"He doesn't go for all the attention that everyone is getting," said his father, Ed Javier, a sergeant with the Honolulu Police Department. "He is an intense player, though. A competitor."

The 12-year-old boy from 'Ewa Beach learned a lot about dedication and hard work by being on this team, his father said.

"He has learned that as long as I work hard and mess up, it is OK, but if I am lazy it is my fault," Ed Javier said. "That is the most important thing he has learned."

It's a lesson he applies to schoolwork.

Ethan is an eighth-grader at Highlands Intermediate in Pearl City. He has an older brother and an older sister.

He plays soccer in the fall but "baseball is his passion," Ethan's father said.

"He has been playing baseball since he was 7," Ed Javier said. "We have always liked the fact that he gets into it."

Even though practices were three to four hours long, six days a week, the emphasis was on positive reinforcement.