In July I wrote about Tosh Kaneshiro, owner of the Columbia Inn on Kapiolani Boulevard near South Street. Tosh was a baseball fan. He was a big supporter of the L.A. Dodgers as well as the Hawaii Islanders.
His son, Gene, shared a few other cute stories about Tosh. They are about a wheelbarrow full of beer, steak dinners and a DUI.
Aim for the puka
As an incentive to the Hawaii Islanders, Tosh offered a free steak dinner to anyone on the team who hit a home run at the old Honolulu Stadium on King Street in Moiliili. Any pitcher who threw a shutout won two steak dinners. In 1968, Columbia Inn served up 65 free steak dinners to players who earned them.
Tosh also had a banner made and set in right field at Honolulu Stadium. It said, “Columbia Inn. Top of the Blvd.”
The sign had a big puka, about 4 feet in diameter, with a net behind it. Any Islander who hit a home run through the puka won $1,000. Only one player did that. His name was Walter “No Neck” Williams.
Williams was 5 feet, 6 inches tall — the shortest player in the league — and 195 pounds. He was a teammate of pitcher Bo Belinsky, whom I wrote about in July.
Gene Kaneshiro sent me a photo of Walter “No Neck” Williams and the teenager who got the home run ball he hit through the puka in the Columbia Inn banner.
“To this day, I do not know who the kid was and what happened to the ball,” he said.
Williams hit his $1,000 homer on Sunday, May 26, 1968, against the visiting team from Indianapolis. It was a two-run homer in the sixth inning. The Islanders won the game, 13-3.
“No Neck” Williams came in for his steak — medium-rare with teriyaki sauce — and $1,000 check. Tosh Kaneshiro said he was “as good with a fork as with a bat; an all-around good man at both home plate and the dinner plate.”
I went looking in the 1968 papers, and after searching I found a photo of Williams and Michael Freitas, 14, who got the ball, the caption said. If you know where Michael is, let me know.
Wheelbarrow of beer
Gene Kaneshiro’s second story is about his father, Tosh, and his friendship with Roy Asato.
Roy was the son of KC Drive-in’s Jiro Asato. When Roy and his wife, Jane, took over the Wisteria restaurant on Piikoi and South King streets, Tosh invited Roy to come to a restaurant expo in Chicago. “You’ll learn a lot about the business, from soup to nuts,” Tosh told him.
Roy said OK and off they went. On the way home they stopped in Los Angeles to take in a Dodgers game versus the St. Louis Cardinals. Tosh made sure that Roy was welcomed on the park’s scoreboard.
Some thought Tosh jinxed the Dodgers. When he attended games, they often lost. Three-dot columnist Dave Donnelly called it the “Kaneshiro Kurse.” Roy Asato teased him about it.
Tosh offered a bet: If the Dodgers lost the game, he’d deliver six cases of beer to Asato’s Wisteria restaurant in a wheelbarrow from Columbia Inn. If the Dodgers won, Asato would have to transport six cases of beer to Columbia Inn at Kapiolani near South Street. It was a little less than a mile away.
The Dodgers lost and Tosh had to deliver.
“My father and his friends made it into a big parade,” Kaneshiro recalled.
“Ed Doty, who owned Eagle Distributors, hired a Dixieland band, which played in an old Budweiser delivery truck, and he hired cheerleaders from UH.
“I had to arrange for wooden ramps so he could go up and down the curbs from one sidewalk to the other,” Gene Kaneshiro said. “Before the American With Disabilities Act, curbs made it difficult for a wheelchair or, in this case, a wheelbarrow to cross streets.
“Dad managed to attract all three TV stations and newspaper reporters and photographers, and really made a whole big thing out of it.
“My father wheelbarrowed the six cases of beer along Kapiolani toward Waikiki. They made a planned pit stop at Flamingo Chuckwagon and had a beer there.
“After Tosh, the reporters, musicians and cheerleaders were suitably hydrated, they continued on to Piikoi Street, where they turned mauka for the homestretch to the Wisteria.
Along the way, anti-Dodgers fans jeered Kaneshiro.
“Finally, they arrived at the Wisteria, where Asato threw a big party at his restaurant to celebrate their arrival.”
Lesson not learned
Gene Kaneshiro’s last story — for now — is about the time his father was busted for drunken driving.
“Tosh was 48 years old,” Gene recalled. “One night, our bar closed, and he and Adam Nakamura, the artist from the (Honolulu) Advertiser, decided to go to Alakea Grill (at Beretania and Alakea streets) for breakfast.
“He couldn’t eat in his own restaurant because if it got busy, he would have to get up and work.
“‘I’ll meet you at Alakea Grill,’” he told Nakamura. “My father never got there. He got pulled over by a policeman right in front of the Board of Water Supply on Beretania Street, and they took him to ‘the can.’
“Instead of calling me to come and bail him out, he called the waitress who ran the midnight shift and said, ‘Take some money out of the cash register, take a cab and come down and pick me up.’
“The Star-Bulletin, at the time, printed arrests and convictions, including drunk driving. Joe Arakaki from the Star-Bulletin called me and said, ‘Is your father 48 years old?’ Yes. ‘Does he live at 1350 Ala Moana?’ Yep.
“He assured me he’d leave it out of the paper. I said, you’d better print that one. And he replied, ‘No, we cannot do that. He’d 86 us out of the bar.’
“I said, ‘Well, in that case, you have to talk to my mother. My mother and I were trying to get my father to slow down the drinking. We didn’t like to see him drunk in his own bar.
“Arakaki talked to my mother and I stood there listening. Joe said, ‘We just want to confirm that was him. We don’t have to run it and embarrass your family.
“She said, ‘If you don’t print his name, I’m going to take out an ad announcing his drunk driving arrest.’ Arakaki was surprised but understood. They printed his name in the paper along with everyone else’s.
“Dad had to go court. He knows everybody, right, because of the restaurant, including the judge, who was a customer.
“The judge said, ‘I need to let the court know that I am familiar with the defendant. Mr. Kaneshiro, do you have any objection for me to adjudicate your case?’
“He said, ‘No, your honor. It’s OK.’
“The judge said, ‘Let the court know that Mr. Kaneshiro is allowing me to decide this case.’
“He turns to my dad and pauses, looking for the right words. ‘So what, Tosh … the Dodgers lose, so you suck ’em up?’
“Everybody in the court burst out laughing,” Gene continued. “The judge issued his penalty. He suspended his license for six months and fined him $50.
“My father had to walk from their condo at 1350 Ala Moana Blvd. about a mile to Columbia Inn every day. Somebody would drive him back home.”
I asked Gene whether he learned his lesson.
“No,” Gene replied. “He did not learn.”
Bob Sigall is the author of the five “The Companies We Keep” books. Contact him at Sigall@yahoo.com or sign up for his free insider newsletter at RearviewMirrorInsider.com.
