcoy Asis, was originally from Carcar, Cebu. 

She arrived in Hawaii as a young child at the turn of the century. She eventually married Genaro Asis and lived in Stockton where she gave birth to daughter Philomena.

Lincecum's mother Rebecca is in turn the daughter of Philomena Marcigan Asis and Balleriano Asis. Rebecca Asis married Chris Lincecum.

The Asises and Marcigans have a long history in the Stockton-Northern California area.

Both families were part of a huge wave of Filipino laborers that were recruited to work in sugar plantations in Hawaii during the 1900s. – KY/Jon Perez, GMANews.TV