There are many things to do in Nashville, Tenn., from visiting the Country Music Hall of Fame to attending the Grand Ole Opry to a day trip to the nearby Jack Daniel’s Distillery.
But the Hawaii baseball team is booked for only two things.
“We came to play baseball and to study,” said head coach Mike Trapasso, whose Rainbow Warriors play defending national champion Vanderbilt this weekend on the Nashville campus.
The ’Bows arrived on Wednesday morning in advance of Friday’s opener to the three-game series. It was a cold welcoming.
“It was snowing here in Nashville,” Trapasso said in a telephone interview. “It’s supposed to warm up each day. It’ll be cold on Friday and chilly on Saturday. It should be 60 by Sunday.”
For this trip, Trapasso is moonlighting as tutor and proctor for the 27 players on the travel roster. The ’Bows will have study hall this morning, with practice set for tonight at Hawkins Field. “Nothing else,” Trapasso said. “It’s not a sightseeing tour.”
UH also will not get rich off this trip.
“There are no money games in college baseball,” Trapasso said. “That’s only a football thing.”
The purpose, Trapasso said, is “you want to experience things that are out of your region. More than anything else, you want to challenge yourself to play the best competition that you can to prepare you for conference play. You’re not going to get better competition than playing at the defending national champs.”
It is a formula the ’Bows have used in previous seasons. In 2014, the ’Bows played four road games against Texas. In 2018, they played three games at LSU. Last season, they traveled to Ohio State.
“We’ll go anywhere and play anyone anytime as something we’ll use in recruiting,” Trapasso said. “It’s not lip service. We’ve done it.”
Vanderbilt is 8-2, having won seven in a row, and ranked No. 2 nationally. Kumar Rocker is one of college baseball’s best pitchers, with a 2-0 record, 0.75 ERA and an average of 15.8 strikeouts per nine innings. Two other starters — Mason Hickman and Jack Leiter, whose father is former major league pitcher Al Leiter — have not allowed an earned run this season. Six starters are hitting .310 or better.
“It’s going to be a cool experience,” UH first baseman Alex Baeza said. “It’s little Hawaii going out to face the No. 2 team in the nation. What is there to lose? All the pressure is on them. We’re going to go out and play our game. No pressure.”
Second baseman Dustin Demeter added: “Getting to play in front of thousands of people and playing a high-caliber school like Vanderbilt will be really fun for us. It’ll be good for the young guys to experience something like that. It’ll be nothing but good for the team.”
