Kevin Youkilis

Kevin Edmund Youkilis (born March 15, 1979), nicknamed "Youk", is an American former professional baseball first baseman and third baseman, who primarily played for the Boston Red Sox.

He was a four-year letter winner, a two-time All-Greater Miami Conference (1996 and 1997) and All-City (1996 and 1997) player, and All-State his senior season as he led the team with a .475 batting average and finished second all time in home runs.

While at Sycamore High School, he was the only player to homer off his future Red Sox teammate Aaron Cook.

He attended Sycamore High School (class of 1997) in the northeastern suburbs of Cincinnati, where he played third base, shortstop, first base, and the outfield for the school team (the Aviators) which won the Amateur Athletic Union National Championship in 1994.

When he graduated from high school in 1997, Youkilis was 6 ft and weighed about 227 lbs.

He was recruited by two Division I schools: Butler University and his ultimate choice, the University of Cincinnati —an institution that was the alma mater of both his father and Youkilis' longtime idol, Sandy Koufax, and had just finished a 12–46 season.

UC coach Brian Cleary spotted Youkilis at a winter camp.

"I looked at him and said, Well, we need somebody", said Cleary.

"I'd love to tell you I saw something no one else did, but he was just better than what we had."

While majoring in finance, Youkilis excelled as a player for the Cincinnati Bearcats from 1998 to 2001.

"I take no credit", said Cleary.

"He coaches himself. He knows his swing. Any time we said anything to him, he was already a step ahead. He made the adjustments he had to make. I just think he's a really smart guy who had a great feel for what he had to do."

In his junior year in 2000, he was a second-team All-American and first-team All-Conference USA, as he set school records by hitting three home runs in one game and 19 for the season, and drawing 63 walks in 60 games; still, he went undrafted.

"He was kind of a square-shaped body, a guy [who] in a uniform didn't look all that athletic", Cleary said.

"He wasn't a tall, prospect-y looking guy. He looked chubby in a uniform. … It wasn't fat. He was strong. [But] I think the body did scare some people away."

During the period between his junior and senior years, he played in the Cape Cod League for the Bourne Braves, where he was named a league all-star, and finished sixth in the league in batting average.

A native of Cincinnati, Ohio, he was drafted by the Red Sox in 2001, after playing college baseball at the University of Cincinnati.

He played in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the Red Sox, the Chicago White Sox, and the New York Yankees.

He later served as a special assistant to the Chicago Cubs and former Red Sox GM Theo Epstein.

Known for his ability to get on base, while he was still a minor leaguer, Youkilis was nicknamed "Euclis: The Greek God of Walks" in the best-selling book, Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game.

A Gold Glove Award-winning first baseman, he once held baseball's record for most consecutive errorless games at first base (later broken by Casey Kotchman).

In his senior year in 2001, he repeated as second-team All-American.

He is also a three-time MLB All-Star, two-time World Series Champion, and winner of the 2008 Hank Aaron Award.

An intense performer on the playing field, Youkilis was known for his scrappiness, grittiness, dirt-stained jerseys, home-plate collisions, and his strange batting stance.

He excelled despite a physique that led many observers to underestimate his athletic ability.

He was called "roly-poly" by his high school coach, "pudgy" by his college coach, a "fat kid" by general manager Billy Beane, and a "thicker-bodied guy" by the Red Sox scout who recruited him.

As Jackie MacMullan wrote for the Boston Globe: "He does not look like an MVP candidate; more a refrigerator repairman, a butcher, the man selling hammers behind the counter at the True Value hardware store."

Youkilis was inducted into the Sycamore Athletic Hall of Fame in 2008.

Youkilis was named to the Sporting News' list of the 50 greatest current players in baseball, ranking No. 36 on the list in 2009, No. 38 in 2010, and No. 35 in 2011.

Youkilis was the hitting coach for Team Israel, under manager Ian Kinsler, when it competed in the 2023 World Baseball Classic in Miami, Florida.

In 2021, Youkilis was a pregame and postgame analyst for Red Sox broadcasts on the NESN network.

Starting in 2022, he became a color commentator during Red Sox games, working alongside Red Sox play-by-play announcer Dave O'Brien.

In 2017, the school honored him by retiring his jersey number, number 13.

Youkilis' Jewish great-great-great-grandfather, a native of 19th-century Romania, moved to Greece at the age of 16 to avoid conscription at the hands of the notoriously anti-Semitic Cossacks.

He became homesick, however, and returned to Romania after a couple of years, although he changed his surname from "Weiner" to "Youkilis" to avoid conscription and imprisonment.

Youkilis was born in Cincinnati, the son of Carolyn (née Weekley) and Mike Youkilis, a wholesale jeweler.

His father was born to a Jewish family, while his mother, a native of West Virginia, converted to Judaism after her marriage.

Youkilis has described his father as a "well-known third baseman in the Jewish Community Center fast-pitch softball league."

Youkilis is Jewish and had a bar mitzvah at a Conservative synagogue.

At the age of 15, he had an uncredited one-line speaking role in the romantic comedy film Milk Money.