Former Silver Knight standout Mickehy Gasper, who has played between Worcester and Boston this year with the Red Sox, is in this weekend's Holman Sports Legends Hall of Fame. (AP photo)

NASHUA – Nick Caggiano remembers the first time he walked into Holman Stadium.

“I was shocked,” he said. “As a kid, I was a baseball kid. When I walked in there, I was like ‘Oh my God, this is it.’ The beauty of the area, the whole story on how it was built. It (the renovataion) was a rush and I was on cloud nine.”

Caggiano, the former Nashua Parks-Recreatin Superintendent, will return to the facility Saturday evening prior to the July 4 Fireworks as one of three inductees into the Nashua Lions Club’s Sports Legends of Holman Hall of Fame. The others are former Silver Knights standout Mickey Gasper and this writer.

Caggiano, since he left the city after 20 years, he became the facilities director for Southern New Hampshire Services, and maintained 53 buildings from Nashua as far north as Pittsburg. He did that full time for five-and-a-half years, but has since scaled back to a smaller role managing a building with 36 apartments, mainly for seniors.

“I was shocked,” Caggiano said. “I was very humbled. Have my name up there with (Roy) Campanella and (Don) Newcombe (former Nashua Dodgers)? I was pretty shocked.”

And he feels he’s not going in alone.

“It’s great for me, but there was a whole bunch of people involved,” Caggiano said. “No one person could do what that stadium needed and got taken care of.”

Caggiano was the coordinator for the renovation of Holman Stadium back in 2001 under the direction of city DPW director George Crombie.

“He said ‘You’re going to help finish Stellos Stadium and then you’re going to do this (renovation) with Holman,” Caggiano recalled. “He was great,what a better mentor to work for? We got that (Holman) done I think in record time.

“It was beautiful. I remember going through it as we were getting ready for the games and we were ‘Wow, look at this place. Look at this place.'”

Crombie also gave Caggiano and his department $27 million to re-do all the parks and fields in Nashua. “He wasn’t kidding,” Caggiano said. “We got it done, but what happened was (Hurricane) Katrina came and 9-11, and all the Federal funding that he was the master at getting went away.”

Caggiano paid tribute to former Holman Stadium caretakers the late Dan LebBlanc and the late Bob Genest, and a ton of other Park-Rec workers.

Caggiano worked with, besides the schools, the Nashua Pride hierarchy of owner Chris English and general manager Billy Johnson, and then of course all the Silver Knights hierarchy. But one also dealt with was former Red Sox general manager Dan Duquette, who was running the American Defenders of New Hampshire (who replaced the Nashua Pride). Their tenure ended when they were locked out of the stadium by then-Mayor Donnalee Lozeau. But to prevent the team, which was allowed to go in and get its belongings, etc., from actually playing a game, Caggiano came up with the idea of parking a tractor at home plate. “So no matter what, they’re not going to be able to play a game,” Caggiano said. “A ’68 Ford, an old tractor we had.”

Caggiano’s favorite Holman memory? It was an amusing one, when for the 9 p.m. fireworks he hit the switch and suddenly all the lights went on, not off, due to a heat factor. “We hit ever breaker in there,” Caggiano said.

His favorite sports memory? Caggiano loved the Coffey Post Legion games, but the biggest memory was seeing Rickey Henderson at the 2003 Atlantic League All-Star Game.

Someone told Caggiano during batting practice, “C’mere, you’ve got to see this.’. He’s in the batting cage, swinging with one hand. That was pretty cool.”

That and meeting all the other famous baseball names, including getting to know Pride manager Butch Hobson. “You never saw anyone with a stronger handshake,” he said.

Caggiano feels the city and stadium are in good hands having the Silver Knights.

“John Creedon and his family, they are great people,” he said. “They’re in it for the right reasons. They just want to make it work. They’re having fun and they provide a great service.”

Speaking of service, another great Caggiano memory is getting a call from the Secret Service when then presidential candidate Mitt Romney was to hold a rally at Holman. “They had a whole system that took a whole week to get to theirs standards,” Romney said. “They were on the roof. All these guys with tan pants and blue blazers. It was insane.”

Former Nashua Park-Rec Superintendent will be inducted into the Sports Legends of Holman Stadium Hall of Fame on Saturday. (Courtesy photo)

MICKEY GASPER

Nashua Silver Knights general manager Cam Cook remembers when he first got to Nashua as a Silver Knight in late June/early July, and saw Gasper for the first time in batting practice.

“His BP looked different than everyone else’s,” Cook said. “It looked low effort, and balls would just fly out of Holman Stadium. I chalked it up as just batting practice.

“That first game I was as Silver Knight, he homered from both sides of the plate in the first three innings. So it was not just batting practice.”

Gasper, of course, has gained great fame for his popularity as an on-again, off-again Boston Red Sox multi-positional player, fans rooting for him to succeed. He was recently, after a 34-game stint, sent back to Triple A Worceser by the Red Sox.

He was a standout at Merrimack High School, Bryant University and spent his first five years in the New York Yankees system, drafted in 2018 in the 27th round.

But his Holman Stadium legendary status is clearly due to a record season of 2016 in which he was the Futures Collegiate League’s Most Valuable Player – the only Knight to ever do so – while playing anything from catcher, DH or first base – a lot like his recent time at Fenway – for the Nashua Silver Knights.

All Gasper did was hit a league record .421 with 21 doubles, nine homers and 42 RBIs, an on-base percentage of .532 and an OPS of 1.258. Insane.

But his most famous at-bat as a Silver Knight came in Game 1 of the FCBL Finals. It was the bottom of the ninth, Nashua trailing by two, and Gasper was up with two outs and nobody on, down 0-2 in the count and the Worcester Bravehearts all but assured of taking a 1-0 lead in the best of three series back to Worcester with a chance to win the crown at home. But Gasper, known for his two-strike eye, managed to work a walk, and the next hitter, Ryan Sullivan, hit a two-run homer to send the game to extra innings. Nashua won it in the 10th and went on to win the FCBL championship the next night.

Cook admired the way Gasper went all out simply because it was baseball; he didn’t take the relaxed summer ball approach some collegiate players do.

“For him, he played with the same intensity all the time,” Cook said. “He kind of became a defacto leader.I remember I kind of short-hopped a ball across the diamond to him. He dug it out,but as we were coming off the field, he said ‘You hit me in the chest next time.’

“I liked that. I liked the accountability of it. … He was a fun guy to play with …He was a clean, legitimate .400 hitter. He was one of the guys if he did strike out it was ‘Whoa, must’ve been a pretty good pitch.’ He has the ability to leave the yard, but he’s not going to expand the zone to do so.”

How does Cook see Gasper now compared to 10 years ago?

“A couple nights ago, it was first and third, he legged out,” Cook said. “And a couple of years ago he played some second base. And I’m thinking, ‘Mickey’s waaay more athletic than I remembered.’ He just looks so much more lean, athletic and strong.”

Gasper, before he was sent back to Worcester last Sunday night by the Red Sox, was slated to be in Anaheim with Boston on Saturday. Instead, he’ll be with the Worcester at Syracuse.

TOM KING

Yours truly has been a Telegraph sportswriter for the last 40 years, and has covered baseball at the youth, Legion, high school, college and pro levels at Holman, as well as high school football and even soccer at HHS. In addition, we’ve broadcast games for TV-13, WSMN-Radio, and Nashua ETV.

Longtime Telegraph sports reporter Tom King willl be inducted into the Sports Legends of Holman Stadium Hall of Fame Saturday. (Courtesy photo)