The Honest Truth About Aging
Pal Eldredge has thrown an estimated 1.2 million batting practice pitches in his lifetime. He has walked every golf course in Hawaii but one. He has coached teams to league titles, regional championships, and World Series crowns. And now, at 79, he gets around in a wheelchair — his knees so worn down that climbing a flight of stairs at Les Murakami Stadium is no longer something he can do. The broadcast booth he shared with Jim Leahey for decades sits at the top of a staircase that might as well be a mountain. So the station and the stadium set up a table for him at field level, just past the first base line. He calls the game from there. He hasn't missed a beat.
That image — the man who shaped Hawaii baseball for half a century, sitting outside the fence, still showing up — says something honest about what aging actually looks like. Not the inspirational version where people defy their limitations and sprint into the sunset. The real version, where you accept what's been taken from you, figure out what you can still do, and do that. "You just gotta sit there and go, ah man, I wish I could," Pal says plainly. "But I can't. Gotta live with it." It isn't resignation. It's the kind of peace that takes a lifetime to earn.
What You'd Tell Your Younger Self
When Evan asked Pal what advice he'd give his 18-year-old self, Pal's first answer wasn't what you'd expect from a man with his depth of experience. He said: work on your running speed. Get stronger. He couldn't bench press 135 pounds in college. He never had elite foot speed. And for a man who built a career around baseball, those limitations stung. Only when pressed for a life lesson did he go deeper — better diet choices, he said. Because the weight he carried for years compounded everything else, and now he can feel it in every step.
It's a surprisingly practical answer from someone whose life has been full of meaning and mentorship. But that's the point. When you're 79 and your knees have given out, you don't look back and wish you'd been more ambitious or taken more risks. You wish you'd taken better care of the body that made all of it possible. The wisdom isn't poetic — it's the kind you only get from living long enough to understand the bill that eventually comes due.
The Bucket List Gets Shorter
Pal had three things he always wanted to do: fly in a fighter jet, spike a football in the Notre Dame end zone, and run the bases at Yankee Stadium and slide home. He made it to Notre Dame but ran out of time to visit the stadium. He passed on the jet when his pilot friends warned him about the G-forces. But Yankee Stadium — that one he got.
About four years ago, Denise pushed him through the gates of the new stadium in a wheelchair. Pal, a lifelong Yankees fan who grew up watching Mickey Mantle the way his mother had watched Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig, was overcome. "I'm crying," he said simply. "This is the mecca for me." He didn't slide home. He didn't run the bases. But he was there, in that place, with his daughter. He calls it one of his most appreciated moments. When Evan asked if there was anything left on his bucket list, Pal paused and said: not anymore. Because when the things that truly matter to you — family and baseball — are right in front of you every day, the bucket tends to feel full.
The Six Most Important People
Pal will tell you that his favorite things in life are spending time with his four grandchildren and talking about baseball — in that order. Both daughters live within two blocks of the Manoa valley where he has lived since 1949. Denise, his older daughter, lives with him. Waileia lives close by. His grandson plays in the same Manoa Youth Baseball League that Pal's father, Pop, cleared from overgrown field with sickles and shovels back in 1954. Waileia now runs it as league president. "The six most important people in my life are all within, you know, I got my — Denise lives with me and her three daughters, and Waileia lives in the valley," he said. "We're all right here. In Manoa. Where it all started."
That's not luck. That's a life built around something. Pal coached and taught and gave and showed up — for decades — and the people he loves most chose to stay close. His grandson carries his name. His granddaughter is playing in World Cup qualifiers for the Samoan national soccer team. His daughters chose Hawaii when they didn't have to. For a man approaching the end of his retirement savings in one of the most expensive places on earth to live, the richness of what surrounds him is not lost on him. "It's full circle," he said. And meant it.
What He Wants to Be Remembered For
Pal spent forty years in a fifth-grade classroom. He coached baseball for decades more. He has broadcast University of Hawaii baseball for over forty years. When people ask what he most wants players and students to take away from their time with him, his answer is specific: I learned a lot from that man. Not about baseball necessarily — about how to treat people. About keeping your family life, your school life, your sports life, and your social life in separate compartments so that a fight at home doesn't cost you in the classroom and a bad game doesn't ruin your relationships. "What's the most important thing for you to do right now?" he used to ask his kids. "What are you going to change? What mistakes can you correct?"
His philosophy, the one he says he tries to live by every day and has passed on to his daughters, comes down to three things: do the best you can in whatever you do, always help people who need help, and be nice. Be kind. "There are too many jerks in this world," he said, with the quiet authority of someone who has had seventy-nine years to confirm it. The love that comes back to him now — strangers at the Sony Open stopping to take pictures, former players tracking him down to say thank you, kids at Punahou planting kisses on his cheek — is the return on a lifetime of that philosophy, paid out in full.
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