At the ballpark, a reporter roots for Lahaina

Recently, my colleagues and I at The New York Times were finishing up a package of articles tied to the anniversary of the devastating wildfire that wiped away the Hawaiian town of Lahaina, on Maui. We had pieces on how the town’s rich history was shaping discussions about rebuilding; the thousands of people who have left the island, forming a vast diaspora of Lahaina refugees; and the lessons learned by authorities as they tried to prevent another deadly fire.

But there’s always room for one more article, especially a personal tale that offers a measure of hope and inspiration. One of my editors, Kevin Yamamura, learned that a team of Little League all-stars from Maui was enjoying a magical summer of success. The Central East Maui Little League team was knocking on the door of the Little League World Series, which was set to begin Aug. 14 in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, and run through Aug. 25.

The assignment was a natural for me. The Maui team, having won the Hawaii state championship, was playing for a berth in the Little League World Series in a regional tournament in San Bernardino, California, not far from my home in Los Angeles.

Last year, I spent many weeks on Maui covering the aftermath of the fire. This year, I spent time reconnecting with people there for our anniversary articles, so I became intimately familiar with the pain and struggle of the community. I also know the joy of baseball through a 12-year-old’s eyes: In 1987, I played third base for the Vermont Little League champions. We, too, were knocking on the doors of Williamsport when we advanced to the eastern region tournament in Connecticut (we lost in the quarterfinals).

The regional game was set for Aug. 6, a Tuesday. Before I drove to San Bernardino, I made phone calls to Little League officials in California and Hawaii to learn what I could about the team. I discovered that one of the players, Kolten Magno, 12, the second baseman, was from Lahaina and lost everything in the fire, including his house. Some of the other players were the sons of firefighters, police officers or others who responded to the disaster.

When I arrived at the ballpark on a hot afternoon, I was instantly awash in memories. People traded pins, a long-standing Little League tradition. An old man moved through the stands selling ice cream. Families set up cheering sections, with signs for their players.

I found Kolten’s parents sitting in the bleachers down the right-field line, where they had hung a “Lahaina Strong” banner. They told me how they had narrowly escaped the fire with their lives and how baseball had become Kolten’s solace, helping to heal his trauma and anxiety.

Kolten was the only player on the team who lived in Lahaina. Other parents told me that the team was playing for him and the whole Lahaina community — especially that week — as people back home were gathering on the anniversary and mourning the 102 people who lost their lives in the fire.

Maui lost to a team from Southern California, but that did not put them out of the running. We published our article the next day, with the headline “A Year After the Fire, a Lahaina Little Leaguer Finds Solace in Baseball,” not knowing yet how the story would end.

After the game, which was played in triple-digit heat, I interviewed Kolten in an air-conditioned room at the baseball complex. He told me about his love of baseball and how the team just had a bad day at the plate — they needed to “wake up the bats,” he said. He also mentioned that his favorite team was the New York Yankees. (Kolten’s favorite player is Aaron Judge; my idol growing up in the 1980s was Don Mattingly, the Yankees first baseman of the era.)

I attend a lot of baseball games, somewhere between 70 and 90 each year — including the Mexican winter league, college, the minor leagues, the major leagues and various other leagues. Baseball is my daily spiritual practice, but sometimes it intersects with my journalistic life.

I wrote this year about Shohei Ohtani, the Japanese slugger and pitcher for the Dodgers. I also covered the death of Willie Mays, just as Major League Baseball was preparing to play a game in his hometown, Birmingham, Alabama, in the ballpark where he played his first professional games in the old Negro Leagues.

And during the pandemic, I wrote about the return of professional baseball in a handful of Midwestern cities.

The Friday night after my article ran, I drove back out to San Bernardino to watch Maui play again, this time as a fan. The team had beaten Arizona, setting up a rematch with Southern California.

The winner would go to the World Series. Partisanship is normally forbidden in journalism — at least the style practiced by the Times — but I’ll freely admit to rooting for the boys from Maui. I sat with Kolten’s parents and soaked in the joy.

The next morning, Kolten and his teammates were on a private jet bound for Williamsport, where their success would continue until their unfortunate loss in Game 5 on Wednesday afternoon. But there’s always next season for Central East Maui.

Hopefully, I’ll be there on the sidelines to witness it.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

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