a chat with Les Murakami

If you have a story to tell, I’m all ears.

That’s what I enjoy, listening to stories — even if they’re exaggerated.

Long-time fellow staffer Stephen Tsai tells good stories, especially about former colleagues. Legendary journalist Jim Becker experienced unbelievable exploits and he wrote a book about it.

So in my search for a good conversation, I figured that since it’s nearing father’s day I’d chat with Les Murakami, whom I consider the father and godfather of University of Hawaii baseball.

The younger generation only knows that the Manoa campus stadium is named after him. But little do they know that he built a program from ground zero, maybe below that. When he took the job in 1971, he had no field to practice or play (UH played games at Ala Wai), tattered uniforms (the reason he used jerseys from his Sheridan baseball franchise) and was only given $500 to start up the program. If not for the work of Les, his family, friends and host of volunteers, there wouldn’t be a program, a College World Series berth, 11 NCAA appearances and two iterations of stadiums (an aluminum-seated facility and the current one now).

Friday’s casual interview at the Murakami home morphed into an oftentimes amusing round table exchange among Les, his wife Dot, and gregarious Brian Kitaoka, Les’ health aide for the past four years.

Les, 86, is doing well, maintains a sharp mind and a vivid memory and is as blunt as ever.

Three years ago, Les was diagnosed with cancer of the rectum. It’s something not widely known but the Murakamis are OK talking about.

“The doctor’s telling me this place here is cancer(ous) and she tells me, ‘Hey, you better listen.’ I tell her, ‘Why should I listen, I know what I got.’ ” Les said. “Not gonna change.”

“I look at it this way, if the Lord wants to take me, ‘Go ahead.’ ” Les added.

“He went through three cycles of chemo and he never lost a hair,” Brian said.

“He’s amazing because he had this major stroke (in 2000),” Dot said. “He’s really a survivor.”

Les is still ambulatory and walks short distances with a cane.

“Thank goodness for Brian because Brian takes him out all over,” Dot said. “Brian stretches him, and he does take walks. He goes to PT (once a week). … Before that he was doing water therapy but he stopped when he got his cancer.

“He’s good, you know, but hey, with somebody who has half a brain (portion of it was removed because of the stroke) and had cancer and still can talk, talk, talk and his memory is still good.”

And the banter between Les and Brian usually starts with an insult and ends with a laugh.

One day they were driving past Queen Ka’ahumanu Elementary along Pensacola Street and Les tells Brian, “I went there … I’m not high-class, you know.” Said Brian: “I realized that the first day I worked for you.”

That was just the beginning of a lively session and Les was very obliging to tell his stories:

Kolohe from the start

“I used to go to Koloa Elementary School (on Kauai) but I was too young they said, so I couldn’t go first grade and I used to get really mad. Hell, I was one of the smartest guys, how come I cannot go first grade when the other guys going first grade?” Les said.

“My mother checked Lawai (School and) I could go first grade … so I’m in the classroom, I got the boys and we’re all playing in the room, the teacher said if you don’t want to listen, get out there and play, go in the yard. So I told all the guys, OK, let’s go, and went and we played softball.”

Added Dot: “When I went to a funeral the first grade teacher was still there, and she told my son Rob, I hope you’re not like your father, because your father gave me such a bad time.”

The franchise and the chatterbox

Les credited Derek Tatsuno as being the most important player in the program’s history. “Before I had Derek, I used to draw 100 to 200 people, and then when Derek came, it was standing room only.”

But Les acknowledged, his favorite player was someone else.

“Gotta be Ron Nomura. Because the guy is just like another coach of the field.

“He’s the only guy I know that can talk to the player, who can do all the talking and yet his mind is still (in the game).  He moves people around like a coach. He’s not a 100 percent great player but he’s a player that’s a coach. Amazing.

“We were playing — I’m not sure if it was New Mexcio or Santa Clara — all of a sudden the coach comes out and calls time, and he comes to talk to me. He tell me, ‘you gotta tell your catcher to shut up.’

