He hasn't left a pitcher in the game too long — or yanked one prematurely — in months.

And, in fact, he hasn't lost a game since May 23, when the season ended.

So, why is University of Hawai'i baseball coach Mike Trapasso taking such dirty lickings in TV, radio and online commentary?

Because, for a sitting UH coach, he is viewed as having committed the cardinal sin of being "a candidate" somewhere else.

In this case at the University of Washington, which has an opening after firing Ken Knutson, its coach of 17 years.

At UH, there can be few more grievous transgressions than being seen as a "candidate" for another job, as Trapasso is undoubtedly finding out.

The widespread presumption is that Trapasso has been frantically e-mailing his resume and shopping himself since the school gave him a one-year contract rollover instead of a multi-year deal.

Never mind that we're told Trapasso was approached by a senior UW official, something a Huskies spokesman refused to confirm or deny. The spokesman said some candidates have been contacted by the school, some have been nominated and others have applied.

Perhaps somebody noticed UH beat the Huskies twice in 2009. Maybe they saw UH has done well with Pacific Northwest players. UH athletic director Jim Donovan, in his only public comments, has said as much, noting, "when I read about the Washington opening, I thought Mike might be a candidate for the job. They're probably looking for someone who has extensive West Coast recruiting contacts and Mike does."

Trapasso's only comment: "I have nothing to say."

Not that his silence matters much hereabouts, where many consider themselves lifetime UH fans and expect their coaches to be at it till death do they part.

The truth is that Dave Shoji, Les Murakami, Vince Goo, Riley Wallace and Mike Wilton, among others, have spoiled us. They are rarities to be prized. They are disappearing symbols of a once-upon-a-time era when coaches built — or upgraded — programs, staying with the task for pretty much a career.

Yet we know that some of them checked out and even pursued other jobs along the way. Trapasso, too, has talked to other schools. Not for the first — or second time either.

You'd like to have Trapasso see the UH job — at the first school to entrust him with a head coaching position — through to greater success. Hopefully to another NCAA appearance, if not a Western Athletic Conference title.

But his "sin" isn't so much in considering other possibilities. It is in still being engaged when the word got out.