Florida Gators

GAINESVILLE, Fla. – The 1941 season is one of the most notable in Major League Baseball history. Three major developments occurred that still resonate 80 years later: Yankees Hall of Famer Lou Gehrig died far too young from a disease that now bears his name, Red Sox outfielder Ted Williams batted .400 – the last big leaguer to do so – and Yankees great Joe DiMaggio hit safely in 56 consecutive games.

Few records in sports are considered as revered as DiMaggio's hitting streak, which is why when a player approaches a streak even half as long, attention starts to build. A third-year sophomore outfielder for the Gators, Jacob Young is eons away from the majors and type of pressure DiMaggio and Pete Rose (44-game streak in 1978) and Paul Molitor (39 games in 1987) experienced during their famous streaks.

Still, what Young has accomplished deserves attention and appreciation. In Sunday's 8-0 win over Florida A&M at Florida Ballpark, Young extended his hitting streak to 30 games. In a rare nod to history in the college game, Young tipped his batting helmet to the cheering crowd as his teammates gave him a standing ovation in front of the home dugout.

"I was shocked they actually did that because I know how much a superstitious thing that is,'' said Jeff Cardozo, a former Gators pitcher and now the team's radio play-by-play voice. "To see him and his teammates celebrate like that, it just shows you how much he means to those guys and how much it meant to him. It was good for the camaraderie of the team and for everyone to realize what that was. We didn't do that for Olson at all."

Olson is Tim Olson, Cardozo's former teammate and the Gators outfielder who later played in the big leagues with Arizona and Colorado. Young's eighth-inning bouncing single to shortstop broke a 21-year-old UF record, eclipsing the school-record 29-game hitting streak by Olson in 2000.
 

Olson now lives in Denver and works as a commercial insurance broker. He continues to visit the ballpark as a coach for his 13-year-old son's team. Olson was made aware of Young's bid to break his record recently and on Friday, after Young hit safely in both games of a doubleheader to match his mark, Olson reached out to Young via Twitter to offer his congratulations.

"I appreciate the last five minutes of fame that the streak has given me, but kudos to Jake,'' Olson said Monday. "He can have it now probably for the next 20-some years. I think what he did is incredibly hard. He did it over three years, he's using BBCOR bats and the velocity that pitchers are throwing now is so consistently high. What he did is really quite special."

To show how much times have changed, when Olson played, there was little mention in the media of his streak until he passed Brad Wilkerson's then-school-record 26-game streak. Most newspapers ran a wire-service blurb if anything at all. Meanwhile, two decades later, nearly all of Florida's games are available on TV or live streaming, and updates on Young's at-bats are posted on social media nearly before he departs the batter's box.

The game has changed, too. More information than ever before is available for scouting reports and up-to-date analytics. There are fewer and fewer unknowns about how to pitch a batter or a pitcher's weak spot.

"I remember not even thinking about it,'' Olson said. "Nobody really said much about it until it got really close and then I broke it. It didn't seem like there was a ton of fanfare around it at that time. For me, I was just playing baseball. I didn't really care. But then it became a little more pressure because then I was trying to shoot for the SEC record. The only memory I really have of it is the day I lost it. I remember losing it on a Sunday game at Tennessee."

On April 23, 2000, at Lindsey Nelson Stadium in Knoxville, the Gators rallied from a 6-0 deficit to beat the Vols 10-9. Ryan Raburn (grand slam) and Tony Socarras (3-for-4) starred for the Gators that day as Olson went 0-for-4 with a walk and run. In his final at-bat in the eighth inning, Olson grounded out to shortstop and the streak was over.

Looking back, Olson said he is surprised the streak didn't end on a Friday night against one of the SEC's aces back then such as future big-league standouts Cliff Lee (Arkansas) and Brandon Webb (Kentucky). Instead, Olson got hits off both during the streak, including a two-run homer off Lee in a road win over the Razorbacks. A native of North Dakota who played two seasons at Hutchinson (Kan.) Community College and one at Florida, Olson finished the season batting .394 with 15 home runs and 75 RBI. He was drafted in the seventh round by the Diamondbacks in the 2000 draft and was in the majors four years later.

As for Young, he will try to run his streak to 31 games Tuesday night when the Gators host Georgia State. In a strange coincidence, he kept his streak alive in the same way Olson's ended. Young stepped to the plate in the bottom of the eighth inning Sunday hitless and hit a ground ball to the left of the mound that bounced toward shortstop. Florida A&M's JD Tease was unable to field the ball and Young was safe.

He waited for the official ruling.

"I don't think I've ever looked at the scoreboard that long,'' Young said. "When I hit it, I knew I had a chance. I just ran as hard as I could and kind of hoped the ball wasn't going to beat me there."

His teammates then paid tribute as did the fans.

"Going into that inning, everyone was freaking out in the dugout,'' pitcher Hunter Barco said. "We're so nervous for him. He went out there and had a good at-bat. After he put the ball into play, we were looking at the board and we saw it go from 10 [hits] to 11. We were ecstatic."

Young's streak started in 2019 in the NCAA Lubbock Regional, continued through 17 games last season prior to the global coronavirus pandemic canceling the rest of the season, and carried into the first 12 games of 2021.

If you're scoring at home, that's 646 days through Sunday.

"It's a heck of an accomplishment and it wouldn't surprise me if he goes on a much longer streak at this point now that he broke the record,'' UF coach Kevin O'Sullivan said. "I know it was maybe a questionable call, whether it was a hit or an error, but I firmly believe he would have beat it out if it was fielded cleanly. I don't think anything was given to him in that at-bat. I had a really good angle at it and I don't think there was any question that it was a hit."

If Joltin' Joe were still around, he would undoubtedly agree.