Alumni from UH’s ’92 team leap back onto the diamond

Just as a certain song is part of your life’s soundtrack, taking you down memory lane when heard, certain scorebooks do the same, taking you down a basepath from long ago just by flipping the pages.

The dozens of scorebooks from my career take up more than just space in a file cabinet and a box in the garage. They are full of memories — the Hawaii Islanders’ final season of 1987 … the inaugural Hawaii Winter Baseball season of 1993 … and one with pages that came back to life Saturday at Les Murakami Stadium.

Players from Hawaii’s 1992 team that fell one win short of the College World Series were reunited in the third-base dugout, some for the first time since Rob Williams flied out to right at Arizona’s Frank Sancet Stadium in a 9-0 loss to eventual CWS champion Pepperdine.

It took just two varsity at-bats Saturday before the money play of Randy Vollmer at short and Billy Blanchette at first connected for the second out of the bottom of the first. It was as automatic as it was 21 years ago, when there were 41 consecutive sellouts at then-Rainbow Stadium, literally a fever pitch of a season, where standing-room-only tickets sold out quickly.

"What a blast," Blanchette said after UH pulled away for a 6-1 victory Saturday. "We just fell right back into it. It was awesome.

"That ’92 team had a special chemistry."

It was a big part of Blanchette’s courtship of soon-to-be wife Kendra when both were UH students. It was a family affair Saturday, with Kendra and daughters Jackie and Emma in the seats.

Vollmer’s son Ryan was on the field as the alumni batboy. Ryan ran the bases after the game, seemingly spending extra time at the same infield spot where his dad camped out … not just in games but often overnight, sleeping in one of his favorite places. At short. At the stadium.

"This was so special, to be back for the first time in all these years and have my son be part of it," said Vollmer, who lives in New Jersey and still plays competitive softball. "I haven’t seen a fastball in 20 years.

"I think what made the ’92 team so special is we were very close knit. We didn’t have superstars. We just had guys who were good at what they did."

Vollmer was the only alum to play all nine innings. Scott Karl, the ace of the 1992 team (14-3) was good for one, striking out the first batter he faced: Quintin Torres-Costa.

"Seeing all the guys was just fantastic," said Karl, a financial adviser in Las Vegas. "It brought back so many memories."

Karl’s final memory as a Rainbow in 1992 was a gem, a four-hit, eight-strikeout complete game that helped lift UH out of the loser’s bracket via a 6-3 win over Pepperdine. It forced a deciding game with the Waves later that overcast afternoon in Tucson, Ariz.

The scorebook still has water spots from that day in late May. Could be from the raindrops, could be from tears shed on the field by the players in the season-ending heartbreak loss. Hawaii finished 49-14, the last UH team to come that close to returning to Omaha, Neb., since the 1980 team made it to Johnny Rosenblatt Stadium.

But the players have remained close, even more so now with social media. Vollmer said all it took was a note from Chris Walz, who played both baseball and basketball for UH, to get him to book his flight.

"For some of the guys, all they needed was a spark," said Walz, who sandwiched two years of basketball in between his three years of baseball (1989-90, ’93). "I think everyone agrees that we are the stewards of this program, it belongs to all of us. This is home."

It felt that way Saturday. Coach Les, slowed by a stroke in 2000, was there. And so were pages from an old scorebook.

Reach Cindy Luis at cluis@staradvertiser.com.