“I tell him, ‘You show me in the rule book where it says catcher cannot talk?’ You know what he tells me? He tells me your catcher’s ‘different.’ ‘What do you mean different? You can do the same thing, get your catcher to talk.’ He tells me, nobody can talk like yours.”

1980, most talented team

“Oh yeah. That was the most talented team. That’s why we went far (College World Series). My teams usually we don’t have power. But that 1980 team, we had some power. I had probably the most powerful player I’ve ever had. Good hitter. He could hit the long ball. That was (5-foot-5 slugger from Waipahu) Greg Oniate.”

Les remember going to Austin, Texas, for the regionals.

“We’re playing Pan American the first game and we come off the bus. It’s about 90-something degrees. All those players from Pan American are in the swimming pool and they’re yelling at us, Oh, (Alan) Maria is waiting for you guys. He was their ace pitcher from Waipahu. We coming off the bus and Oniate is behind me. He says, ‘What you talking about, he’s waiting for us, I’m waiting for him.’ We hit that guy in batting practice every day. Coach, don’t worry, we going get him.”

UH beat Pan American 8-4 and the Rainbows tagged Maria for 15 hits over six innings.

The rival coach

The late San Diego State coach Jim Dietz. who passed away this past March at age 83, was a rival who always tried to get an advantage. He would ask opposing coaches if they were starting a right-hander or left-hander. Dietz then would return the favor and tell him what he was throwing.

“So the first inning, he brings in his left-hander. In the second inning he brings in a right-hander,” Les said.

But Les recalled when that tactic backfired when SDSU played USC, a day before the Aztecs were scheduled to play UH.

With Les, Nomura and Carl Furutani scouting in the stands, Dietz pulled the same pitching ploy.

“Right after that, USC started going after San Diego State, (you) hear the guys … arguing back and forth, yelling at each other. (When) the game (was) over, you think the guys are going to shake hands, they come over to shake hands, (then) Pow, pow, pow, the guys they fighting. The two sides, they get bust up.”

Afterward Deitz sees Les in the stands, approaches him and says, “I don’t think we can play tomorrow. So I said, ‘What do you mean you cannot play, the game is scheduled.’ He tell me, yeah, but they’re going to be big rain tonight, there’s going to get one storm tonight, I don’t think the field’s going to be ready.”

The next day around noon, Les goes to check the field and sees (radio broadcaster) Don Robbs and (UH sports information director) Eddie Inouye. “Nothing wrong with the field they tell me. Everything look OK,” Les said.

“So I was go home, come back about 3 o’clock thinking we going to play, right?

“And here’s frickin’ Deitz with hose pipe, shooting water at home plate. I watch him pretty soon the darn thing becomes flooded. Then Deitz disappears. When he comes back, he has two frickin’ ducks and he puts them in the pool. I’m not kidding you. He had the SID over there. He told the SID take the picture and send it to Advertiser and Star-Bulletin.”

Rich Hill and Jocelyn Alo

“I thought he did a fantastic job, I know he only got so much talent,” Les said of first-year UH coach Rich HillWhat do you think of Alo?

“Wow. Most amazing Wahine I’ve seen.”

Give some respect

“They only see what he is today, but they don’t see the effort and hard work and sacrifices that went in to making this program what it is today,” Brian said. “I don’t think the public really knows the sacrifice and the determination he had in developing this baseball program. They look at it, they got a stadium named after him but behind that, a lot of sacrifices and a lot of efforts were put on him and Dot to move this program forward.”

Dot: “Actually our friends, boy did they come through for us.”

“One person who should be recognized and should have a plaque is Charles Ushijima. He was the one that believed in him.”

”Charlie was a legislature,” Les said. “And he helped me and he became the booster group president. He helped us so much.”

“One thing I’m most proud of, is that I don’t know he does it, but he has so many people that’s willing to work, and he’s doing nothing,” said Dot, Les’ wife for 58 years. “He would ask people and they’d work hard. He had big dreams.”