Former Gators shortstop Tim Olson found himself in a bit of an awkward position over the past couple of weeks. On one hand, he wants the Gators to do well and for outfielder Jacob Young to continue mashing the cover off of the ball. At the same time, Young was chasing down Olson’s school-record 29-game hitting streak.
Olson insists that there wasn’t an internal conflict like you might imagine. Instead, he understood that his 21-year-old record was meant to be broken. He was happy for Young after he broke the record with an infield single in the eighth inning against Florida A&M last Sunday.
“I told my dad the other night, I was like, ‘It doesn’t change my life one way or another,’” said Olson, who played in the major leagues for two seasons. “It was a cool record to have for a long time, but it doesn’t substantially change anything for me. For me, this thing has kind of been coming back every couple years [when] people get close. I guess in a way that won’t happen anymore. This interview will be with Jacob in a couple years, maybe, instead of me.
“I kind of saw it coming. I’d been following for a couple weeks, so I was anticipating it happening. I guess my initial reaction was just congratulations for him. It’s pretty cool.”
Young’s record-breaking hit came with a bit of controversy. He bounced a slow roller toward Florida A&M shortstop JD Tease. Tease was playing deep but charged toward the ball. The ball rolled under his glove, and Young reached first safely. After some intense waiting, a hit eventually popped up on the scoreboard, and Florida Ballpark went ballistic. The official scorer and coach Kevin O’Sullivan both thought that Young would’ve beaten the throw out even if the ball had been fielded cleanly.
Olson didn’t get to see the game live, but he doesn’t have a problem with the way the play was scored.
“What I do know, though, is if you’re chasing a hitting streak and you’re at home and it’s a questionable call, Jacob should get that call every single time,” he said.
While Young and Olson will be listed atop the Florida baseball record book for years to come, their hitting streaks couldn’t have been more different. Olson’s 29-game streak happened entirely within the 2000 season and included parts of seven SEC series.
Young’s 30-game streak took part over the course of three seasons and a total of 648 days. Strangely, due to the cancelation of the 2020 season, not a single one of those games came against an SEC opponent. Unless there’s another canceled season, we’ll never see that feat accomplished again.
Olson thinks both accomplishments are impressive in different ways. It’s not fair to say that doing it in one season or over three seasons is more challenging than the other.
“For one season to be kind of in the zone and just be rocking and rolling every single day is tough, but then also for your mechanics and things not to change over the course of three seasons to throw you off and to start two different seasons, you can’t have any beginning-of-the-season slumps that you’ve changed any mechanics or anything.
“Super impressive, especially with the velocity that the pitchers are throwing now, and the bats aren’t quite as juiced up as they were when I played. It’s quite a feat.”
Another important difference between when Olson played and now is the media coverage baseball receives and the advent of social media. When Olson played, college baseball was a minor sport that only had a handful of games on television each year. There was no Twitter to build excitement around Olson possibly breaking Brad Wilkerson’s school record.
There may have been some small articles about his feat in some local newspapers, but that was it. Olson said that people actually talked about his record more over the past few weeks as Young got close to it than they did when he first set the record.
Times are different now. Almost every game is available for viewing in some format, and the facilities arms race has carried over to baseball. Baseball is now the third major college sport. Young couldn’t scroll through social media over the past two weeks without seeing something about how far he was away from Olson’s mark. Baseball players are superstitious and don’t like to talk about records, so social media presented Young with a mental hurdle that Olson didn’t have to face.
Olson said the key to overcoming the mounting pressure with a long hitting streak is to focus on the small details, such as swing timing and mechanics. The results will take care of themselves.
“There’s always pressure in baseball hitting,” he said. “The only thing you can really do is go up there and know that you have good timing on deck and get in the box and see the ball and hit the ball. When you get in the batter’s box, I would think that the streak is probably the last thing you’re thinking about when you actually step in the batter’s box. I think the pressure is more probably between at bats and before the game. But when you’re in there and you’re just competing, that should be the last thing on your mind.”
Young is one of the last members of a dying breed – the old-school leadoff batter. In an era where home runs and strikeouts are both nearing all-time highs, Young is a throwback. He didn’t hit a single home run during his 30-game hitting streak. Counting his home run against Stetson on Wednesday night, he’s hit just four homers in his career. All Young does is get on base and make life miserable for opposing pitchers. He’s a career .354 hitter.
“I think that the singles hitter, base hit, getting on base, using the whole field is something that has been devalued over the last few years with the long ball, and I think that that is a tragedy to not value the guy getting on base and doing it consistently,” Olson said. “I think it’s neat. I love that he just goes out there and gets on base and creates opportunities for his team to win. Not everybody has to be a home run hitter.”
After Young tied Olson’s record last Friday, Olson reached out to him to offer his support.
“I just said congratulations,” he said. “This had been a long-time record. I’ve had it for 21 years. I took it from another Gator Great, Brad Wilkerson, who had it for a few years before me. So, just congratulations, and I said, ‘Keep raking,’ which in baseball terms is just keep hitting and win another championship for the Gators.”
Hours after Olson did the interview for this story, Young’s hitting streak came to an end with an 0-for-4 night against Georgia State, which means he fell six games short of tying the SEC record. That doesn’t diminish the accomplishment, though. Anytime you’re ahead of Wilkerson and Olson on a list, you’ve done something worth being proud of.
There’s no telling how long Young’s record may last. It could be another 21 years. Who knows? Maybe it’ll never get broken. Olson thinks Young will hold the record for a long time.
“I think only one or two people even got close to [my record],” Olson said. “So, yeah, I would imagine he’s going to have this for a long time, but you just never know. It could get broke next year, but again, if this record timeline has anything to do with the next one, it’s going to be a long time before that thing gets broken again.”