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Monday
Evening QB
WAILUKU -- A buzzing noise begins when the field lights fire up at Iron Maehara Stadium, where Molokai beat Kamehameha, 8-7, for the state high school baseball championship Saturday. State abuzz over
Farmers once againThe buzz isn't the crowd, but an electrical glitch.
It's annoying for the first few minutes. Then you settle in to watch the game and forget about it. When you notice it again a couple innings later, still droning through the raucous crowd noise, you realize you wouldn't want it any other way. The imperfection makes the perfect evening even better. And if you're a baseball fan, that makes perfect sense.
Ballparks are like teams in that even the best ones always have a flaw. The difference is that the stadium's quirks add to a fan's enjoyment, while a favorite team's weakness can drive you to go bowling instead of watching baseball on beautiful Saturday nights.
High school sports fans are the most loyal of all, so Kamehameha's following will remain intact despite a hair-pulling four errors in the final. The miscues basically cost the Warriors the lead, the game, and a possible three state titles in the space of seven days. Boys' track won the previous Saturday at Mililani, and the girls' basketball team wrapped up its unbeaten season at the Stan Sheriff Center right around the same time Johnny Ray Dudoit was becoming king of Molokai.
Before he pitched the last inning to save the championship, Dudoit's homer off Kahi Kaanoi accounted for only one of seven fifth-inning Farmer runs. But when combined with the choppers, squeeze bunts, walks and seemingly dozen other ways the Farmers scratch out base runners, the 370-foot shot against the best pitcher in the state sent a clear message:
We can play our game. We can play your game. We can play this game.
IF they gave out congeniality awards in baseball, the Farmers would win those, too.
But Molokai's baseball ethics were questioned in Thursday night's comeback victory over Kapaa.
The Farmers were already up by five runs when they squeeze-bunted to score the final two in a five-run fifth inning. They also tried to steal a base in the sixth inning, with a 14-5 lead.
Cries of "bush-league" from the stands were humorously fitting and ironic at the same time: No offense, but isn't a team from Molokai bush by definition? Don't know. Let's ask Keith Luuloa, who became the Farmers' first big leaguer last week.
Anyway, who could stay mad at this crew for such minor transgressions? After all, this is a school that absorbed a 30-4 beating from Iolani in the 1976 tournament.
But fortunes have changed. For the second year in a row, the Farmers knocked out the Raiders.
This time they used a 10-run rally to -- you guessed it -- come from behind.
The big plays were two 30-foot chop singles, a couple hit batsmen and an error.
The Farmers crowded the plate, daring pitchers to try to push them off.
The charming boys from the Friendly Isle proved they can be tough when it's needed -- mentally and physically.
You've got to be serious and strong to make up 13 runs in three games against the best the rest of the state has to offer.
Last year, the Farmers grabbed hearts all over Hawaii.
This time, they broke a whole bunch of them, three nights in a row.
And you can still hear the buzz of Iron Maehara Stadium -- all the way from Kaunakakai to Alewa Heights.
Dave Reardon, who covered sports in Hawaii from 1977 to 1998,
moved to the the Gainesville Sun, then returned to
the Star-Bulletin in Jan. 2000.
E-mail dreardon@starbulletin.com