The Focus Of Eldredge, Team Hawai‘i Is Next-level Stuff
(From left) Nainoa Begonia and Ethan Higashionna were among the players to travel to Peoria, Arizona, in September and suit up for Team Hawai‘i coach Duane Eldredge. Photo by Lawrence Tabudlo
The game of baseball demands both skill and hard work from its participants — particularly those who dream of playing college ball or reaching the bigs and hitting moonshots off pitchers or blowing fastballs past batters.
Yet in order to scale the game’s heights, players sometimes require a little bit of extra-innings’ work, so to speak, where they can properly display their abilities in front of a specific audience and possibly earn spots at the next level.
This is where Duane Eldredge, director of Eldredge Athletics and coach of Hawai‘i Baseball (also known as Team Hawai‘i) is especially handy. He’s the unassuming but savvy guy who’s learned how to open doors and improve the career trajectories for so many of the islands’ high school players.
For the past 25 years, Eldredge and his nonprofit have constructed teams made up of a few dozen players and taken them to a premier, invitation-only talent showcase known as the Arizona Senior Fall Classic in Peoria, Arizona. There, they’ve joined with scores of other young men from around the country, hoping to demonstrate their pitching, hitting and fielding prowess before more than 250 Major League Baseball and college scouts. (This year’s showcase wrapped up in September.)
Having that many talent evaluators in one location is especially important to those wondering whether high school baseball marks the end of their playing days, or the beginning of a life fully connected to America’s pastime. Most come hoping that at least one scout falls in love with their game and, as a result, they receive an offer from a college program.
The luckiest ones, however, have their tickets punched to the big leagues if scouts are dazzled by their performance and potential in Arizona. This has happened to several Team Hawai‘i players over the years, including Kaua‘i native Kirby Yates, a pitcher for the Texas Rangers who was drafted by the Boston Red Sox in 2005; and Mid-Pacific Institute graduate Isiah Kiner-Falefa, a utility player for the Pittsburgh Pirates who was selected by the Texas Rangers in 2013.
(It should be noted that Yates did not sign with the Red Sox but rather attended Yavapai College — one of several colleges to offer him full-ride scholarships. He credits Team Hawai‘i for the multiple offers. Yates eventually made his MLB debut in 2014.)
For Eldredge, the beauty of the fall classic is that it allows players to be matched with a suitable college, whether it be an NCAA division I, II or III program, or a JUCO or NAIA school.
It’s also an opportunity to bring together young men from around the state and watch them shine as a collective on an Arizona baseball diamond.
“I’m a teacher by trade and when you get to see something good happen to your student, it makes you feel good,” Eldredge says. “One of my greatest joys over the years has been watching the boys get along. It’s the Hilo boy who gets to know the Punahou boy, or the Mid-Pacific Institute guy who gets close to the Wai‘anae or Kapa‘a boy.”
But while the showcase presents players with potentially great opportunities, it certainly cannot guarantee them an extended career in the sport. Scouts, after all, aren’t AI who robotically bat a thousand; at times, even they whiff badly at player evaluations.
It’s why Eldredge reminds his players and their parents to temper expectations.
“I’ve always told them that Hawai‘i Baseball can only offer them an opportunity, but it still will be up to them,” he says.
Eldredge points to former Team Hawai‘i player and Saint Louis alumnus Ka‘ai Tom as someone who, for some reason, didn’t wow scouts at the 2012 fall classic and wound up having to go the junior college route before transferring to University of Kentucky and excelling. He was ultimately drafted by the Cleveland Indians in 2015.
“I kept telling everyone there, ‘You need to watch Ka‘ai.’ I want to say he hit like five doubles that weekend; I mean he just tore it up with the bat,” Eldredge recalls. “Still, nobody went after him.”
In the end, though, it worked out well for Tom.
“Yeah, he actually made it to the bigs (with the Pittsburgh Pirates in 2022),” says Eldredge before adding that Tom’s route isn’t every player’s pathway forward. “It’s again why I always tell my players that I can’t guarantee them anything.”
And yet the promise of advancing a player’s career has always been worthy of Eldredge’s time and effort. It’s the reason he jumped at the chance to captain Team Hawai‘i when his older brother, David “Boy” Eldredge, first presented him with the concept in 2000.
