D-days' skipper at home in Auburn

AUBURN - At Friday night's Hot Stove Dinner put on by the Doubledays, manager Dennis Holmberg joked about the first time he came to Auburn, as a rookie minor leaguer playing for Newark in the New York-Penn League.

"I looked around and thought, 'What a terrible place this is,'" he said, holding a microphone before nearly 200 of the Doubledays' most dedicated fans. "Then I came back seven years later, this time as the manager in Newark, and I thought, 'Geez, this place hasn't improved one bit.'"

To judge by the enthusiastic laughter, no one seemed to take offense. After all, wearing his technicolor aloha shirt, a lei given to him by a woman at the dinner, and a perma-tan only slightly less rosy than its summertime version, the skipper oozes benevolence, charisma and popularity. As Doubledays general manager Carl Gutelius said at the function, Mayor Tim Lattimore's job could well be Holmberg's, if he wanted it, once Lattimore's term came up (to which Lattimore quipped, "You can have it.")