Baseball in Hawaii? As cool as it sounds

If you didn’t comprehend it was actual, you’d most likely suppose it was some sort of dream.

Teams with names just like the Honolulu Sharks, Waikiki BeachBoys and Maui Stingrays.

Fields plowed over previous sugarcane farms and set in locations referred to as Rainbow Stadium.

Young prospects like Todd Helton, Daniel Murphy and Ichiro Suzuki roaming round islands manner out within the Pacific – taking part in earlier than anyone knew who they actually have been.

“You’re reminding me now of the fond memories,” former Hawaiian Winter Baseball League proprietor Duane Kurisu informed MLB.com. “We carried a vision that went beyond baseball. … We felt that our role could be to develop the tools of Aloha, which included characteristics like trust, confidence, character and community.”

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Today, there are in style winter baseball leagues in Mexico, Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic and Venezuela, however from 1993-97 after which once more from 2006-08, there was the short-lived Hawaiian Winter League. Players from the U.S., Japan and Korea descended on tiny whaling cities like Lahaina and the tropical rain forests of Kauai. They stayed in beachside accommodations, they performed baseball in entrance of heat, welcoming crowds they usually, um, ate numerous pineapples?

“Pineapples,” former large leaguer and BeachBoy Daniel Murphy informed MLB.com. “They offer them everywhere, even in McDonald’s.”

The league was based by Kurisu, who fell in love with baseball taking part in pickup video games on sugar plantations alongside the north shore of Hakalau. It was “like in the movie ‘Sandlot,’” he says.

Hawaii labored with Major League Baseball, the KBO and the NPB to get the highest prospects and gamers out to the islands through the months of October to December for a 40-game season. Kurisu noticed the league as an opportunity to showcase Hawaii as a house for professional baseball and, extra importantly, a option to deliver collectively a mesh of cultures and other people via the best recreation on this planet.

“MLB and Asian baseball has great synergistic opportunities that can help bridge political and economic boundaries,” Kurisu says. “With HWB, it was not MLB vs. Japan vs. Korea. The players from different countries were mixed and they played together for their adopted cities in Hawaii.”

From ’93-’97, these cities have been Hilo (Stars), Honolulu (Sharks), Kauai (Emeralds), Maui (Stingrays) and West Oahu (Canefires). After funding points triggered the league to shutter following the ’97 season, Kurisu introduced it again from ’06-’08 with the Canefires, Sharks, Waikiki BeachBoys and North Shore Honu.

Rosters ended up that includes scores of future Major League expertise: Jason Giambi, Buster Posey, Derek Lee, Lorenzo Cain, Ian Desmond, Aaron Boone, So Taguchi, Dexter Fowler and Matt Wieters have been simply a number of the 157 Hawaiian baseballers who finally made it to the large leagues.

The most legendary identify? Ichiro.

“Ichiro, man. His name would keep popping up throughout,” Kurisu says. “It was from Day 1. One day I was with some farm directors, they said you gotta look at this kid. Here was this small guy hitting bombs. This was the first inkling of who Ichiro was. I saw it in BP. He was hitting things beyond these warehouses that were over 450 feet away.”

Ichiro’s stint within the Hawaiian Winter League helped launch him right into a sensation. His Japanese supervisor had despatched him there to alter his swing and return the following season a brand new participant. Ichiro did the alternative.

From “Boys of Winter,” by Don Chapman:

“Instead of learning a new swing while he was with the Stars, Suzuki honed his unique style. And he kept swinging a coal shovel, the only training aid he has ever used. That may explain his unusual swing. But nobody could argue with the coal shovel’s results. In Hilo, Suzuki hit .311 (second in the HWBL behind future Dodger Chad Fonville’s .370), was third in RBI (24), second in stolen bases (14) and was named the league’s MVP.”

The subsequent yr in Japan, 20-year-old Ichiro led the JPL with a .385 batting common and have become the primary Japanese participant to succeed in 200 hits in a single season.

Oh, and that Japanese supervisor who needed him to alter his swing? He was fired.

“I hit a home run in like three straight at bats out there I think — two or three. I had a pretty good stretch there,” Murphy stated. “I played pretty well so that would probably be my highlight.”

“All I remember is I played terrible that year,” Cain remembers. “Maybe I hit .230. We had just played a full season and then went out there and played basically a fall league. I was [tired].” (Although Cain’s Hawaii stint was poor, his reminiscence is superb: He hit .231).

Posey led the BeachBoys (together with future execs Yonder Alonso and Todd Frazier) to a winter league title, batting .338 with 15 RBIs.

Giambi performed simply 19 video games for Kauai in ’93, however he raked — hitting .342 with 5 HRs and 14 RBIs. Look on the smirk on his baseball card. He knew he was going locations.

Hawaii native Benny Agbayani performed three seasons within the HWBL, however the Mets’ Minor Leaguer wasn’t even on anyone’s radar when the Honolulu Sharks got here calling in ’93. From “Catch the Dream” by Lance Tominaga:

“In 1993, we asked the MLB Commissioner’s Office for Benny,” the HWB official stated. “We wanted him to play in our league. They checked with the Mets organization, and the response was that they had no one by that name. We asked them to check again, and they came back with the same response. Then we called the Mets organization ourselves, and after much rigor, they finally found the name “Benny Agbayani.”

