Erik Young ’89 was inducted into the Baldwin-Wallace College Athletic Hall of Fame on Friday, November 4, 2005. His teammate Mark Massey ’93, president of the B-W Lettermen’s Association, presented him with his hall of fame plaque at the induction ceremony in the Strosacker Hall ballroom. He is the 45th Yellow Jackets baseball player or coach admitted to the hall of fame.
Erik was a four-year starter and letterman for the Yellow Jackets from 1986 to 1989. He was one of the best all-around players to ever wear the Brown & Gold. His .381 career batting average is the 11th-highest in B-W history, and his 51 stolen bases rank second all-time. He also ranks in the top ten in on-base percentage (.483), slugging percentage (.610) and fielding average (.957). He made the All-OAC team and the All–Mideast Region team in every one of his four seasons, and he earned Academic All-OAC honors three times.
He was a key player on B-W’s 1986 and 1988 OAC regular season championship teams that made it to the NCAA Mideast Region playoffs. His .393 batting average in 1986 won him the team’s Outstanding Freshman award, and his play at the 1988 regional earned him a spot on the all-tournament team. His best season was 1987, when he led the Jackets in hitting with a .410 batting average and stole 19 bases in 21 attempts. He won the team’s “Big Stick” offensive MVP award that year, and was named to the Academic All-America first team.
The B-W record book is a testament to Erik’s place in B-W baseball history. He holds career records for at bats (480), hits (183), runs scored (136), triples (11) and walks (84), and he had more home runs (18), doubles (34) and runs batted in (130) than any other player in the ’80s. During his 1989 MVP season, he tied a school record when he hit three home runs in a single game against John Carroll University.
Erik was presented for induction by his father, who recalled Erik’s decision to return to B-W for his senior year instead of signing with the Cleveland Indians when they drafted him in the spring of 1988. The Indians tried to convince him that he could finish his degree as a part-time student in the offseason, but Erik wanted to graduate with his classmates. “If they think I’m that good,” he told his father, “they’ll draft me again next year.”
He was right. The Tribe drafted him again in the June 1989 draft. This time he signed, and he played his rookie season with the Watertown Indians in the New York–Penn League. He was one of only five players in the league to go five-for-five in a single game that summer. In 1990, he went to the Indians’ minor league spring training camp and was later released.
Today, Erik lives in Chicago with his wife, Karen (Mellaci) Young ’90, and their four children. He is the Midwest senior account manager for Novelis Inc., and he volunteers as a coach for his kids’ sports teams.
