In a world rife with sanctimony, false idols and cheap bravado, there was a simple man whom most of us would never have noticed and now, sadly, he has moved on to a better place.
I can say a ‘better place’ because if anyone truly deserved such a spiritual transition, and if such a place does indeed truly exist on some incomprehensible, intangible plane, then sitting there, grinning, would be Tom Holmberg.
Past Barnstable Post 206 Commander Tom Holmberg died Sunday, leaving behind a legacy and lifetime helping youth sports programs on Cape Cod.
Sean Walsh/capecod.com sports
A Korean War veteran who devoted the second half of adulthood devoted to youth and sports, Tom’s devotion was subtle and largely unnoticed. Except for the massive Korean War Veterans Association “Man of the Year” Award perched on a table top in his cottage foyer, Tom’s existence was chiefly devoid of such trappings of self-worship. He lived to serve others and on Sunday morning his life expired not with a drum roll or press conference, but holding close by him a team photograph of his beloved Barnstable Post 206 American Legion State Champions.
In the last decade of his life, Tom devoted everything he physically could to raise pennies and nickels to help buy new uniforms or bats or baseballs for a group of 18 young men. He did this because he saw in them a reflection of who he once was, some 70 years ago, playing football and baseball in his hometown of Sandwich or in the town where he went to high school, Barnstable.
Tom played football alongside some of Barnstable’s all-time greats, but only as a junior varsity player back in the late 1940s. He would later join the famed Barnstable Townies semi-pro squad and he would not hesitate to talk your ear off about all the great times he had, mixed in with a teary-eyed confession that no amount of money should ever keep a kid from simply, well, being a kid.
Tom’s last hurrah was this past spring when he helped run the 10th Annual Hyannis Veterans Golf Tournament that once was the big fundraiser for the Hyannis VFW, transformed into a key fundraiser for the Barnstable Post 206 American Legion baseball program. This past Thanksgiving, Tom couldn’t make his usual journey from Bourne to Yarmouth delivering turkeys to the needy. Out of respect and honor for Tom, the Post 206 baseball team picked up where Tom left off and made sure the turkeys were donated and delivered. If for nothing else the man had achieved in his life, Tom deserved that respect.
And when his remains are placed in the Massachusetts National Cemetery tomorrow morning in Bourne, laid beneath a bronze plaque bearing his name and in honor of his service to this country, he deserves, if nothing more, a sharp salute.
The powerhouse Barnstable Post 206 American Legion baseball program could not have grown to become just that without Tom. He never stopped asking how the team was doing. He never stopped checking the local newspapers to review all the names of the 17- and 18- and 19-year-olds that reminded him of his days in the sunshine of boyish adolescence.
His memory and health faded in the last two or so years of his life, Tom insisted, as most heroic albeit humble men like him do, to do everything himself.
I last saw Tom four weeks ago when I was told he was brought to Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital in Plymouth. He had missed the American Legion postseason awards dinner and he had so much wanted to be there to see the team one last time before he rode off into the sunset. Wheelchair-bound and barely able to speak or move, Tom opened one weary eye and looked up at me as I presented him with a plaque thanking him for his devotion to the young athletes of Cape Cod.
A single tear cascaded down is wrinkled aged cheek and for that brief flash of an instant I could see the gleam of better days blaze brightly in his eye and he reached up to me and pulled me close with both arms.
“I love you guys,” he barely whispered, clutching onto my rain-soaked coat as if he wanted some assurance that all would be okay.
“No, Tom,” I said. “We all love you.”
— Sean Walsh is the sports editor for www.capecod.com. His email is [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @coachwalshccbm
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