Team finds spot for ex-Bat, Raven NECBL All-Star keeps hitting while playing several positions

By Ken Murphy, Sentinel Staff



Filling in as an emergency outfielder on a 10-day contract with the Keene Swamp Bats turned out to be a good exercise in career planning for then-Franklin Pierce third baseman Garrett Olson.

Fast forward four years, and Olson, 23, rarely knows where he'll play for his Beloit (Wis.) Snappers until the lineup is posted for the low Class A affiliate of the Minnesota Twins.

But, like Olson showed the Swamp Bats, with his 10-day contract eventually leading to two All-Star seasons in the New England Collegiate Baseball League, and at Franklin Pierce, where he was a two-time All-America infielder, Olson continually proves himself too valuable to sit.

Olson may not have a set position, but his name usually is somewhere in the lineup.

Now in his second season with Beloit after a year with the rookie Appalachian League Elizabethton (Tenn.) Twins, Olson is hitting .300 (21-for-70) - second best on the team - with two home runs and eight RBIs through 19 games. Olson, who is listed on the roster as an outfielder despite having played there only a handful of games last season, has been playing third, short and first for the Midwest League Snappers.

In one recent three-game stretch, Olson started at third, short and first, respectively.

"It keeps things interesting every day," Olson said Wednesday afternoon, prior to going 3-for-6 as the third baseman against West Michigan that evening to raise his average to .300.

Olson, who is engaged to fellow Franklin Pierce alum Danielle Heppell - a former Raven soccer player - in September of 2009, said he is enjoying his life as a minor leaguer.

"It's great," he said. "It's a blast. I love traveling around and seeing all the cities in the Midwest normally you wouldn't have the opportunity to see. We had a day off recently and we went to Wrigley, so you get to see a lot of stuff that I haven't had a chance to see coming from the Northeast."

Most of that travel is on the back of a coach bus with the Snappers as the team criss-crosses the midwest through a 140-game schedule. Beloit, population 37,000, is just north of the Illinois state line, about 80 miles southwest of Milwaukee.

Olson said another reason he enjoys the travel is because the Snappers regularly visit larger cities, and play teams that draw bigger crowds than Beloit.

"Some of the road games we're playing in front of 12,000," he said. "It's pretty fun to play in front of crowds like that."

Olson is having his best season for the struggling Snappers (6-13) after batting .219 with six homers and 50 RBIs in 123 games last season.

"I struggled with some slumps at times last year. I went through a bunch of swing changes to see what would work, and that's tough to do in the middle of the season," he said. "This year I came in with a good approach and a good swing. I'll stick with it and it's been working out a lot better."

The impetus for the swing change was adjusting to professional pitching.

"You're facing guys who can throw any pitch for a strike at any time," he said. "You might think fastball in a situation where fastball is what you've seen in the lower levels, but a guy will come in with something else. Night in and night out we're facing guys throwing upper 80s to mid-90s and guys coming out of the bullpen who are just as good and were probably aces in college. They've all been stars at one point.

"In college or summer ball you'd have an opportunity to beat up on some guys (in relief), but here it's shutdown guys all the time and that makes it pretty hard."

Olson, who is from South Paris, Maine, said he spent his offseason hunting and working in baseball clinics in Concord. He went to Florida in the beginning of February to work out prior to reporting to minor league camp at the beginning of March.

One of the highlights of his spring, he said, was playing in two spring training games with some of the Twins major leaguers. Olson said he played third when All-Star Justin Morneau, the 2006 AL MVP, was at first and with closer Joe Nathan, a fellow NECBL alumnus, on the mound.

"It was pretty cool taking BP with those guys," he said of sharing a cage with Morneau and catcher Joe Mauer, the 2006 AL batting champion.

Olson is reminded of his NECBL career often - teammate Chris Cates, the Beloit shortstop, played for North Adams when Olson was with the Swamp Bats. They were teammates on the 2005 Northern Division All-Star team.

Olson also regularly speaks with another NECBL alum - former Swamp Bats teammate Bryan Duplissie, who also played with Olson at Franklin Pierce and is a current Ravens assistant.

"I talk to him a few times a week," Olson said. "I get updates on how (Franklin Pierce) is doing."

Olson was the Twins' fourth-round pick in 2006, the 126th selection overall, making him the highest drafted Raven in program history, besting Shawn Hayes's fifth round selection (142nd overall) in 2005.