The Decade’s Best: No. 42 J.C. Holt

J.C. Holt
Brewster 2003
Outfielder
LSU

Few players — even the great ones — get their name mentioned every season. The years pass by. You remember those players, but they don’t necessarily have an anchor in the present.

J.C. Holt is the exception.

In 2003, Holt won the batting title with a .388 average. To that point, it was the highest average of the decade.

Six years later, it still is.

When Conor Gillaspie chased the batting title in 2007, we talked about Holt. It was the same thing in 2008, when Jimmy Cesario came as close as anybody has. Todd Cunningham hovered in the .400s for much of 2009 and again, Holt’s name popped up.

All because the little outfielder from LSU had himself one heck of a summer in 2003.

Holt came to the Cape after his sophomore season with the Tigers. He was a standout player, but there weren’t any numbers that predicted a record-setting summer. He had hit .349 as a freshman and .299 as a sophomore.

All summer, though, he just kept hitting. He played in 33 games for Brewster. He had at least one hit in 29 of those games. At one point, he put together a 20-game hitting streak, which ended on the last day of the regular season.

To make it all more impressive, 2003 wasn’t a particularly offensive year. The league hit .229. Holt was one of only seven players with a .300 average. By contrast, seven pitchers had sub-1.00 ERAs, which is almost unheard of.

Somehow, in that landscape, Holt delivered a season to remember. Despite having just one home run and only nine RBI, he was voted league MVP.

Then and now, I’d say he deserved it.

After the Cape

Holt followed up his summer by hitting .393 as a junior at LSU. He was picked in the third round of the 2004 draft by the Braves, and he remains in their system. He spent the 2009 season at Triple A Gwinnett, where he hit .282.

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