Hawaii League officers weren’t certain “what would have become of Benny if he did not play for Hawaii Winter Baseball.” Agbayani made a reputation for himself, main the HWBL in RBIs (30) in ’95, and, in fact, turning into a beloved cult hero for the Mets throughout their 2000 playoff run.

Two ladies, right-hander Lee Anne Ketcham and first baseman Julie Croteau, suited up for the Stingrays in ’94 — turning into the primary feminine gamers in an MLB-sanctioned winter league. They had barnstormed with the unbiased Colorado Silver Bullets the summer season earlier than. Ketcham completed the season with a 6.75 ERA and 5 strikeouts over eight innings. She had struck out 14 in a recreation for the Silver Bullets — her small, highly effective body reminding scouts of Tom Gordon.

Croteau solely batted .083, however she was all the time higher recognized for her protection, making zero errors in 11 video games. “With men and women playing at this level, I believe it will spark little girls to play baseball,” Croteau stated in “Boys of Winter.”

The gamers, in fact, are necessary to selling a brand new league, however so are the logos. So are the group names. And the Hawaiian Winter League had a number of the finest.

“There were two logos that, as I recall, New Era said were in the top 10 nationally during the time,” Kurisu stated. “One was the Maui Stingrays and the other was the Honolulu Sharks.”

Just take a look at a few of these beauties.

Kurisu employed well-known Hawaii agency Synergy Design to work up all of the branding.

“It was sort of like being called up by a country and being asked to invent their flag, state seal and currency,” lead designer Alan Low stated in “Boys of Winter.” “Do you know the way exhausting it’s to attract a stingray throwing a baseball?“

Some group designs have been meant to symbolize the traits and values of their corresponding cities. Hilo was a standard, All-American metropolis with extremely clear skies at evening, so the Synergy group went with Hilo Stars — the colours being purple, white and blue. Kauai could be very inexperienced and jewel-like, so the group was nicknamed the Emeralds. Other names and logos “were just fun,” says Low. See the Sharks or West Oahu Canefires.

“We also forced the umpires to wear Aloha or Hawaiian shirts,” Kurisu says, laughing. “The regular Hawaiian garb. But it only lasted half a season. They were reprimanded by the umpire association or someone. It was pretty neat, you know? Can you visualize it?”

But what occurred off the sector? What did gamers do once they have been outdoors the stadium? They lived in paradise for 2 months — how did they spend it?

Murphy almost noticed his teammate get thrown in jail.

“We were in Waikiki Beach so you were never too far away from the ocean no matter where you stayed with it. I had a teammate pick up a sea turtle, and a local told him you get in big trouble for that — can’t touch the sea turtles around there. Big trouble. Against the law, apparently.”

Cain witnessed a Halloween parade he is by no means seen and possibly won’t ever see the likes of once more.

“I think we had a day off a week. Every Thursday or something like that. I was too young to go out and get in the clubs, so I basically went to the beach with buddies. That’s it. Hung out at the beach. One thing I really remember was Halloween over there. I sat on my stoop and watched. They closed down the whole street and just thousands of people were walking around, dressed up. That was really memorable. It was a thing there. I had never seen anything like that. I just sat on the stoop and people-watched.”

Drew Butera, who performed for the North Shore Honu with Cain in ’06, noticed Bobby Parnell get pulled off his surf board by a shark. Kind of.

“We went surfing one time and got into a pretty funny situation,” Butera stated. “In between sets, Bobby Parnell had his ankle leash grabbed and his board tilted down into the water. We all freaked out instantly because we thought it was a shark. We all thought, ‘We’re going down.’ After about a minute of total panic, the leash let go and we saw a turtle swim away.”

Kurisu recalled different gamers who took benefit of the distinctive expertise.

“Chris Widger loved this place — he boogie-boarded every day,” he stated. “Kids would hike, some of them learned to swim here. R.A. Dickey home-stayed with a family on the big island in Hilo and the family still talks with him today. Dickey would want to go with them to these different school activities, singing and dancing at Lei Day celebrations.”

Players took day journeys to deep-sea fish, entice prawns and decide opihi (a tiny shellfish that lives on the aspect of rocks in northwest Hawaii).

“One year, we kalua-ed a pig,” Kurisu says. “We actually built an imu [pit oven] at Hans L’Orange [Park] on the other side of the left-field fence. That was a great experience for the players.”

But among the best examples of groups catching Kurisu’s “Aloha” spirit was throughout a Thanksgiving beach-feast in 1994. The group was the Maui Stingrays, made up of gamers from three completely different nations and cultures — future execs like Takashi Ishii, Koji Tahara, Quinton McCracken and Craig Counsell. The gamers put turkeys into a giant imu within the sand and paddled canoes out to close by islands — speaking and laughing deep into the night as a Hawaiian band performed.

You can nearly image your self there, toasting to a heat sundown disappearing behind the Pacific.

Kurisu says he is able to revive Hawaii winter baseball at any time when MLB asks him to take action. I’ve a fairly good feeling all of us are.

Special because of MLB.com’s Adam McCalvy and Thomas Harding for his or her reporting