As many as 40 million Americans have dyslexia. One of them is Orioles broadcaster Brett Hollander.

In his seventh season, the 41-year-old Hollander is living his childhood dream. Calling 150 games from February to perhaps October, each day Hollander must master statistics and read stories about the Orioles so that he can demonstrate his knowledge and passion for the team.

It isn’t easy.

The passion is evident for anyone who knows Hollander, who seemingly has an unlimited store of energy, and who enthusiastically engages with fans he sees in airports and restaurants.

It’s the knowledge part that’s difficult.

Hollander, whose parents Ellen, an attorney for more than 50 years and a current United States District Judge, and Rich, a former Baltimore News American and WBAL-TV reporter, emphasized the importance of education, learned at an early age there was something wrong.

“I had a first-grade teacher who was a wonderful woman tell my parents that I wasn’t reading or at least not reading well enough,” Hollander recalled.

His mother countered that woman and others who questioned his ability. “Have you heard my son talk? There is nothing wrong with him.”

Anyone who’s spent time around Hollander knows he has no trouble talking about the Orioles, Ravens or current affairs, another passion.

Before he began broadcasting for the team, Hollander hosted an afternoon political talk show on WBAL.

“That was only article reading and that was very challenging,” Hollander said. “When I was doing a three-hour talk show, I would go to bed at night reading something, wake up, and it would take all day to read several articles that I thought were worthy of something I would want to read on the show.”

In elementary school, Hollander’s parents took him for testing and tutoring, hoping that would help him keep pace with other students.

“It may have taken me longer to do certain things,” Hollander explained. “I always was frustrated that I felt I had classmates look at a vocab exam for 10 minutes, get 100 and I actually studied and get an 85.”

Reading has always been frustrating for him, but he’s persevered.

“When I was in high school, and we had to read Dickens, and we had to read 50 to 100 pages a night, it would be like climbing Everest,” he said.

“But you figure out tricks. I was early in books on tape. I was early having a laptop in class, which helped with note taking, and you learn ways to study, but it was through many hours of doing it, and my parents will of driving me to different tutors and doing everything in their power they could so I could stay at least up with my grade and not fall too far behind.”

Baseball broadcasters are workaholics, reading and talking with players for information they can use during broadcasts.

“I try to give myself extra time to read articles,” Hollander said. He enjoys reading books, but with his schedule, it may take him two years to read a long book.

He sounds smooth on the air, but he’s careful to prepare.

“When I have to read commercials or promo copy on the fly is when I want to make sure that I do that before the game and I’m not just grabbing it off the wall and reading it,” he said.

“I don’t want to stumble, and I’m very cognizant of that to this day, and I don’t want to embarrass myself misreading something. I would say the actual preparation going in is probably not too dissimilar as far as time that anyone else would take. We all look at different things. We all have our own sources or things that we think are important to a broadcaster, what we want to say that night, but as far as the overall process, it’s probably the same as my colleagues as far as time spent and yes, it’s a lot of minutiae.”

Hollander and his wife, Erin, who have two girls, 11-year-old Mae and 9-year-old Violet, have become a advocates for children with dyslexia. Violet was diagnosed with dyslexia about the same age as her father was.

“She maybe has to work a little bit harder,” Hollander said. “She’s got a ton of want-to, and she flourishes in so many other things. She makes up for anything with her incredible personality. I think it’s a part of it. You learn those tricks, and no one has everything. Whatever you lack in one category, you make up for in others.”

Hollander has educated himself about the condition, and willingly meets with youngsters with dyslexia.

“When you take a deep dive into learning disabilities, particularly dyslexia and other reading disabilities, there is no correlation between intelligence and your ability to read,” he said. “Maybe that’s why I manifested the ability to talk and communicate.

“It was perplexing to my parents. I think anyone who had communicated with me would say, ‘I don’t believe you, but again, you were talking about someone who’s having a hard time reading. It’s not about intelligence.”

As a student at the Gilman School, Hollander found his passion and an outlet, broadcasting.

“I think when I stopped feeling sorry for myself and I started broadcasting [in] high school, doing what I always wanted to do and accomplishing certain things, I felt at that point, I could do anything,” Hollander said. “Then through years of kind of struggling, you figure out ways to succeed.”

Rich Hollander, a devoted Orioles fan, told Brett about his dyslexia one night when they were having a catch. He later gave him some advice.

“When I started getting paid years and years ago to read commercials on the radio, my dad said: ‘You should send a note to all your lower-school elementary schoolteachers and now you get paid to read something.’”

Many longtime friends of Hollander, of which I am one, aren’t aware of his dyslexia.

“It’s an inner-circle thing,” Hollander said. “People who have known me since I was in elementary school. I did give my senior speech in high school on it, but it’s not something I bring up in conversation. I don’t feel I’ve been shortchanged. I’ve said this since I was 17, 18 years old, and it took me a while to get there, but eventually said it.

“I don’t feel I’ve been dealt a bad hand in any way. In fact, I feel it’s made me tougher. I feel it’s made me stronger. It’s made me a better broadcaster. I think it’s made me more relatable to my kids when they go through something difficult, and I wouldn’t trade it for anything, but it’s not a woe-is-me situation.”

Each November, Hollander hosts a fundraiser for the Odyssey School in Timonium, which teaches students from kindergarten to eighth grade with dyslexia and language learning difficulties.

“Going to Bat for Dyslexia is a big party based on everything I love about Baltimore,” he said. “I get some of the best restaurants and restauranteurs under one roof. It’s a labor of love. It’s not easy to pull off every year.”

Hollander is used to pulling off things that are unlikely. The 8-year-old boy with dyslexia calling games for the team he grew up watching wants this generation overcome their perceived handicap to succeed.

“It’s not something I walk around, saying, ‘I’m in this terrible spot.’ My life has been a gigantic blessing,” he said. “We all have things in life we take on and battle. I feel great about not wallowing in self-pity and kind of just pushing through. It made me who I am today.”

Call for questions: I answer Orioles questions most weekdays. Please send yours to: Rich@BaltimoreBaseball.com

BaltimoreBaseball.com

Message History

Delivery option(s)