Center for Labor Education & Research, University of Hawaii - West Oahu: Honolulu Record Digitization Project
Honolulu Record, Volume 10 No. 32, Thursday, March 6, 1958 p. 6
Waipahu Sits Outstanding Sports Record
Waipahu, March 5 — "Home of Champions — Pennantville, T. H."
This sports-minded Leeward Oahu community would be fully qualified to hang out such a sign at the entrance of Waipahu town as the "winningest" community in the Territory.
The Jackpot Year
A look at the record book will reveal that championships have come by the baker's dozens to this plantation community. " Baseball, boxing, football, basketball, track, volleyball, bicycling, bowling—you name it—Waipahu has swept 'em all, both in team and individual competitive sports. Although pennants seemingly have come naturally to Waipahu over the past three decades, probably the best remembered year is 1938. That's when this community hit the sports jackpot. Its various teams scored a virtual grand slam that year, wrapping up the following championships in the process:
1. Oahu Plantation AA Senior Baseball League.
2. Oahu Amateur Boxing Tournament.
3. Oahu Plantation AA Senior Volleyball League.
4. Island-wide Bicycle races.
5. Round-the-island marathon relay, sponsored by Palama Settlement.
Johnny Yasui, ring veteran, then coach of Waipahu's crack amateurs, recalled the big chop sui banquet held at Wo Fat's" Restaurant in Honolulu to celebrate the occasion. Ex-Oahu Sugar Co. Manager Hans L'Orange long active in rural sports, was host to the athletes.
Favorite Sport
Waipahu registered still another clean sweep some 10 years later in 1948. This time, though, it was restricted to baseball only. Every team representing Waipahu in the various major organized league on Oahu wound up as champions that year. The baseball grand slam (count 'em) included the following pennants:
1. Rural Oahu 'AJA Senior League.
2. Oahu Plantation AA Senior League. 3: Oahu Filipino League.
4. Oahu Portuguese League.
5. Rural Oahu Senior High School League.
6. Oahu American Legion League.
7. Leeward Oahu AJA Junior League.
The national pastime has always been Waipahu's favorite sport.
Its AJA teams have been exceptionally outstanding. They have been the perennial champions of the fast Rural Oahu Senior loop. A la the New York Yankees the Nisei teams have run rough-shod over their opponents, stringing together 10 consecutive titles.
They have won the league crown every year since 1947!
Crucial Game
They are out to make it 11 straight this year, Ewa's one-game lead, as of this writing, notwithstanding. Waipahu will meet Ewa in the season's crucial this Sunday.
Itsuo Imaoka got Waipahu off on its winning streak when he piloted the Shakos to two pennants in 1947-48. Since then the following have been at the helm over the past eight years:
Mitsuo Fujishige (1949. 1957), Kats Kojima (1950), Koso Furu-kawa (1951-52-53-54, 1956), and Tsuneo Watanabe (1955) Eddie Takeguchi, erstwhile Shako star, stepped in as head man this year. He had the dubious job of keeping the streak going.
Waipahu has also won added laurels in AJA competition over the years, knocking off the coveted tern tonal tournament diadem several tunes as Oahu standard bearers. Their last territorial title came in 1956.
Out of Waipahu have come some of the top ranking players in the Territory. The following names have long been popular with fans in the islands:
Kats Kojima, Tsune and Riki Watanabe, Stan Hashimoto, Shin Pogi, Brown and Douglas Watabu, Bill Yasui, Mitsuo Fujishige, Koso and Itsuto Furukawa, Keiji Tsuhako, George Fujishige, Jack Masuda, Eddie Uemori, Ken Okita, Ken Kimura, Lefty and Takeo
Shiroma, Shaggy Oshiro, Larry Shigeyasu and Sei Saiki.
Waipahu's contribution to Japan pro ball includes the following: players: Watabu, Yogi, Kojima, Fujishigc and Hashimoto.
Waipahu players also nucleused the Rural Red Sox to many Hawaii Baseball League and territorial championships ever since the Sox were admitted into the HBL in 1946.
Filipino Teams
This community's Filipino teams also did themselves proud, monopolizing the island league for many years — from 1934 to 1941 and again from 1947 to 1951. The league was disbanded in 1953.
The leading light on these teams was Philip Paculba. He played on and managed most of the title-winning teams. Paculba also handled Waipahu's entry in the now defunct Oahu Plantation AA Senior loop.
