Posted on: Sunday, April 17, 2005

OUR HONOLULU

By Bob Krauss
Advertiser Columnist

You are invited this morning by some of Hawai'i's most distinguished, over-age athletes for an important event in the history of sport. This over-the-hill gang is going to O'ahu Cemetery at 10:30 a.m. today to celebrate the birthday of the founder of baseball.

The William Shakespeare of TV sportscasting, Jim Leahey, will be there. His sidekick, the Sigmund Freud of baseball commentary, Pal Eldridge, may miss the party. Expect to see Our Honolulu's sportswriter emeritus, historian Ferd Borsch, who has on file every score book for every game the Hawaii Islanders ever played.

Borsch can tell you the date of every error the Islanders committed. That is, if he can remember where he put the book.

We also have Lyle Nelson, from that other newspaper of decades ago. He may be over the hill but Nelson is an authority on the early years. We can't forget Don Robbs, the voice of radio from before statehood. I am told that Lew Matlin, former Detroit Tigers executive (don't ask when), will make a speech.

Last but not least is the batboy who never grew up, Bob Corboy. Whitey Ford autographed a baseball for Corboy in 1954 and he hasn't been the same since. He dreamed of being a professional baseball player. The closest he's come is to spin yarns with other baseball junkies.

So bring your baseball and mitt. Play catch among the tombstones. You'll be with the young at heart.

Corboy said this aggregation of athletic misfits began gathering annually at the tombstone of Alexander Cartwright, the founder of baseball, on his birthday because Cartwright is an unsung hero in his own land, Hawai'i. They play catch and spin yarns.

One year it poured rain. Undeterred, they stood under umbrellas while one of them read a baseball poem. A busload of tourists went by and asked who were those crazy people in the cemetery.

This year will be special. Corboy explained that there's nothing on Cartwright's tombstone to indicate that he is the founder of baseball. So they have coughed up the money to make a plaque that will read something like the one in the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown that honors Cartwright. The plaque will be dedicated with due ceremony this morning.

"It's one of the most-visited tombstones in the cemetery," said Corboy. "Babe Ruth put a lei on the grave. Yet hardly anybody in Hawai'i is aware that the founder of baseball is buried there." It's on the left side coming up Nu'uanu Avenue from downtown.

Cartwright laid out the rules for baseball and organized the New York Knickerbockers baseball team in the 1840s before he took off for the California gold fields in the 1850s. He intended to return around Cape Horn but never made it beyond Honolulu, where he became fire chief. There is no mention of a connection with baseball in his obituary.