Fans savor performance at 'The Show'

By Mike Gordon
Advertiser Staff Writer

Their images flashed across the TV screen like big-league baseball players, as ESPN2 sportscasters offered commentary and cameras zoomed in for a national audience. There was a radar gun for each pitch and instant replay, too.

Kyle Gonzaga, left, Nick Sproul and Christian Stevens were ecstatic after yet another sixth-inning victory brought Waipi'o its first victory in the Little League World Series. The fans gathered yesterday at the Waikele Golf Course Clubhouse. Cory Lum • The Honolulu Advertiser

But they won yesterday, defeating the team from Worcester, Mass., 3-2, on a sixth-inning, game-winning home run by Travis Jones that set off five minutes of pandemonium, hugs and shouts of "Banzai! Banzai! Banzai!" among friends and family watching the game at the Waikele Golf Course clubhouse.

Everyone watching knew it was a moment to savor.

They had filled the clubhouse with 50 people. They put a sign, "Go Waipi'o," under the TV.

They hooted and cheered and waved ti leaves — just like the ti leaves sticking out of the team's dugout in Williamsport, and the pieces of ti leaf folded inside the baseball cap of every Waipi'o player.

These 11- and 12-year-old boys — their sons, brothers and friends — were their heroes.

Marcus Moises, whose son Isaac scored one of the team's runs, called the game "intense." But there was something more to it, he said, something intangible.

"It's kind of surreal because these are the kids you see in your neighborhood park and now they're on TV," he said. "I'm just shaking inside for them."

This was the first of three games. The Waipi'o team will face Fort Worth, Texas, at 9 a.m. Hawai'i time tomorrow. The game will be televised on ESPN.

In Game 1, every out was an event, celebrated between bites of eggs and Portuguese sausage.

Ben Outram had come to see his 11-year-old son, Kelsey, a boy who started playing baseball when he was 5. Both had hoped for a moment like this.

"Oh, it's big," Outram said. "I told my son, just have fun, try your best. If you come home 0-3, I will still love you. I won't care. Just have fun."

Kelsey was injured in the second inning, however, when a pitch slammed into his right hand. He had to leave the game.

To reach the Little League World Series is an achievement all by itself. The Little League season began in April. More than 7,200 teams played a worldwide elimination tournament that started in June. Now there are only 16 left.

It is like being in the big leagues, what pro baseball players call, "The Show." The young players stay in resort-like hotels and wear custom-fitted uniforms that are cleaned and brought to their rooms each day.

But they had humble beginnings, not to be forgotten, said Troy Ogasawara, president of the Waipi'o league.

When the team played at the Hawai'i state tournament on Moloka'i last month, everyone slept on cots or in sleeping bags on the floor of a union hall, sharing space with centipedes and mice. The team's 14 players were drawn from just three teams; Mainland teams draw from three or four times as many.

"It shows the quality of the kids and the coaching staff," Ogasawara said. "And the kids probably don't realize the accomplishment they've made."

Randy Stevens coached one of the teams. He has two players in Williamsport: He said that with the kind of broad smile usually reserved for new fathers.

"It's awesome," Stevens said. "We're really proud of the kids. It's a once-in-a-lifetime experience. To represent Hawai'i in the Little League World Series is a great thrill for everyone."

Reach Mike Gordon at mgordon@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8012.