The late Benny Barcenilla, his brother Charley, and Mateo (Mutt) Sebala were other leaders of the local Filipino teams.
Among the better Filipino players developed here were: Crispin Mancao, the "Old Man River" of Honolulu baseball circles, still going strong with the Braves; Rick Oamilda, who played for the Chinese Tigers; Minn Panerio, still active in the Winter League; Freddie Barcenilla, slick second sacker; Fred Daguinan and Joe Estrera. Mancao got his start in 1934.
There are no Portuguese leagues on this island now but in. the years when these leagues flourished, Waipahu's entry was always in the limelight.
Portuguese Stars
Going back a few years the following names, outstanding on the Portuguese teams, come to mind: the great Walter Gouveia, Manuel (Mousey) Ferreira, Bill Ferreira, Jimmy and "George Mundon, and Pepe Sanchez.
Henry (Nutsky) Oana, St. Louis College's immortal all-around athlete, who went on to the majors, was also a product of Waipahu's Portuguese team. He played in the rnid-20's. Old time Waipahu fans still talk about Oana's terrific long distance clouting. The ex-SLC flash is credited with having hit the longest homer in Hans L'Orange Park history. Some say the ball traveled easily over 500 feet.
Speaking of old timers, here is a quick run-down on other Waipahu products of yesteryear: Rusty Hamada, Major Okada, Richard Yamada, Lionel Fukabori, fakemi and Shigemi Arakawa, Takeo, Crane and Butch Inoshi-ta, and Wallace Kurata, to name a few -of them.
High School Teams
The baseball review in Waipahu would be incomplete without singing the praises of Waipahu High School's great teams which have made a virtual shambles of the Rural Oahu Prep circuit.
The Marauders, as they are appropriately known, won their 11th straight title last year under the tutelage of Masa Yonamine. Mitsuo Fujishige coached a. good many of those championship teams before Yonamine took over several years ago.
Waipahu High, which incidentally gets its students from the Pearl City-Waipahu-Ewa-Nangv kuli districts, has also won its share of the "Rural High School football and basketball pennants.
Hot Bed of Boxing
Next to "baseball, Waipahu has always been proud of the crop of top flight home grown amateur fighters it has produced. Probably the man most responsible for Waipahu's success in the simon pure fight game was Johnny Yasui, who did much in the way of coaching and training the boys, purely for the love of the sport.
Veteran fight, fans will remember Yasui as one of the top pro-fighters in the late 1920's and early 1930's.
From 1936 on to the late 1940's, Waipahu was the hotbed of amateur boxing on the island. Their fighters consistently won both team and individual championships on the island, and also on the Territorial level. They copped the Oahu team crown in 1938-39 and came in second in 1937 and 1940.
Among the ranking amateurs developed under the astute coaching of Yasui during the 1936-41 period were the following known boxers:
Lucas Pasion, Alfred Ganigan, Jose Badis, Simpliciano Costales, Alfred Palmeira, Bob Kiyono, Ka-name Salto, James Kono, Albert Silva, Richard Miyashiro, and the three brothers of Coach Yasui, Eddie, Freddie and Tommy.
Of this crop the following went on to gain Territorial and national fame:
Pasion, who went to the Boston National AAU finals in 1938-39-40, where in the '40 tourney he lost to Johnny Manalo of Kahuku in an all Hawaii finals; Eddie Yasui, to Boston in 1937-39; Freddie Yasui, to Boston in 1936 and 19S8; Tommy Yasui, Territorial Golden Gloves champ (after the war); Badis, runner-up to Yasu Yasutake in the Territorial finals in 1941.
While Waipahu's boxing teams during the war and post-war years did not measure up to the ones of 30 era, they continued to make their presence felt in the local tournaments.
One of the top fighters to come out of this group was Chester Yasui, a nephew of Johnny's, who won the Territorial flyweight crown in 1947-48. Chester tried out for the U.S. Olympic team and later turned pro.
And speaking of the pro ranks, some of the boxers from this community who fought in the old Houston Arena days were: Freddie Barcenilla, Blue Soto, Tiger Philips and Pepe Sanchez.
Filipino Gridders
In barefoot football, the Waipahu Jackrabbits was a team to be reckoned with in the tough Honolulu 125 pound loop in the early '30's. The team, coached by Rusty Hamada, ex-McKinley High star, was known throughout the Territory.
