And so, the finale to this year’s Summer Series comes to an end.

A year after the Hawaii Islanders opened the season as home to future Pittsburgh Pirates legend, seven-time MVP, 14-time All Star, 12-time Silver Slugger, and two-time batting title winner Barry Bonds (as well as other future Pirates), the relationship between the two organizations came to an unceremonious end.

The Pirates, perhaps wanting their top minor league club to be a little bit closer, partnered up with a new Triple-A club in…Vancouver. The Canadian coastal city well over 2,000 miles away by air was still one of the farthest destinations the Pirates could send their top prospects and depth roster players, but it was still an improvement over the distance it would take to get to and from Honolulu.

Meanwhile, Hawaiian baseball wasn’t dead yet even though the Pirates had vacated the island. Stepping into their place was the Chicago White Sox, who sent their Triple-A players to Oahu for the 1987 season. Most of Hawaii’s best performances, both on the mound and at the plate, came from more established members of the White Sox system who had already played in the major leagues.

In the end, however, the split between the Pirates and the Islanders didn’t really work out for either side.

The aptly named Vancouver Canadians would only last as Pirates affiliate, before Pittsburgh needed a new one. Starting in 1988, they brought their Triple-A club much closer and partnered with a team in Buffalo. Aside from a three-year run with a team in Calgary, Buffalo started the trend of Pirate Triple-A affiliates who were a reasonable distance away.

The Islanders, meanwhile, were playing their last season in front of the Hawaiian fans…however many were still showing up. Concerns over the team’s move to Rainbow Stadium proved to be vindicated; the Islanders drew just 116,107 fans during the 1987 season, as playing in a ballpark further out of town and with far less accessible by public transport took its toll on attendance.

In fairness, that figure was a sizable improvement over their 1986 campaign. But, it was still last place in the Pacific Coast League, and that lack of in-person fan support contributed heavily to the financial constraints the Islanders suffered from.

On September 1st, 1987, the Islanders played their final game as a team. Fittingly, the game was in Vancouver, where Hawaii defeated the Canadians 10-4. Outfielder Daryl Boston, a major leaguer would go on to play in over 1,000 MLB contests, smacked the final home run in Hawaii’s history in the win.

In the following offseason, owner David Elmore, who bought the team back in 1981, had to make the difficult decision to relocate the Islanders out of Hawaii and into the mainland United States. Rebranded as the Sky Sox, the Islanders were moved to Colorado Springs and found themselves in a new affiliation with the Cleveland Indians. Cleveland’s previous affiliate, Buffalo, then went to Pittsburgh.

Around this same time, Elmore and the Elmore Sports Group had also purchased the Salem Angels of the Single-A Northwest League. The timing fueled some speculation that Elmore and Co. could relocate the Angels, who played less games in a season, to Hawaii.

Unfortunately for abandoned Islanders fans, that idea never came to fruition, and Hawaii was left without professional baseball at any level.

Hawaii’s end to their time in the PCL, minor league baseball, and America’s pastime didn’t end the way fans wanted it to. And, unlike some cities in the mainland who eventually received new teams to compensate for the relocated ones, Hawaii wasn’t afforded the same opportunity.

However, the Aloha State will always be home to some incredible baseball history, some of minor league ball’s best and most entertaining stories, and a part in the storied franchise that is the Pirates.