Telegraph sports staff writer Tom King receives his Holman Sports Legends Hall of Fame award from Lions Club official Joel Ackerman, left, and Lions Club President Ste;phanieLangenbeck at Saturday night's ceremony at Historic Holman Stadium. (Photo courtesy of the Nashua Lions)

Wow.

What else can we say? You look at the plaque on display on the concourse just inside the gates at Historic Holman Stadium, and all the names on there.

To be sharing space with those names, to be considered a “Sports Legend” of Holman Stadium, who would have imagined? Heck, we remember being a kid growing up in upstate New York watching the late Nashua Dodgers manager Walter Alston when he managed the L.A.Dodgers for some 23 straight years of-year contracts. Unheard of. And also as a youth watching a TV movie on the life of Roy Campanella, played by actor Paul Winfield, mesmorized by the drama and fight Campanella showed to return to a productive life after a 1958 auto accident left him paralyzed. It was called “It’s Good To Be Alive”.

Yours truly’s name on a plaque with them? We remember being the same kid, watching on Sundays Greg Landry driving NFL defenses nuts with his running ability from the quarterback position with the Detroit Lions.On the same plaque with him? Could we ever have imagined that?

Former Nashua Parks-Rec Superintendent Nick Caggiano, right, receives his Holman Stadium Sports Legends Hall of Fame induction award from Lions Club officials Joel Ackerman and Stephanie Langenbeck Saturday night at HHS. (Photo courtesy of Nashua Lions)

For all the time spent at Holman Stadium over the last 40 years, yours truly can pretty much say he’s been there for a game as a fan only once Sometime in June of 1983 to check out the Nashua Angels Double A minor league team. Sat, if memory serves us well, on the upper bowl, third base side, in the days when cement was all you sat on at Holman. And we remember being stuck in traffic getting out of the lot and back onto Amherst Street to drive back to Derry.

For sports, almost any other time at Holman has been on the job, whether for the Derry News or The Telegraph or local broadcast outlets. But there were two other non-sports times: One year to see the July 4 fireworks and another, after professional baseball left Holman for about nine years, to see the late Tina Turner in concert. Yes, Tina Turner performed here.

That’s been it. Football, baseball of all levels, soccer, it’s been home to all. To recount favorite moments would be futile, because once we came up with one, we’d remember another to top it.

We never thought we’d see a time when Holman would have an elevator. Or luxury suites. Or time when Rickey Henderson played here. Or Jose Canseco. Or when Red Sox-Yankee rivals Butch Hobson and Sparky Lyle were managing against each other here.

We never thought we’d broadcast games here at Holman, starting with the Bambino World Series in 1988 on TV-13, to calling the football play-by-play on TV-13 or on radio for WSMN, including the one Nashua High School’s last football state championship win, that being in the mud over Londonderry in 1997. History. And, of course numerous high school and Silver Knights baseball games on Nashua ETV with the best play-by-play man around, John Collins.

Look, we won’t deny the fact that being inducted into the Lions Club Sports Legends of Holman Hall of Fame feels a bit awkward. This is an event/honor we’ve written about, reported on and documented for the last 18 years, ever since its inception.

But it’s special. It’s history. It’s an honor, and we can’t thank the Nashua Lions Club enough. And we owe the fact we’d even be considered for it to, even in a bigger way than the broadcast outlets, The Telegraph management over 40 years that allowed yours truly the opportunity to spend all the time at Holman that we have, to bring you the reader all the accounts of incredible athletes. Who knew?

But Legend? No way. The name goes on the plaque, but it simply represents all of the athletes, coaches, officials, etc., who left it all out on the field or in the stands, offices, or elsewhere in the facility, playing, coaching, or working. Fellow inductees current Red Sox Mickey Gasper and former Nashua Park-Recreation Superintendent Nick Caggiano are perfect examples.

You are the true Sports Legends of Holman Stadium.

We’ve just told and continue to tell your stories. And for that opportunity, we thank you.

Tom King can be reached at tking@nashuatelegraph.com, or on X @telegraph_Tom K.