ARE you ready for some baseball? Some REAL baseball? Baseball will be a
welcome sight at AlohaNo artificial pinging sounds from aluminum bats, but those of baseballs being solidly struck by wooden bats. No designated hitters, but ball players who have to take the field if they want a turn at bat.
Also, real baseball games that aren't exhibitions or all-star contests with players in cameo roles. But games that actually count in the regular-season standings.
Then go to the National League series between the San Diego Padres and the St. Louis Cardinals Saturday and Sunday at Aloha Stadium. And be part of a likely record baseball crowd for Aloha Stadium. At last count, nearly 33,000 tickets have been sold for each day.
They're billing it as "The Padres in Paradise." They being the Padres, who used to be the parent club of the Triple-A Hawaii Islanders for 12 years.
San Diego is the only major-league team ever to play at Aloha Stadium. The Padres also played a three-game exhibition series against the Seibu Lions of Japan's Pacific League in the spring of 1979. The series drew a disappointing attendance of 19,744 fans. But it was only exhibition baseball, after all.
THE Aloha Stadium record for a baseball game was set twice in 1977 by the cash-poor Islanders, thanks to giveaway promotions. On April 29, they set a Pacific Coast League record of 25,189 fans and topped it with a Fourth of July night crowd of 33,903, many entering on 50-cent discount tickets.
So the REAL baseball attendance mark -- at least in terms of gross receipts -- could be when 18,348 fans turned out on May 19, 1979, to see Derek Tatsuno pitch the University of Hawaii to an 11-1 victory over Nevada-Las Vegas.
Interestingly, the Padres drafted Tatsuno that summer, ostensibly for the home-town Islanders, but he opted to play in Japan instead. And the Padres protested the deal.
Now, the Padres are pro-Japanese. Especially after signing a working relationship with the Chiba Lotte Marines, which gave them exclusive negotiating rights to Hideki Urabu. Only, like Tatsuno, Urabu became yet another pitcher of Japanese ancestry to say no to the Padres.
Speaking of what goes around, comes around, one of the Padres we're anxious to watch this weekend is future Hall of Famer Tony Gwynn, who's worth the price of admission by himself.
Gwynn played at Aloha Stadium for the Islanders in 1982, batting .328 in 93 games before finishing the year with the Padres. He played only 17 more games in the minors before becoming a fixture at San Diego, a .300 hitter ever since with seven NL batting titles.
WHILE at San Diego State, where he excelled in both baseball and basketball, Gwynn also played against the Rainbows. So it'll be a coming-home party of sorts for him.
Finally, watching the Padres from high atop the baseball press box back of home plate will surely bring back memories of the old Islanders, especially their very first and last games at Aloha Stadium.
After a very successful run at the old Honolulu Stadium -- where they closed the 15th season by winning their first outright championship in 1975 -- the Islanders opened at Aloha Stadium the following April 9 with a 5-4 victory over the Spokane Indians before 13,695 fans. Ex-New York Yankee Joe Pepitone was the first Islander to hit a home run at Aloha Stadium, although the honors for the first out of the park went to Spokes' Jimmy Rosario.
Their first of 12 years at Aloha Stadium proved to be as memorable for the Islanders as they won the PCL title again. But they ended with a whimper on Aug. 20, 1987, as only 3,819 diehard fans saw them play for the last time.