With great sadness we announce the passing of one of our own.  Rick Twait was called to his heavenly home on Sept. 18th, 2017.  Rick was first brought to our Hollander family through his son Kyle, who is a current player, and over the past years Rick has served on the Hollander Board.  He was one of the members that made the push for the fund raising for the lights on Fritz Field.  Rick was also the voice of the Hollanders.  Up until this past season Rick was the man behind the PA mic, announcing players and interjecting his own wit and style to the Hollander home games.  While we will miss you dearly Rick, we will always remember your style and charm, and unending passion for amateur baseball and the Hollanders in particular.  RIP Rick, heaven has another great announcer!!

 

There will be a celebration of Life for Rick Twait on Sunday October 1st, 2017 from 4pm-7pm at the Chaska Middle School West

 

 

 

"It measures just nine inches in circumference, weighs only about five ounces, and it's made of cork wound with woolen yarn, covered with two layers of cowhide, and stiched by hand precisely 216 times.

It travels 60 feet 6 inches from the pitcher's mound to home--and it can cover that distance at nearly 100 miles an hour. Along the way it can be made to twist, spin, curve, wobble, rise, or fall away.
The bat is made of turned ash, less than 42 inches long, not more than 2-3/4 inches in diameter. The batter has only a few thousandths of a second to decide to hit the ball. And yet the men who fail seven times out of ten are considered the game's greatest heroes.

It is played everywhere. In parks and playgrounds and prison yards. In back alleys and farmers' fields. By small children and by old men. By raw amateurs and millionare professionals. It is a leisurely game that demands blinding speed. The only game where the defense has the ball. It follows the seasons, beginning each year with the fond expectancy of springtime and ending with the hard facts of autumn.

Americans have played baseball for more than 200 years, while they conquered a continent, warred with one another and with enemies abroad, struggled over labor and civil rights and the meaning of freedom.
At the games's heart lie mythic contradictions: a pastoral game, born in crowded cities; an exhilarating democratic sport that tolerates cheating and has excluded as many as it has included; a profoundly conservative game that sometimes manages to be years ahead of its time.

It is an American odyssey that links sons and daughters to fathers and grandfathers. And it reflects a host of age-old American tensions: between workers and owners, scandal and reform, the individual and the collective.
It is a haunted game, where each player is measured by the ghosts of those who have gone before. Most of all, it is about time and timelessness, speed and grace, failure and loss, imperishable hope, and coming home."

"Baseball"
Written By: Ken Burns and Geoffry C. Ward
Spoken by Narrator: John Chancellor

 

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