Mariano Higa, Takemi Arakawa, Takato Saito, Shige and Toronko Umeno, Imazu Togashi, Panko Kawamoto, Sparky Okamura, Johnny and Masa Sato, Blackie Yamauchi, Hirao Watanabe, and Toki and Kiyomi Sato, were some of the top players.
Waipahu had the distinction of having had probably the Territory's only all-Filipino grid team. They played in the 135-pound loop in Honolulu in 1933 and in the 125-pound circuit in 1934.
Coached by Charles Hoopai, now with the Honolulu Fire Department, the team was paced by Philip Paculba, Cris Mancao. . Freddie Barcenilla, and others.
In track and field competition Waipahu was also in the thick of things, with leather-lunged Walter Gouveia showing the way. Known as Waipahu's, "superman," because of his amazing stamina, Gouveia ran in the various marathon races as well as excelling in the 880 yard and mile runs.
His victories in the various cross country runs, especially his win Diamond Head New Year's Day over Tamanaha in the annual race in the '30's, are still well remembered by old timers.
Gouveia, by the way, did not stop at track, he also did plenty of baseball playing in the Hawaii League and was renowned as Waipahu's one-man volleyball team.
Arakawa Twins
Waipahu also had their champions in the Junior Olympic Games in the 1930's. The Arakawa twins, Takemi and Kizuo, topped their respective divisions and went on to compete in the national championships in Los Angeles in 1932.
Kazuo and Benny Kneubuhl of Punahou represented. Hawaii at L.A. in the senior division, while Takemi and Kauai's Cecil Albao participated in the junior section. Mutt Sebala, also of Waipahu, won the Oahu title but lost out to Albao in the Territorial finals.
Bicycling was a big time sport in the '30's and Waipahu once again was well represented among the ranking: riders on the island. Prominent among them were James Moniz, Sadao Shinno, Tony Brack, Mutt Sehala, Francis McCahe, Ray Moniz, Buster Takeyasu, Manuel Perreira, Manuel Reis, Charles Santiago and Shinsuke Goya.
Moniz tried, out for the U.S. Olympic team in 1936 in New Jersey and won most of the top races on the island.
The local riders were organized into a club known as the Waipahu Pedal Pushers Club. One of the crowning achievements of the club was their clean sweep of the 1936 annual Labor Day 105-mile around-the-island race sponsored by the Star-Bulletin.
James Moniz won the classic in the record breaking time of 5 hours, 3 minutes and 3 seconds to replace perennial champion Peter Schubert as new titlist. Waipahu also took second place and eight others finisher among the 21 riders who rode out the grueling marathon race out of the original 34 entries.
In bowling Waipahu teams in the ILWU league have, consistently won the championship.
Oahu teams in the commercial and community leagues have also done well.
Behind Success
What's the secret behind Waipahu's phenomenal success? The reasons are many but here are some of them:
1. The "go-for-broke" community support—financial, moral and physical—behind the various team and individual efforts. There has been no slack in between — the support has been consistent down through the years.
2. Responsible and astute leadership in all sports.
3. The serious and determined manner, and the will to learn the fundamentals, with which the athletes have undertaken their participation in the various sports.
4. A good "farm system" especially with regard to baseball.
5. Patience of coaches and discipline of players with "practice means business" attitude.
The amazing fact about the whole Waipahu success story is that through all of these accomplishments this community has had no gymnasium. Local residents point out that this is typical of American Factors plantations. There are no plantation-owned gyms at Lahaina, Kekaha and Olaa either.
The 1955 legislature appropriated some $200,000 for a new gym. A hearing was held recently to decide on the site of the building. One group favors the Waipahu ball park location, situated on Kam Highway in Wailani tract. Others feel it should be constructed near Waipahu High.
It is interesting to note that quite a few of the names mentioned in this story are Oahu Sugar Co. employes who are presently out on strike. They are:
Johnny Yasui, Itsuo Imaoka, Major Okada, Sadao Shinno (Waipahu ILWU Unit Chairman), Koso Furukawa, Bill Yasui, Itsuto Furukawa, Ken Okita, Philip Paculba, Charley Barcenilla, Mutt Sebala, Rick Oamilda, Jimmy Mundon, Pepe Sanchez, Simplici-ano Costales, Sei Saiki and Bob Kiyono.
It is only common humanity to feed the hungry. If our hospitals are too big, too complex, too impersonal to do these small kindnesses for the sick, something is very wrong.