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It’S time for Monday Night baseball!
The Hawaii baseball program will close its series with Connecticut tonight at Les Murakami Stadium for its only Monday game of the season. That’s a big deal in the Campany household since it is my day off and I get to sit back with a beer and see the local nine (Or is it 10?) compete. I work weekends, so my choices are limited.
Fans had their choice on Saturday. They could cross the bridge to SimpliFi Arena at Stan Sheriff Center and watch Hawaii’s men’s volleyball program take on UCLA or amble a few feet down Lower Campus Road and see the University’s baseball program take on Connecticut. I know what my choice would have been, but a vast majority of them picked mintonette with the volleyball match drawing 9,308 for the 12th sellout crowd in program history. The baseball team drew 2,448 for parts of a nearly 4-hour game in a park that holds 4,321.
Sure, the Outrigger Volleyball Invitational is a big deal on these shores with four of the seven (or so) programs that take the sport seriously in a sort of national championship preview and the baseball team isn’t even in conference yet. But to be outdrawn by men’s volleyball, which was televised while baseball wasn’t? That is unimaginable for people of a certain age, those who remember when baseball was the national pastime.
Les Murakami used to have the big show in town while fans waited for football season to arrive. The BaseBows led the nation in attendance in 1992, selling out 43 of 47 games for an average of 4,433 fans and improved that number to 4,663 a year later. Then the volleyball program signed Yuval Katz from the Israeli National Team to show off his skills in the new Stan Sheriff Center and everything changed.
Whether it was the players, the game or the new arena, the volleyball program took the shine off the baseball program and hasn’t given it back.
Murakami’s pride and joy sold out 30 of 43 games in 1994 before the Stanley sprouted from the ground. With the shiny white roof looming behind home plate in 1995, Hawaii sold out just five of its 38 baseball games and has not exceeded that number in a season since. Baseball attendance decreased every year after the Sheriff Center opened and volleyball attendance increased for the first three years. That’s to be expected, but the SSC isn’t new any more.
Forget the $400M for a new football stadium, it might be time to talk about a bigger house for the volleyball team. That program can actually sell out a building, something the football program hasn’t done since 2007 when Herman Frazier built a Sugar Bowl schedule and Colt Brennan and June Jones delivered.
The VolleyBows have outdrawn their neighbors nearly every year since then, with a little blip from 2012-14 when they were pretty much even. David Matlin is a baseball guy (he started his career in marketing for the Houston Astros) and must have done something right in his eight years as athletic director since he was placed into the Circle of Honor immediately, but baseball attendance isn’t one of those things. When he was hired at Hawaii I had visions of promotions that make minor league baseball great, but I guess he and Trap had other things to think about than Bark in the Park night.
It seems that all of the fun and excitement can be found on the other side of Ching Field.
Coming off the pandemic, coach Rich Hill filled less than half of the seats but wasn’t given much to work with. We’ll see where he goes from here, but he is going to need lots of luck igniting a fire that Mike Trapasso spent 20 years trying to spark. Winning is a big part of attendance, and Hill seems to be on his way on that count.
The Hawaii Islanders didn’t draw anyone in their dying days after moving to Aloha Stadium and the wonderful Hawaii Winter Baseball often seemed to have as many people on the field as in the stands. The final day of the HHSAA baseball tournament can draw a crowd to Les Murakami Stadium, but it hasn’t been held there since 2018.
Despite its rich history, the home of the Little League champions is just not a baseball place any more.
I will try to soak it up while I can.
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