I thought about going to the big farewell event at Aloha Stadium this weekend, but it’s probably more fitting that I didn’t.

One thing people ask me when they find out I work in the sports department is if I get to go to all the games. Working on the department’s copy and design desk, I rarely go to sporting events at all. I’m usually working in the office when there’s a football, basketball, baseball game, state tournament, whatever.

So as I’ve watched people recount their Top 10 Aloha Stadium games they’ve attended and whatnot, well, I know that I don’t even have enough to come up with a good, relatable list. Since the San Diego Padres and St. Louis Cardinals brought Major League Baseball to the Rust Palace in Halawa in 1997 — I went to all three games, but then I worked on the Star-Bulletin news desk at the time — I’ve only been to concerts there.

In the 26 years since, I think all I’ve been to is a handful of UH basketball games at The Stanley (before it had a corporate sponsor), winter league baseball at The Les (How is this not yet the Diamond Bakery Diamond at Les Murakami Stadium yet?) and a tennis exhibition at the Blaisdell.

Which is not to say that I don’t have my own sports memories at Aloha Stadium, just that a Top 10 list would not resonate with almost anyone else.

No one cares about the time during my senior year at Pearl City High School when I went to watch an OIA West football showdown against Leilehua and the refs had to stop the game because a fan behind the opposite sideline kept blowing a whistle, confusing the players. I found out the following week at school that it was my friend Misa (name changed to protect me from potential retribution from someone who may or may not have incriminating stories about me to share).

The only landmark game I went to was UH football’s win over Wyoming on Nov. 21, 1992. I was in the front row of the student section as the Rainbow Warriors clinched a tie with BYU and San Diego State for the Western Athletic Conference title and earned a trip to the Holiday Bowl, where they’d make history with a win over Illinois.

The bulk of my most special Aloha Stadium memories, though, are from a forgotten era and never seem to make anyone’s Top 10 lists. Fans who went to the breakthrough wins over BYU or victories over Boise State and Washington that wrapped up a perfect (regular) season shared the moment with 50,000 or so. For most of my greatest memories, there were only a few hundred in attendance.

My father took me to dozens of Hawaii Islanders games at Aloha Stadium from the 1970s to the mid-’80s. Every game I attended started with a walk. It cost a few dollars to park on the grounds, so my dad would park in the surrounding suburbs and we’d walk in. It felt like a hassle to me at the time, but truth? I’d probably do the same now with my son given the same situation and a parking fee updated to 2023 dollars.

On a good day, we’d then walk through the turnstile and pick up a giveaway item. We only got these a few times — a set of Islanders baseball cards, a cap and a pennant were probably the best ones. But the most memorable for me was a copy of KIKI-AM’s “Brown Bags to Stardom” album, featuring a performance of “The One That You Love” by Sacred Hearts’ Althea Janairo, the high school talent contest’s first winner, and its most famous — you know her as Tia Carrere, one of the most successful actresses to come out of Hawaii.

The highlight of every evening, though, was just sitting in the stands watching a baseball game with my dad. Other than playing cribbage or rummy‚ which we still do, most of our pastimes while I was growing up revolved around baseball — hitting balls in the park, playing name games or going to Islanders games. He taught me the rules and the strategy, he bought me my first Bill James book, he took me to my first game at Fenway to see our beloved Red Sox (though growing up in Dorchester, Mass., he was more of a Boston Braves fan than a Red Sox fan).

We’d talk about the game or how the Red Sox were doing while waiting for a foul ball to come our way, glove on my left hand. The closest we ever got to corralling a foul ball was one that landed a couple of rows away and quickly drew a crowd of grabbing hands … until my dad ran into his friend Deke on the concourse between the orange and blue seats.

My dad worked with Robert “Deke” DeCosin’s wife, Marri, at the Leeward Community College library. Deke managed the Outrigger hotel where Islanders players lived. Deke and my dad were talking on the concourse one game when a foul ball landed nearby. Deke beat out a kid for the ball, predictably drawing boos from the crowd, who didn’t know he was procuring it for a kid who’d been to many games and never lucked into a foul ball. He walked it down to the Hawaii dugout and asked the players to autograph it for me.

That must have been 1985 because I remember the biggest name to sign the ball was Rafael Belliard. It was one of the last games we went to. A few years later the Islanders were gone. After years of drawing mostly triple-digit crowds to cavernous Aloha Stadium, it was hardly a surprise.

We went to the doubleheader between the Padres and the Cardinals together in 1997, recapturing some of that ballpark magic — with thousands more fans joining us. Those were probably the last baseball games we’ll attend together, but we’ll always have the memories of those Islanders games at Aloha Stadium.