When Hawaii fans assemble at Les Murakami Stadium to root, root, root for the home team these days, they mean it.

Rich Hill has built a roster of Rainbow Warriors filled with 21 players who prepped in Hawaii, a lot of them on the home field at the state tournament. That’s the most Hawaii products on the local nine since Les Murakami’s final season in 2000, when he had a roster with 21 local boys on it.

In the dying moments of Murakami’s last contest way back when, second baseman Matthew Purtell of California was the only player on the field who didn’t play his high school ball in these fair islands. If Rory Pico had been healthy, Murakami’s last lineup could have been all local once starting pitcher Rich Snider got chased in favor of Chad Giannetti of Punahou.

Pico, who earned the most inspirational award as a senior, pinch-hit in the bottom of the ninth of the 7-2 loss to UH Hilo. Murakami’s setup in the top half was Kenn Wakakuwa of Hilo behind the plate, Jamie Aloy (Baldwin) at first, Purtell at second, Lane Nogawa (Mid-Pacific) at short, Danny Kimura (‘Iolani) at third and Neil Honma (Pearl City), Nate Jackson (Waianae) and Shane Chang (Kamehameha) in the outfield, with Bryan Lee (Mid-Pacific) on the hill.

There were some big names on that .500 team and Murakami’s career wasn’t the only one to fail to survive those quaint times. The number of local players on the roster decreased to 14 the next season (Murakami had a stroke and handed the reins to Carl Furutani) and with Mike Trapasso taking over, by 2007 the program didn’t have enough local players to even hold a scrimmage.

Trapasso embraced the local talent in his final two seasons, rostering 18 before being fired in 2021. Rich Hill then took Trapasso’s ingredients and cooked up quite a special plate lunch by the end of April.

Hill trotted out to home plate for a contest against Big West rival Cal State Fullerton a lineup that looked like this: Cade Halemanu of Pearl City on the mound, with DallasJ Duarte (Kamehameha-Hawaii) behind the plate, Jacob Igawa (Waiakea) at first, Stone Miyao (Waiakea) at second, Jordan Donahue (Damien) at short, Aaron Ujimori (‘Iolani) at third, Matt Wong (Saint Louis) in right, Cole Cabrera (Punahou) in center and Naighel Calderon (Lanai) in left, with Kyson Donahue (Punahou) serving as the designated hitter.

That’s right, an entire lineup, including a DH, of local high school stars, and it had not happened in more than 20 years and didn’t even happen in Hawaii’s first game with a college schedule in 1971 thanks to center fielder Steve Adler of California. Rich Hill wasn’t winning a ton — those ’Bows lost 7-0 but came back to win the series — but the new man in charge unwittingly made a statement.

Like Danny Murtaugh and his groundbreaking lineup of Black and Latino players for the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1971, I doubt Hill had any idea what he did — he just wanted to put the right players on the field.

He had an all-local lineup twice more that year on a trip to UNLV but none last year. It happened again this season in the second game when ‘Iolani’s Zach Tenn took the hill in the first inning to rescue starter Cory Ronan. The alignment around him was Duarte behind the plate, Ben Zeigler-Namoa (Baldwin) at first, Miyao at second, Jordan Donahue at short, phenom Elijah Ickes (Kamehameha) at third and Kyson Donahue, Matt Miura (Maryknoll) and Jake Tsukada (Punahou) in the outfield. California crusher Austin Machado was the designated hitter, but we don’t count that as a position as much as a perversion of baseball.

Machado was behind the plate in Sunday’s game against Rice, otherwise it would have been another lineup of Hawaii grown talent.

I don’t think I have cared about a team since Sid Bream slid home against the Pirates in 1992, as journalists back then weren’t supposed to be fans and the whole concept of fandom was flawed and is even more illogical now. As comedian Jerry Seinfeld put it, at this point we are rooting for laundry.

I can appreciate the passion people have for their San Francisco 49ers or Los Angeles Dodgers, but really all they are invested in is a rich man’s fantasy team. At least in the college game you could tell yourself that the young men and women on the field in the revenue-generating sports are here to learn alongside us, but the transfer portal has pretty much destroyed that notion. High school is no better, and even our annual Little League champions are often more a product of blurred district lines than a community that grew up together.

All people really want is a winner, but it is cooler for an old cynic when he can recognize some of the names on the scoreboard.