Chattahoochee Valley Sports Hall of Fame: Dennis Holmberg a major difference-maker
Several years ago, Charlie Wride, a baseball historian, was enlisted by his close friend Dennis Holmberg to embark on a special project. Wride's task was one which comes as second nature to historians irrespective of the field of study: he was to make a list borne out of countless hours of research.
The topic?
How many players had Holmberg, a longtime minor league manager in the Toronto Blue Jays' organization, coached that eventually made it to the grandest stage of them all?
Once Wride's work was done, he had tabulated -- as of last season -- Holmberg had coached approximately 275 major leaguers at some point in their career.
The man at the center of it all was quick to downplay his role in the matter, however.
"That doesn't mean I was the end-all, cure-all," Holmberg said in a phone conversation earlier this month. "Players that sign and go through an organization, it might take them three, five, maybe six years to get to the major leagues. They're passing through a lot of managers and coaches and instructors But I'm proud to have had have a chance to work with -- whether it was one month, three months, five months, whatever -- that player at a young age."
Among his former pupils are Paul Molitor, Cecil Fielder, Fred McGriff, Robbie Alomar and Jeff Kent, five players easily recognizable to any avid follower of the game in the past four decades. Roy Halladay and Mike Timlin are on the list, too. Along with those names are countless others, who, outside their extended family and friends, would be recalled only by the most scholarly enthusiasts of America's pastime.
Ironically, Holmberg very much fits that mold. By design, he prefers to be in the background.
He won't have the luxury of anonymity later this month, though, as he's set to affix a new title next to his name: Hall of Famer. Holmberg is part of this year's five-member class that will be inducted into the Chattahoochee Valley Hall of Fame. Holmberg will join Eddie Lowe, Wright Waddell, Carter Mize and John Flournoy on Saturday at the induction ceremony at the Columbus Trade & Convention Center.
Holmberg was humbled by the selection.
"To be considered and nominated and then actually picked for anything that starts with 'Hall of Fame' is a great honor," he said. "I find it a privilege to be going into that."
Holmberg won't be alone at the ceremony, either, as he plans to bring his son Kenny along. With a hint of pride in his voice, Holmberg notes that his son has followed in his footsteps: after playing four years in the Milwaukee Brewers' minor league system, Kenny has worked in the Texas Rangers' player development department, entering his third season as the manager of the team's Arizona League entity.
It's nearly the same path traced by Dennis.
Holmberg: The player
The elder Holmberg was drafted on two different occasions.
The first came just after he graduated from Columbus' Baker High School in 1969, taken by Montreal in the 58th round of the amateur draft.
Instead of heading straight to the pros, though, Holmberg decided to enroll at Brewton-Parker College in Mount Vernon, Ga., on a baseball scholarship. He played one season at Brewton-Parker before he was drafted again. This time, it was the Brewers that came calling. And this time, he couldn't turn down the opportunity to begin his professional career.
It was, as they say, a dream come true.
"I think that everybody that plays baseball in high school and college -- at any competitive level -- all have aspirations of going to the next level," he said. "Playing this game, we all go from one level to the next level to compete and prove that you can play there, whether it was Little League to high school to college or pro."
As happens to nearly every player that breaks into the professional ranks, there were growing pains involved. And Holmberg found himself surrounded by, as he described it, "ballplayers who are equally up to the task of competing and playing." The playing field had been evened out. What kept him around longer than most, he admitted, was his versatility.
Catcher. First Base. Third Base. The outfield. He was a utility player in the truest sense.
But eight seasons into his career -- having bounced around from Newark, N.J., to Danville, Ill., to San Antonio, Texas, and a handful of other outposts in the Midwest, Southeast and Northeast, perpetually yo-yoing back and forth between A and AA teams -- Holmberg believed he was "spinning his wheels."
Making it to the majors as a player was becoming more and more unlikely.
That's when Milwaukee offered him another opportunity: he could become a manager for one of the organization's minor league clubs. It wasn't an easy decision; Holmberg took into consideration the nagging thought that eats away at every minor league lifer: What if he stuck it out a bit longer? Who knows? He might make it to "the show" with a little more work and a break or two.
Eventually, Holmberg came to the conclusion that his best chance to stay around the game he loved was to take himself out of the lineup forever.
Holmberg: The manager
At first, it looked like Holmberg might have made the wrong choice. Just one season into his managerial career, he was let go by Milwaukee due to organizational turnover with the big league club. But Holmberg had a saving grace: one of the Brewers' farm directors at the time, Tony Siegle, saw the writing on the wall.
Knowing upheaval was on the horizon, he told Holmberg it might be a good idea to start searching for a new employer, giving himself a parachute once Milwaukee's incoming higher-ups cleaned house.
So Holmberg made a few phone calls.
And in what can only be called fortuitous timing, Toronto, an expansion team that joined the American League in 1977, was looking to bolster its farm system. Holmberg's diligence led to a meeting in Atlanta with the Blue Jays' then-general manager, Pat Gillick.
