Youkilis has Boggs-like qualities

Wednesday, May 30, 2007 | Feedback | Print Entry

If Wade Boggs wasn't in the Hall of Fame, you could say that Kevin Youkilis is a right-handed Wade Boggs, because of all the similarities between the two. Neither was ever considered a top prospect, neither is blessed with what scouts would call a good baseball body, and neither Boggs nor Youkilis has ever been confused with Rickey Henderson or Jose Reyes for foot speed.

And Youkilis grinds through his at-bats, likes Boggs once did. He works the count, fouls off tough pitches, makes opposing pitchers sweat. He gets a lot of cheap hits -- flares and dinkers and dunkers -- in the same way that Boggs and Tony Gwynn and Derek Jeter get a lot of cheap hits, the classic sign of good hitters. Now Youkilis has a 21-game hitting streak, nine consecutive multihit games, and he is hitting .358.  
 

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  • Buster Olney Buster Olney

    Buster Olney is a senior writer at ESPN The Magazine. He began covering baseball in 1989, as the Nashville Banner's beat reporter assigned to the Triple-A Nashville Sounds. Later, he covered the San Diego Padres (1993-94), the Baltimore Orioles ('95-96), the New York Mets ('97) and the Yankees ('98-2001). Olney joined ESPN The Magazine in 2003, after six years at The New York Times, and he's the author of the Times' best-seller "The Last Night of the Yankee Dynasty," a book about the Paul O'Neill-Tino Martinez Yankees dynasty of 1996-01.

    He grew up in central Vermont collecting baseball cards and listening to Red Sox, Expos, Phillies and Pirates radio broadcasts, and was a rabid fan of the Los Angeles Dodgers. He graduated from Vanderbilt University the same year as hoops legend Will Perdue, and ranks among the all-time leading scorers in pickup basketball at Memorial Gym. He claims to have witnessed the Commodores' winning football season in 1982 (although anthropologists have not yet confirmed this).

    Olney also contributes to ESPN.com, ESPN Radio, ESPNEWS, "SportsCenter" and "Baseball Tonight."

    Follow Buster on Twitter: @Buster_ESPN

    Ask Buster a question: Buster's Mailbag

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