Game with Babe Ruth looms large in Hilo baseball lore

Four years ago I wrote about the great Babe Ruth playing baseball in Hilo in 1933. After the column ran, Herbert “Buster” Maruyama wrote to tell me his father, Nobuo Maruyama, was the host for the Babe’s stay in Hilo.

Ruth played with a Big Island all-star team versus the Waiakea Pirates. Buster’s father and Tsurumatsu Nakamura had founded the Waiakea Pirates Athletic Club in Hilo in 1924.

The Waiakea Pirates is one of the oldest sports clubs in the state, and I thought I’d write more about them and Ruth’s historic game.

The Pirates were champions of the Hilo Senior League in 1933 when Ruth stopped in Hawaii en route to Japan, Buster Maruyama said. The Babe was invited to play an exhibition game in Hilo.

Waiakea is the part of Hilo hardest hit by the 1946 and 1960 tsunamis. Much of the area was destroyed and, in anticipation of future tsunamis, never rebuilt.

I met with Gloria Kobayashi, whose father founded Cafe 100, when I was in Hilo last month. Kobayashi has written about Waiakea with Richard Nakamura in “The Yashijima Story: The History of Waiakea Town,” published by the Pacific Tsunami Museum in Hilo.

Yashijima means “coconut island” and was the name for the 10 square miles that make up the Waiakea Peninsula. It was a tightly knit, predominantly Japanese area.

‘SULTAN OF SWAT’

In 1933, George Herman “Babe” Ruth was near the end of his career — he would retire from baseball two years later — but still one of the most popular athletes in the country. He spent two weeks in Hawaii with his wife, Claire, and daughter, Julia.

When Ruth arrived at Hoolulu stadium in Hilo, he found more than 200 kids waiting outside because they didn’t have 25 cents to buy a ticket. Ruth invited the kids into the outfield while he took batting practice. He offered to autograph any ball they caught.

Anticipating a large crowd at this once-in-a-lifetime event, Nobuo Maruyama arranged for the movable outfield fence to be set 400 feet from home plate, thinking it was a safe distance from any batted balls. This allowed some room for cars to park beyond it.

“Babe Ruth crushed a ball well over the parked cars in right field,” Buster said. “This was the prodigious blow you mentioned in your article that was blasted 427 feet.”

The crowd had come to see the “Sultan of Swat,” and he didn’t disappoint. Ruth hit two home runs that day. Maybe even more exciting for the fans, the Waiakea Pirates beat Ruth’s all-star team, 7-6.

(My father-in-law, Henry Honda, was in the crowd that day and my wife’s uncle, Hideo ‘Kuro’ Yoshiyama, played for the Waiakea Pirates.)

Buster Maruyama said the Yoshiyamas lived across the street from his home in the Waiakea Houselots. Yoshiyama was no more than 5-feet-3-inches tall but was an excellent athlete. He was a centerfielder and lead-off batter for the Pirates.

“He was excited to play with Babe Ruth, even years later,” said Kuro’s daughter, Jane Okubo. “He had a ball signed by him and kept a big picture of Ruth and the Pirates under glass on a coffee table for 50 years. It was one of the high points of his life.”

ON THE BAMBINO’S LAP

After the game, Ruth, who stood 6-feet-2-inches tall, was invited to Maruyama’s home.

“The Babe was known to enjoy his liquid libation,” Buster Maruyama said. “My father was known for his ‘home brew’ from the Prohibition days. I am told that I sat on the Bambino’s lap as he enjoyed his drinks, signing a dozen or so baseballs in our basement.

“He commented it was the first time that he had autographed baseballs with India ink. My dad prepared that in order to preserve his signature on the balls. It has worked well. I have a signed ball, as does my brother.”

Maruyama said baseball was the major sporting event in the 1920s and 1930s in the islands. Football was a minor attraction then.

“Baseball teams were all organized along racial backgrounds. The Braves (Caucasian), Asahis (Japanese), Hawaiians, Filipino Athletic Club and Chinese Athletic Club were the predominant teams.”

Maruyama’s father played for the Japanese Athletic Club in Hilo, which dominated the baseball scene at that time due to high percentage of the population that was of Japanese ancestry.

However, within the Japanese community, there was some discrimination, Maruyama remarked. The Japanese boys from Waiakea came from a less-affluent area where their fathers were fishermen, stevedores, railroad workers and other blue-collar laborers.

“After playing for several years with the JAC team, my father formed a baseball team composed of mixed racial backgrounds, which was an unprecedented move. He recruited players of Japanese, Filipino, Hawaiian, Caucasian extractions on his team. He had a difficult time with the Japanese leaders in Hilo for a few years for breaking a tradition.”

PIRATES TRADITION

After playing in the Hilo Junior Baseball league and winning the championship for two consecutive years, the Waiakea Pirates team was admitted to the Hilo Senior Baseball league in 1929.

“They promptly won the championship the next four years. That is why the Waiakea Pirates played against Babe Ruth, who played with an all-star team from the Hilo Senior Baseball League.

Many Waiakea Pirates players went on to play for the University of Hawaii. Hilo football great Tommy Kaulukukui coached the Rainbows at UH-Manoa and paved the way for Hilo athletes to go to UH.

The first two were the sons of the Pirates founders: Buster Maruyama and Paul Nakamura. Many others followed in their footsteps.

Richard Nakamura, in “The Yashijima Story,” said that during coach Les Murakami’s first years at UH, the only trips the team made were to Hilo to play the Waiakea Pirates.

“The highlight of the two-game series was the great food hosted by the Pirates.”

Maruyama lives in Denver, where he practiced orthopedic surgery for 45 years.

“We return to Hilo several times a year and have attended the annual Waiakea Pirates gathering for the past 30 years or so,” he said.

The Waiakea Pirates organization is now in its 93rd year. Today, the club fields two baseball teams in the Hilo league and many Little League teams in the community.

Bob Sigall, author of “The Companies We Keep” series of books, looks through his collection of old photos to tell stories of Hawaii people, places and companies. Contact him via email at sigall@yahoo.com.