Catcher Ron Nomura can tell you stories about the eerie hissing sounds Derek Tatsuno's pitches would make cutting through the Manoa mist on the way to the plate.

He can relate tales of a curveball torqued to spin so wickedly that when it nicked a corner of the plate it hopped over the mammoth Rainbow Stadium backstop.

But for going on 30 years now an enduring image of the Tatsuno years (1977-79) for his batterymate didn't even take place in the ballpark.

"It was the lines for tickets every time he (Tatsuno) pitched," Nomura said. "We'd be walking from our locker room (near Duke Kahanamoku Pool), along Cooke Field and see the lines around the ballpark for people waiting, hoping, to get seats. That was before our batting practice. We'd get jacked up just coming to the field."

Tatsuno will be inducted into the College Baseball Hall of Fame in festivities beginning tomorrow, but for all the gaudy statistics that put him there — and many remain etched in the record books — Tatsuno was much more. He was — and remains — a phenomenon unlike any other that has graced the collegiate stage here.

For all the wondrous athletes who have passed through UH, no single player was the face of a sport as much as Tatsuno, or cast a longer shadow. What the Fabulous Five did for Rainbow basketball, Tatsuno and one supercharged left arm provided for baseball in a dynamic 40-win, 6-loss run.

Longtime ticket manager Edith Tanida, whose chore it was to turn people away when tickets invariably sold out, called him the "pied piper." Media referred to him as "The Franchise." Teammates called him "Tats" and said it with reverence and awe.

Tatsuno was all of that — and more. If what became 4,312-seat Les Murakami Stadium was the product of a coach's vision, then it was Tatsuno who laid the cornerstone one complete game at a time. UH baseball was an independent two years into playing a full, all-college schedule and a well-kept secret when Tatsuno arrived.

He shortly changed everything in a blaze of strikeouts, luring the curious to see what all the fuss was about in a dusty corner of the lower campus known as the quarry. There in Murakami Stadium's predecessor, a modest 2,500-seat, metal bleacher erector set, Tatsuno's starts produced a palpable buzz, packing to standing-room-only gatherings of 3,400.

Those not fortunate enough to wedge inside crowded a mound beyond the rightfield fence that became known as "Scholarship Hill." Behind the fence, fans stood on vehicles, metal road guards and other things as part of "Tightwad Terrace." Homes on the bluff overlooking the stadium hosted backyard parties.

"When Tatsuno pitched it was more than a game, it was an electric event," recalls sportscaster Don Robbs.

And Tatsuno rarely disappointed. "We've seen some great ones pitch here, Randy Johnson, Mike Mussina, Kevin Brown ... but in my 31 years, he was the best college pitcher I've ever seen," Robbs said.

Howard Dashefsky was a freshman backup catcher Tatsuno's final year. "I was this red-haired dude from California nobody ever heard of but I got to warm him up in the bullpen," Dashefsky recalls. "I got to walk in his shadow and it was almost overwhelming."

And when Tatsuno pitched the final regular-season game of his junior year — it being a foregone conclusion he would sign a pro contract — the occasion necessitated a move to Aloha Stadium where a then-NCAA record 18,348 turned out to see him beat Nevada-Las Vegas.

It was, as Robbs recalls, "as if the community turned out to say 'thank you!' "

Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@honoluluadvertiser.com.