A job was offered. Holmberg accepted it. He was off to Medicine Hat, a city in the southeastern portion of Alberta, Canada, to guide the Blue Jays' Rookie League team in 1979.
And he's been continuously employed by the Blue Jays -- managing six different teams in the organization's minor league network -- ever since.
"It's been a great opportunity to coach, manage and have some influence on players coming in and chasing the same dream that I was chasing -- or that any minor league manager or coach was chasing at one time," said Holmberg, who is entering his fifth season with the Bluefield Blue Jays, the team's Rookie League affiliate in Bluefield, W.Va. "Some players have their careers come to an end and they decide they want to stay in the game and give back and help coach and mentor these kids. I've been in a good place the past 39 years."
Asked what he views as the highlights of his time as a manager, Holmberg rattles off a few achievements.
Winning the New York-Penn League championship in 2007. Managing a club in the Florida State League in 1990 -- a team Kent played on -- that set league records for most wins (53) and highest winning percentage (53-14, .791) in one half of play. Both marks, Holmberg notes, still stand.
Otherwise, Holmberg is circumspect. In the minor leagues, the objectives are to develop players and to win ballgames -- in that order. And as most coaches are wont to do, Holmberg shies away from putting the spotlight on himself.
"For some managers, they might say 'I.' I try to stay from the, 'I, I, I,'" he said. "It's always the players. It's all about the players and always will be."
Perhaps Holmberg's only lament about his professional career is that his two years in the big leagues -- serving as Toronto's bullpen coach in 1994 and 1995 -- came during arguably the most tumultuous time in the sport's history.
"In 1994 they had the strike. They had it in August of that year and everybody thought the players would strike, come back in a week or 10 days and settle their differences. But it went on and it cancelled the playoffs and World Series that year," he said. "And then we're into 1995 and the strike still hasn't been settled and that's when they were going with the replacement players. It was a mess. It was a tough two years to be a coach up there."
Still, the good has outweighed the bad.
For proof, Holmberg pointed to the two years preceding his arrival in Toronto. Those two years were the apogee of the Blue Jays franchise.
After three losses in the AL championship series in the span of seven years -- 1985, 1989 and 1991, respectively -- Toronto put it all together in 1992, toppling Oakland in six games to capture the AL pennant before going on to dispatch Atlanta in the World Series. The Blue Jays followed that up with another World Series title in 1993.
Holmberg was far away from the bright lights of the Fall Classic, directing the Blue Jays' Advanced-A club in Dunedin, Fla. That didn't stop him from adding a pair of prizes to his personal collection.
"Everybody in the organization got World Series rings as a token of appreciation for their hard work," Holmberg said. "Those two rings are still with me and I wear both rings with a lot of pride."
Holmberg: The local product
As one would expect, sporting that kind of jewelry is a conversation starter. That's especially true when Holmberg downshifts into offseason mode.
Able to get away from the baseball grind for a few months, Holmberg puts something other than his baseball smarts to use. Here, his book smarts come to the forefront, polishing off his education degree to help out the Pinellas County (Fla.) school system as a substitute teacher.
That's when the bling comes out, too.
"Any time you wear a championship or two, that's the first thing a kid looks at," Holmberg said. "It opens things up."
Giving back to the local community and "staying involved in the educational process," as Holmberg puts it, is part of the reason he does it.
But it's also a look at what may have been.
"If a tire had gone flat and pro baseball was no longer an option, teaching would have been it," Holmberg said.
It's only logical, then, that two influences Holmberg cites as integral during his time growing up in Columbus were men with rich educational backgrounds.
One was Roy Turgeon, the executive director of the South Columbus Boy's Club, who received degrees from three different schools (North Georgia College, Georgia State, Notre Dame) and a principal's certificate from a fourth (North Carolina State).
The other was Oscar Boyles, whose tenure as principal at Baker High coincided with Holmberg's time as a student.
"It's where a lot of friendships were made," Holmberg said of his hometown. "There are great people in Columbus."
Despite not living in the Bi-City area since jumping into professional baseball more than four decades ago, Holmberg tries to make a trip to Columbus every other year.
And the knowledge with which he speaks of local landmarks reveals the fondness he still has for Columbus.
Scrambled dogs at Dinglewood Pharmacy and Cook's Place.
The places that whip up catfish or barbecue the way he remembered as a kid. The National Infantry Museum, which takes on even greater significance for Holmberg, whose father served in the Army for 26 years before retiring as a lieutenant colonel and putting down roots in Columbus.
Holmberg never lost sight of that.
In a life where relocation is the name of the game, Holmberg said one place remains his constant.
"I always look forward to going back to Columbus. It's where you fought a lot of battles, on the field and off the field," he said. "There are a lot of places still there, a lot people I grew up with. It's where you're born, raised, grew up -- I think that's the place everyone would call their 'home.' And Columbus will always be my home."
This story was originally published February 19, 2015 at 7:55 PM with the headline "Chattahoochee Valley Sports Hall of Fame: Dennis Holmberg a major difference-maker."