Dionicio Bondallion and Glenn Higa got together to help coach a team of little leaguers in the Parks & Recreation County Program. They used to play the games at Carvalho Park on Kaumana Drive (where the road splits and left goes up through Kaumana and eventually Saddle Road; the right went by Rainbow Falls, Hilo Hospital, and Piihonua). The park is still there with the gym where we used to play basketball and volleyball. Anyway, it wasn't much of a team and I (and perhaps Myron) used to tag along acting as bat boys and water boys.
It was kind of embarassing (at the time, but now, quite funny reminiscing about it) because the team did not know the fundamentals. We were just a bunch of kids that used to play put-together ball games at St. Joseph's High School field because it was across from the lower section of Lanakila and really close to where we were living at the time. Well, after about three or four straight losses that were called due to the opponent being more than 10 runs ahead after 4 innings, one of the key players, Nolan Chaves, got killed in an auto accident.
I don't know how it started; but, the team got together and decided that they would continute the season and before every practice (sometimes at the Lyman Field) and before every game (at Carvalho Park), we stopped to visit Nolan's grave in Homelani Cemetery as we walked through to the practice and/or game. Homelani Cemetery was at the top of Ponahawai Street and had a trail through a private sugar cane field that we could cut through to get to Lyman House.
We had to walk up Haili Street, around the northern part of Halai Hill, past the County Jail, over to Waianauenue Avenue just mauka of Hilo High School, and up to the intersection where Carvalho Park was.
Well, something "miraculous" started happening after the team began visiting Nolan before every game - the team began winning. In spite of still being a raggedy team, things just started falling into line and the team won game after game such that they got into the playoffs. It was a lot of fun during the win streak and we were all excited and always jumping around yelling and cheering for everything. We got cocky, I'd say.
So the day of the big game - we were playing "I don't know who" but if we won, we would get to the championships of the Big Island Parks & Recreation Midget-Major Championships. For whatever reason, everything during the day before the game went wrong and it ended up where only a part of the team walked up and stopped to visit Nolan's grave. We lost the game on what we claimed to be a really bad called strike three by the umpire. The bases were loaded, 2 outs, and Lester was called out on strikes so we lost. Something like if he had walked, the game would be tied and Eric was up; or, if he had got a hit, we surely would have won. We were plenty discouraged for days after that, blaming everything we could (as little kids do. We mostly blamed the guys who did not visit Nolan's grave before the game. I don't think Nolan liked that because he was a good kid and friend. I do remember that some of the bickering about being "jinxed" because "they" did not visit Nolan started before the game started and continued throughout - we failed to execute as a team. That is the biggest reason we lost the big game: we did not have belief that we could win. Perhaps coming from Lanakila, we did not feel we deserved to win and be successful.
Life goes on and we seldom talk about that season anymore. I remember it from time-to-time, and the lesson I really get out of that is no matter who or where you come from, if you have enough belief in that you are doing, you can attain success. When you work together as a team and keep your spirits high, you can attain your dream. We were very successful then, but, many of us did not realize it.
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