CEMETERY WINS ABOVE REPLACEMENT, Vol. 2
Hawaii baseball and the Hero's Journey
Welcome to Volume 2 of this series, where we track down the cemetery with the most player WAR, state by state. Sound strange? Check out the introduction from Volume 1.
Already a vacation destination, Hawaii is surprisingly interesting for cemetery tourists, despite only seven former players calling it their eternal home.
First the bad news. Hal Elliot (-4.3 WAR, National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific, Honolulu) was a World War One veteran, and probably a fantastic athlete, but played his four major league seasons with some truly horrific Philadelphia teams (1929-1932). Of pitchers with more than 300 career innings, he has the second highest ERA of all time at 6.95. Toast his stamina with a graveside cheesesteak and a Mai Tai.
On the other side of the spectrum is Carlos “Bimbo” Diaz (1.6 WAR, Valley of the Temples Memorial Park, Kaneohe). Diaz pitched in 179 games in the 1980s (a career ERA+ of 112) and was once traded for another native Hawaiian, Sid Fernandez.
Ted Shaw (1.9 WAR, Hawaiian Memorial Park Cemetery, Kaneohe) pitched indistinctly with the Negro National League Detroit Stars in the 1920s, but was one of twelve All-Stars to tour Japan, China, and The Philippines in 1933. He would appear in various international All-Star games in Hawaii. This picture is from one in 1944.
We don’t know where Buck Lai is laid to rest, but he certainly deserves mention here. Lai was scouted by Major League teams in 1928, but soon returned to his home state to form the Hawaiian Nine, a team of Hawaiian Americans of Chinese and Japanese ancestry. The team barnstormed the US until World War 2.
While not a player with any stats, let alone WAR, Hall of Famer Alexander Cartwright Jr. (O’ahu Cemetery, Honolulu) was part of the Knickerbocker Baseball Club, who drew up rules in 1845 that purportedly included the first foul lines, tagging instead of throwing the ball at a runner, and standardized base paths. During the 1849 gold rush, Cartwright migrated from New York City to San Francisco, carrying with him (again, purportedly) the first baseball to reach the west coast. One can imagine him introducing the game to new settlements all along his way, a Johnny Baseballseed. He departed for Hawaii soon after landing in California, where he lived the rest of his life as a Freemason, firefighter, and civic leader.
Of the three native Hawaiian baseballers buried there, only Fred Kuhaulua (-.4 WAR, Valley of the Temples Memorial Park, Kaneohe) played for the Hawaii’s minor league team, The Islanders. Kuhaulua‘s journeyman career took him from Hawaii to Decatur, Illinois, to Salinas, California, to El Paso, Texas, to Salt Lake City, Utah, to Chunichi, Japan, with only a three-game cup of coffee for the California Angels in 1977 to show for it. Alcohol had become a problem for Kuhaulua. “I would sometimes drink a case of beer before I would pitch. I finally realized I needed help,” he said in a New Wire Service interview years later. The San Diego Padres helped him enter a treatment center and assigned him to their AAA affiliate in Hawaii. Kuhaulua pitched four seasons with the Islanders, earning him a return to the majors in 1981. His only victory came in his last MLB game, a 1-0 win over the Dodgers’ Fernando Valenzuela.
Also buried at O’ahu Cemetery are George Freeth, surfing pioneer credited with introducing the sport to Southern California in 1907, and Joseph Campbell, mythologist and author of HERO WITH A THOUSAND FACES. These guys, plus a foundational pillar of early baseball… that’s a destination cemetery if I’ve ever seen one.
Alexander Cartwright made Hawaii his home. The large pink granite monument marking his grave stands near a street and a park named after him. Fred Kuhaulua had to return home before he could realize his dream of pitching successfully in the majors. Buck Lai and Ted Shaw traveled the world, spreading the good word: baseball is for everyone.
Whatever your thing is– baseball, surfing, mythology, blogging– there’s a place where you can do that better than anywhere else. It might be where you were born. It might be where your family is. But it might not. Sometimes just finding the place we’re comfortable is enough of a Hero’s Journey.
Those Hawaii team uniforms are incredible!!!