At the time, David was an assistant baseball coach at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, and looking to infuse a bit of island flavor into Arizona’s annual showcase.
“He gave me a call one day and said, ‘Can you gather a bunch of Hawai‘i players to play some mainland players? I know of a friend who has a tournament and he really wants a Hawai‘i team, and you’re the only one back home who I think can do this,’” recalls Eldredge, who served as an assistant baseball coach for his brother at Hawai‘i Pacific University in the ’90s and played college ball at BYU in the ’80s.
“That’s how it all started. I had no clue what I was doing in regards to how this tournament ran or anything, but we ended up going to Peoria for the classic in November of that year.”
The idea of taking select teams from the islands to the mainland certainly isn’t unique. Even Eldredge acknowledges that several others had done something similar before he launched Team Hawai‘i.
“I can remember (former ‘Iolani School coach) Dean Yonamine taking a team once or twice to the mainland. And before him, my uncle Pal Eldredge and (MPI coach) Dunn Muramaru used to take players to what was the Area Code tournament,” he says.
“So, I’m not the first one to do this, but when I started it nobody else was doing anything like it and, since then, it’s taken off.”
Each summer, Eldredge begins constructing his teams with input from some of the state’s most astute and seasoned baseball minds. When he built his first Team Hawai‘i roster — a squad that included Kurt Suzuki, a Baldwin High product who went on to enjoy a long career in the majors with the Oakland A’s, the Minnesota Twins and other organizations — he turned to MLB scout and current Farrington High School baseball coach Eric Tokunaga for help.
Of course, the final decision of who makes his rosters is Eldredge’s alone. This is important because one of his goals each year is to construct squads that reflect all the islands have to offer.
“I didn’t want anybody thinking favoritism and I wanted this process to be clean,” explains Eldredge, adding that in recent years he’s passed the selection responsibility on to his son, Kama, who serves as Team Hawai‘i’s assistant director and manager. “I also wanted to be sure that we had player representation from all over the state — and that we weren’t putting together teams made up of just O‘ahu players.”
Eldredge, who grew up in Mānoa and began playing baseball at age 4 for his grandfather, David “Pop” Eldredge, got his first coaching gig while he was still a student at Punahou School and playing in the Babe Ruth League.
“I basically started coaching when I was 16,” he says. “Babe Ruth was for 13- to 15-year-olds and when I graduated out of the league, I started helping my uncle, Pal, coach. Then by 19, I was already coaching my own team in the league.”
While coaching came naturally to him, so did playing. Eldredge was both a catcher and pitcher for Punahou and later took his catching talents to BYU, where he played three years for the Cougars.
These days, aside from his duties with Team Hawai‘i and at Pearl City High School, where he coaches the varsity baseball program, he also helps his wife, Sue, operate Aloha Hula Supply, an in-demand Polynesian dance store that sells costume accessories, including lei and hula skirts, to clients both near and far.
“We’re the biggest at what we do in the world,” says Eldredge. “The demand for our supplies is huge.”
From baseball to Polynesian dancewear, Eldredge appears to have those markets covered.
“That’s basically how I grew up,” he says. “My father, Dave, was the one who started the Hawaiian program at Punahou about 60 years ago. He’s also the one who told me that sports is the best teacher of life.
“When you’re on a team, you have to work with one another. You and I might not be friends, but when we’re on the field we have to work together if we want to succeed. And in life, it’s the same way. When you go to work, you might not get along with some of the people, but you have to find a way to work as a team.
“One day, the game ends for us. And when it ends, it’s the lessons that we learned that we are able to carry on.”
Entering this past season with Team Hawai‘i, Eldredge was seriously contemplating retirement. Now, he’s not so sure.
“I was considering it, but I really haven’t decided if I am or not just yet,” he says. “You sit there and you think you’ve done good, but then on the other hand you just finish the year and all the boys are thanking you and they’re grateful.”
Indeed, sometimes the game of baseball demands that you hang on a little longer and continue helping young men play out their dreams.
Or, as Eldredge says, “It just makes me want to do it again.”
