Saunter out onto the Iolani School baseball diamond and you get the feeling that you are in a formal English garden. The grass is thick and lush, mowed to the aristocratic level of a putting green. The paths are billiard-table smooth, the borders clipped with elegant precision.

The beauty of the Iolani School baseball diamond ranks with the finest professional baseball diamonds in the country, or maybe the baseball diamonds in Ala Wai Community Park.

That's because Will Rego takes care of them. Rego looks upon his baseball diamonds as works of art. He's up at dawn spreading red cinders, setting the water hoses, raking the basepaths, aerating the outfield, dusting off home plate, building up the pitcher's mound, putting down the chalk lines.

It may come as a surprise that baseball diamonds in Honolulu are like the food in Chinese restaurants. How good they are depends on the cook, or who's in charge of field maintenance.

The people of Hawai'i should know that at Ala Wai Park, they are getting the best baseball diamonds in town for free because Rego has worked on the diamonds for 15 years as a volunteer. They look so good that seven years ago, Iolani School hired him to take care of its fields. But he still volunteers at Ala Wai Park.

"If I don't do it, nobody will. The fields will be trashed and unsafe," he said. "A field has to be level, no lips on the edges, or kids get hurt."

So it is that ILH baseball teams play their games on the Ala Wai Park diamond. Before the games, Rego drags the field, waters it, chalks it and hand-rakes the pitcher's mound and home plate. After the game, he does it all over again to be ready for the next day's game.

For quite a while, he did a double play. After getting the field ready, he announced the games over the loudspeaker system.

All this started when he retired as salesman for a pharmaceutical company, and a Little League friend asked him to help take care of the Ala Wai field where the teams played. Now Rego is a member of the Sports Turf Managers' Association, so he can trade information with experts who do the major league fields. He's just returned from a convention in Orlando, Fla.

He learned how to make sure the pitcher's mound is 6 inches higher than home plate without using expensive surveying equipment. You stretch a string from home plate to the pitcher's mound, make sure it's level, then raise it 6 inches. He learned how to drill holes in the field to aerate it, then fill the holes with a compost-and-sand mixture. It softens the field, improves drainage and brings fertilizer to the grass roots.

Rego has commendations on his wall from three mayors, and he calls the mayor's office when he can't get a load of red cinders for the park. Last year, the Iolani Booster Club named him Man of the Year.

Reach Bob Krauss at 525-8073.