Waipi'o team is tired, but won't stop to rest

For the first time since 1988, Hawai'i will have a representative at the Little League World Series for 11 and 12 year olds. The tournament starts tomorrow in Williamsport, Pa.

Waipi'o will play Worcester, Mass., in the first game of the opening round-robin.

Clyde Tanabe, 47, who has been coaching youth baseball for 17 years, is Waipi'o's manager. His son Kurt, 12, is a member of the team.

Tanabe agreed to share his thoughts with Advertiser readers in a daily dairy during the World Series.

By Clyde Tanabe
Special to The Advertiser

The team spent all Tuesday traveling from San Bernardino Calif., where they won the Northwest Regional on Monday night with a 5-2 victory against Idaho.

The players have slept 11 hours in two days. After Monday's victory, the players slept at about 1 a.m. and awoke at 6 a.m. Tuesday to leave Los Angeles. The players didn't get to bed until 2 a.m. Wednesday in Williamsport.

We got in at about 12:15 a.m. to the Williamsport Airport and were picked up in three vans. The airport is small, something like Moloka'i (where the team won the state championship).

They fed us a snack — sandwiches and chips — and we took showers.

I told them to go to bed. The next I know, they're playing baseball (in their room). I said, 'OK, go have a good time.' No sense forcing them to sleep.

We woke up about 8 a.m. and had breakfast about 8:30. We took a tour of the compound, got instructions for laundry, and were fitted for uniforms and jackets.

We relaxed in our rooms an hour before lunch — all the boys are housed in one room with seven bunk beds. In Moloka'i, the boys slept on the floor.

They (the hosts) will make special accommodations for Sanoe Aina (the only girl on the team who is expected to arrive today). In San Bernardino, they told her she had to sleep in a separate room. Her mom, Laurie, is accompanying her.

After lunch we tried to relax, but the kids were still excited and bouncing off the walls.

They started playing baseball in the room using a Nerf ball with a plastic, inflatable bat. They used beds as bases — just making up their own games.

At 2:30 we had practice. They supply you with a field. There are three or four fields you can use, so we did some fielding and pitching. They have two stadiums here (Howard J. Lamade and Volunteer), but they don't let you into the stadium.

The practice fields were adequate, not that great ... not as good as our home field (Waipi'o). It was a field I wouldn't play a game on. They don't pay much attention to the field because the whole crew is concentrating on the two stadiums. It was real dry, the infield was kind of lumpy.

We practiced fielding and we went into batting cages and hit for another hour.

After practice, we brought kids back to the complex and let them swim (at the complex pool) for another hour.

It was kind of hard to get them to rest.

We took them on a tour inside the stadium. They were saying, "Wow, this is unreal."

They've seen it on TV, but now they're going to play in the stadium. To them it's like a dream. They were so happy to be here. They're really in great spirits, but I gotta get them to sleep.

It's 7:20 p.m. and they're still not ready to go down.

But the Little League held a gathering for all players at 8 p.m. to have ice cream sundaes.

But they said, "Come on, let's have a good time."