Benetti: White Sox pitcher Derek Holland enjoys his creative outlet

For less than two years, well before his Las Vegas career, Wayne Newton lived just outside of Columbus.

That fact likely relegates White Sox pitcher Derek Holland to, at best, second place on the list of Newark, Ohio's top entertainers, no matter how accurate his impersonations are.

For starters, Holland's Harry Caray is formidable.

He also offers:

• The lumbering Austrian dialect of Arnold Schwarzenegger (On the Sox hitting: "Dey ah curushing da bahll, just like I curush pahhhlatiks.")

• The calming lilt of Kermit the Frog (On the Sox manager's effect on Holland's teammates: "Rick has done a wonderful job of keeping them close, just like we do on Sesame Street.")

• And the Frankie Valli-sidekick beat of Todd Frazier ("Cuh mahn Dairk, put um up, hea we go!")

For Holland, this all started with down time around the diamond in Newark, Ohio.

"I was doing impersonations of my brother's teammates, their smiles," Holland said. "I would do the way that they would hit and I started to do some voices. I think when I really realized I could do voices was probably in high school."

Holland and a teammate, Kyle Dyar, were inspired by a video of someone doing Schwarzenegger as a pizza shop owner.

"We started practicing with that and then we'd joke around," Holland said. "All those bus trips in the city when you're playing games it would always be us in the back just goofing off and doing all these voices. It kind of just grew from there and we've had fun with it since."

Holland's impressions grew from baseball, but conquering the sport itself was the goal. One day during lunch at Newark High School, Holland walked by an Army recruitment table and struck up a conversation with one of the officers.

"He asked me what I was going to do with my life and I told him I wanted to play professional baseball," Holland remembered. "He shot me down and said, 'No, the chances of that are slim to none.'"

Young Derek went home and channeled his creative energy, this time in writing.

"There's a sign that I made out of cardboard box that said, 'Army Says You Can't,'" Holland said. "It was a motivational thing. It was something that really pushed me that much more."

Holland, now in his ninth MLB season, has needed to self-propel at times. He's missed parts of the last three seasons with knee and shoulder injuries that siphoned some joy from him.

"Right when I had the knee surgery, it started to creep in," Holland said, referring to a "the dark hole" of sadness he felt. "I had the bright light of coming back at the end of the season (in 2014). I came back, was very excited to be a part of that and then the next year I got hurt and that's when it really hit me hard.

"It got to the point to where it's like, 'Am I really going to have to stop playing the game of baseball because of these two injuries?'"

He didn't. The combination of baseball and impersonations continues, now in Chicago.

If afforded a full 2017 season, Holland might say to his own body - possibly in the crooning voice of another, given some practice - Danke Schoen.

• Jason Benetti is a play-by-play broadcaster for the Chicago White Sox, as well as ESPN. Follow him on Twitter @jasonbenetti.