Dana Young has never been to Wrigley Field.
Since her son Jared got drafted by the Chicago Cubs, she’s been saying she will wait until he’s on the field before she makes her first visit to baseball’s most hallowed ground.
That day is coming Sept. 27, when Jared steps onto the field in Chicago to toss out the ceremonial first pitch before the 2016 World Series champions play the Pittsburgh Pirates.
Jared has been given that honour as the Cubs minor league position player of the year for 2018.
The 23-year-old awoke Sunday morning in his bedroom in Prince George to the ring of his cell phone. At the other end of the line was a member of the Cubs’ front office staff in Chicago, who gave him the news.
“It’s pretty special – I’m thrilled about it, but it’s something I haven’t put too much emphasis on, until now,” said Young. “I knew I had a chance but I didn’t know, it was a waiting game. I’m pretty excited about it. It’s the best award I’ve ever gotten.”
The Cubs told Jared they will fly him, his mom and his dad, Randy, and the rest of his immediate family to Chicago next week to see him receive his award before the game.
“It’s a pretty warm welcome,” he said. “I’ve never even been to Wrigley and now I’m a part of it. It’s pretty cool.”
Young thought the award might go to Jason Vosler, a third baseman who hit 23 home runs in a season divided between the double-A Tennessee Smokies and triple-A Iowa Cubs. He got to know Vosler during spring training doing first base drills and they became friends.
Young has had a phenomenal season, his first full year as a professional ball player. He started out in April with the Cubs’ Class A affiliate in South Bend, Ind., and went to work right away hitting the cover off the ball. That led to a promotion to the Class-A Advanced Carolina League and Young was inserted into the Myrtle Beach Pelicans’ lineup as an everyday player, covering left field and first base.
Young’s numbers speak for themselves.
In 69 games for South Bend he had a .313 batting average, .365 on-base percentage and .525 slugging percentage (total bases divided by the number of at-bats), with 10 home runs. In 51 games for the Pelicans he posted a line of .282/.341/.431, with six home runs and six steals.
In both leagues combined he played 120 games. His slash line was .300/.357/.488, with 16 home runs, 19 doubles, eight triples and 61 runs. He batted in 76 runs, tops among all Cubs minor leaguers.
Young’s fielding stats were also stellar. He played 50 games at second base for South Bend and made just four errors on 428 chances, with 399 putouts. In 32 games at first base for the Pelicans he had just one error and was flawless in eight games as an outfielder.
He won the Cubs’ player-of-the-month awards in June and July.
Young is most proud of the fact he was able to hit so consistently playing as many games as he did as a rookie. His only downtime came in mid-April when he missed two weeks with a hamstring injury.
“There’s been times during my career when I’ve been a bit of a streaky hitter, a bit up and down, and when you play 140 games if you’re not consistent you’re not going to be very effective,” Young said. “It’s nice to be a reliable guy on defence as well as in the lineup every day. The more positions you can play the more valuable you are.
“Hitting has definitely been my main thing and it’s nice to see it’s still playing for me. There’s a lot of hard work that goes into it. When you see the results for an extended period of time like I did this season it definitely makes the hard work worth it.”
At every level he’s ever played, starting in 2000 when he was just five years old playing T-ball for his BC Rail team in the Prince George East Little League, Young has shown he knows how to hit.
He left the Prince George Youth Baseball Association after his second year of midget ball with the Knights and moved to Kelowna for his Grade 12 year to play in the B.C. Premier League for the Okanagan Athletics. That led to a scholarship at Minot State in North Dakota and moves in each successive year – first to Connors State in Oklahoma, then to Old Dominion in Virginia, where the Cubs took notice and picked him in the 15th round of the 2017 Major League draft.
He left Old Dominion three years into his sports management studies to play rookie ball in the Northwest League for the Eugene Emeralds and stayed south of the border to play through the winter in the Cubs’ instructional league in Mesa, Ariz. This year, swinging for the South Bend Cubs, he made the Midwest League all-star team and was called up July 7 to Myrtle Beach, where he made a seamless adjustment to the Carolina League with the Pelicans.
Young is unique in Prince George sports history. He’s the only local ball player to become an everyday player on any Major League Baseball farm team. The fact he’s a pioneer for his hometown is not lost on him.
“It’s definitely strange when all my teammates look up where I’m from, I kind of just laugh,” said Young. “It is pretty far away but I like it. I love Prince George, that’s where I’m from. They’re very interested in Prince George. It’s pretty cool.
“I try not to get too far ahead of myself because there’s a ton of good ball players in the organization. I just have to keep playing, until they tell me I can’t. I’m enjoying it too much. It’s definitely what I want to do for the rest of my life.”
Young returned to Prince George Sept. 4 after the Pelicans missed the playoffs. He’s a former rep team hockey player and an avid golfer and he plans to visit the local courses a few more times and go to a Cougars/Spruce Kings game or two before he leaves P.G. in October.
The Cubs told him to get some rest and be ready for when they want him to travel to Arizona, where he’ll be based this fall and winter attending strength and conditioning camps and working out with Cubs coaches at their spring training facility in Mesa.
“It’s a bit tougher for me to play year-round up here in Prince George so I asked if I could spend more time in the complex and they were great about it, so Arizona will be one of my spots to train,” he said.
“There’s always staff, always players around, they have a lot of people to help you with everything you need.”
