PLANTATION INTRAMURAL BASEBALL Old Plantation Days, October 2011

 In keeping with the trend of last months issue, I wanted to continue and expand upon the plantation baseball teams and their intramural competition.  Plus, its October, and that means playoffs and the World Series!

There were many camps and plantation villages associated with each individual plantation.  Many of these camps had their own plantation maintained baseball field, grandstand, and gymnasium.  Life back then was not as fast and was actually quite remote as compared to our current day life.  Travelling from Hilo to Honokaa was a half day affair.  Highway 19 did not exist and the only road along the coast was the Old Mamalahoa Highway up and down each gulch, one lane bridges, mud and rock slides, and god forbid you met a cane truck along the way!!  So each camp was somewhat isolated and needed to be self sufficient, this even translated into having their own sports fields and gyms.

With this came the teams and then the intramural competition between plantations.  Pride of team and of plantation was very strong.  You were not just playing for yourself, you were playing for your whole plantation. 

I am going to move into the era of the late 1970’s into the 1980’s in describing these games as that was the period I was personally involved with.  The baseball heydays of the 1940’s and 50’s I can only envision through old photographs and stories told to me by ‘oldtimers’.  Last month I mentioned the excitement of Hakalau Veterans Park with night games!  Those lights could be seen all the way from Pepeekeo to the South and Ninole to the North.  Usually it was a double header with the first game at 5:30p.m. and the next game following.   Teams came from Mauna Kea Sugar, Hilo Coast Processing, Brewer Chemical, Mauna Loa Macadamia Nut, Hamakua Sugar (two teams:  O’okala division and Honokaa division), Puna Sugar Company, and all the way from Pahala and Naalehu was Ka’u Agribusiness.  Most of the teams were simply named for their plantations, but some had Team names.  “KoleKole” was Mauna Kea’s team; “UmaUma” was Hilo Coast’s, “Hui Na Koa” was Brewer Chem’s.  Other names I can share with you are teams that existed on other islands.  Yes, there were teams on different islands and competition was had annually between plantations of the entire State.  The team of “Buyers Flyers” was aptly named for the corporate office team of J.W. A. “Doc” Buyers and the C. Brewer Corporate Staff,  “Guava-Kai” was named for the guava plantation at Kilauea, Kauai.

Back to the games…competition was intense but not aggressive, fun was to had and comraderie was the goal.  Winning was important but not paramount.  Having fun, talking about work, sharing new ideas about cane farming, wifes connecting, kids playing together, and pot luck meals shared was the real part of these games.

I wish we could re-live it all again, but at this moment it is only in our memories….