ROD OHIRA'S PEOPLE
Hawai'i All-Star recalls 1935 tour
By Rod Ohira
Advertiser Staff Writer
Francis Goo never played baseball until his senior year at Saint Louis High School in 1931. But on the third pitch of his first at-bat, he smacked a pinch-hit, three-run homer to beat McKinley.
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He continued playing ball in local leagues into the early 1940s. In 1934, Goo played against a touring major league all-star team that included Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig and Jimmie Foxx. The following year, he went on a 130-game, six-month barnstorming tour of the United States and Canada with Buck Lai's Hawai'i All-Stars.
Francis Goo still has his fielder's glove from the 1930s, when he toured the Mainland with Buck Lai's Hawai'i All-Stars. Promoting Hawai'i was the goal, he said.
The 'Aiea resident, who will be 89 on May 28, has scrapbooks that are a priceless collection of newspaper clippings and photographs of Hawai'i's baseball past.
Primarily an outfielder who sometimes played infield, Goo still has his fielder's glove. It's as flat as a seat cushion, but there are several newspaper accounts of great catches he made using it. "When I see gloves with pockets that they use today, I always wonder how anyone could miss a ball," he said.
The 1935 tour was organized by Buck Lai and sponsored by the territorial Legislature to promote tourism.
Goo and 12 other players — Eddie Tam, Shipp Lo, Johnny Kerr, Albert "Slim" Holt, Richard Moniz, Al Nalua, Wataro Shinagawa, Bill Vickory, Hans Pung, Buck Lai Jr., Richard Yamada and Walter Rodrigues — left Honolulu on the steamship Malolo in April and returned in October.
"All Hawai'i Baseball Team" was painted on the side of a gray bus the team used to travel coast to coast. They played in San Francisco, Salt Lake City, Denver, Omaha, Chicago, St. Louis, Kansas City, Philadelphia, New York and Montreal.
"It was my first time away from Hawai'i," Goo said. "We played mostly every day and stayed in first-class hotels. Buck gave us $1 a day for meals, and in those days you could eat good for 30 cents.
"A lot of people never heard of Hawai'i or only knew Hawai'i for hula skirts and coconut trees," Goo recalled. "When they saw us on the bus, they were surprised we played baseball and could speak English.
"Some even asked how the road over was. They thought we drove from Hawai'i."
The 1935 barnstorming trip was not the first for a Hawai'i team.
Lai was 17 years old in 1912, when the Hawaiian Merchants and Advertisers Club of Honolulu selected him to play on the first Hawaiian Chinese University Nine baseball team to tour the Mainland. They played 150 games from March to October and did the same for the next four years to promote Hawai'i.
Until he was encouraged to try out for baseball at Saint Louis by his close friend and team captain Charles "Lymie" Alvaro, Goo had played only pick-up games at Pu'unui Community Park in Liliha. His interests were weight training and handball, and he spent a lot of time at Pete Baron's Gym on Bethel Street, near his father's downtown business H. Afong Clothing Store.
But once he started playing baseball, he did it year-round.
Goo gave up his job as a sales clerk at Liberty House when he took the barnstorming trip, and was encouraged by Bob Irvine, operations manager of Shell Oil in Hawai'i, which sponsored the Commercial League team.
"He told me, 'Son, you take that trip, because you are going to learn from the experience, and when you come back I'll have a job for you,'" said Goo, who retired as a personnel supervisor in 1970 after 35 years with Shell Oil.
Commercial League games were played on Saturdays at Honolulu Stadium in Mo'ili'ili. The top talent from that league played at the stadium on Sundays for Asahi (Japanese), the All-Chinese, Braves (Portuguese), Hawaiians or Wanderers (Caucasian) in the Hawaii Major League, where teams were set up by ethnicity.
Goo's teammates on the All-Chinese team included Willie Chai, Tommy Kaulukukui and Kerr.
"We played every Sunday for six months," Goo recalled. "My first year, (franchise owner) Harry Yim paid me $40 a month to play."
Goo and his wife, the former Angeline Gomez of Kaua'i, have been married for 53 years. They have four children, six grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.
Reach Rod Ohira at 535-8181 or rohira@honoluluadvertiser.com.
Correction: Hans Pung was a member of the "All Hawaii Baseball Team" that went on a barnstorming tour in 1935. His name was misspelled in previous version of this story.
