Ethan Holliday hung out in the visitors’ dugout at Coors Field on Friday afternoon. The 17-year-old kid was in his element.
“Yeah, this is pretty cool, being here,” he said, gazing out across the field. “Beautiful ballpark.”
Inside the visitors’ clubhouse, Ethan’s older brother, Jackson, the Orioles’ 20-year-old second baseman who used to toddle around Coors Field, was still fielding questions from media members.
Earlier, Ethan’s dad, Matt, the former Rockies outfielder, seven-time All-Star, and a World Series champion with the Cardinals, spent close to a half-hour in the Rockies dugout surrounded by cameras and reporters.
Matt reminisced about the days when Jackson hit whiffle balls in the Rockies clubhouse or rode on his dad’s broad shoulders when they celebrated their only National League pennant in the fall of 2007.
Friday afternoon was a media circus. After all, this was baseball royalty descending on LoDo.
While Matt remains a Rockies icon, expectations for Ethan and Jackson are off the charts. Jackson was the first overall pick in the 2022 MLB draft, and Ethan might repeat the feat next summer.
Comparisons between the dad and his sons are inevitable. Many of the questions on Friday went in that direction, but all three members of the Holliday baseball tribe didn’t seem to mind. Matt gives a lot of credit to his wife, Leslee, for that.
“Jackson is a really mature kid,” Matt said. “At 20 years old, he’s handling it all really well. He’s very even-keeled and he handles both success and failure really well. I’ve been really proud of how he’s handled it. He’s been an adult for a while.”
Matt and Leslee, along with daughter Gracyn, 14, and son Reed, 11, spent much of the summer following Jackson and Ethan’s baseball exploits. While Jackson played for the O’s, Ethan played in youth tournaments in Panama and just about every corner of the U.S.
“My mom and dad have been amazing,” Ethan said. “They have been so influential. They’ve seen the pressure, they felt the pressure before and they have been in the spotlight. They have helped us a lot. They’ve made it fun.”
Asked about their parenting skills, Matt quipped, “I tell people all the time, ‘Hey, the kids are still alive, so I feel like we’re doing all right.’ ”
Jackson is doing better than all right. He soared through the minor leagues and was called up on April 10 to join a talented, young Orioles team that’s batting the Yankees for the American League East title. But over his first 10 games, he went 2-for-34 with 18 strikeouts and was optioned back to Triple-A Norfolk. He tore up Triple-A pitching again and was recalled at the end of July.
“It’s been chaotic, ” he said. “I got called up, I got sent down, and I dealt with an injury (left elbow inflammation). I think I’ve learned quite a bit. I’ve learned to trust the process.”
And he’s beginning to make his mark. On Aug. 16, he became the youngest Orioles player since Hall of Famer Brooks Robinson in 1957 to record four hits in a game. Friday night, Jackson clinched Baltimore’s 5-3 victory over the Rockies with an RBI triple off the right-field wall in the ninth inning.
Meanwhile, Ethan is reveling in his brother’s success as he considers his own future.
“I’m so proud of how Jackson has dealt with all of this,” Ethan said. “I saw how he went through all of this a couple of years ago. I was his wingman, and we did everything together, so I saw how he handled it all with all of the eyes on him and how he went about his business.”
Baseball is in the brothers’ blood. Their grandfather, Tom Holliday, coached at Oklahoma State for 25 years. Their uncle (Matt’s brother), is OSU’s current coach. Their great-uncle, Dave, is a scout for the Philadelphia Phillies.
“I’ve loved baseball for as long as I can remember,” Ethan said. “Not just because of my dad, and my brother, and all of my family. I love the constant grind of trying to get better every day. I’ve loved getting to know all of the people I’ve met through the years.
“And it’s the little stuff, too. The sounds of the game, the smells of the ballpark, all of that. That’s something you’ve got to love if you’re going to play this game.”
The forecast says Ethan will be a star. He already stands 6-foot-4, weighs 195 pounds, and is muscled like his famous father. He’s 4 inches taller than Jackson and already hits with more power.
“Ethan is already hitting the ball in the 110-112 (mph) range at 17 years old,” said Matt, who hit 316 homers in his 15-year career. “He might have more raw power than me.”
Ethan, who just started his senior year at Stillwater (Okla.) High School, where he takes mostly online courses, is widely considered the best eligible player in the 2025 major league draft. He competed in the High School Home Run Derby at this summer’s All-Star Game in Arlington, Texas, and slugged 11 home runs in the first round.
If Ethan is selected first, the Holidays will join Peyton and Eli Manning as the only brothers to each be drafted No. 1 overall in American major pro sports history.
“That would be really cool,” Ethan said. “But I’m not thinking about that. I just want to play ball, develop, and help a team win a championship.”
The Holliday brothers will tell you that their dad is the most competitive person they’ve ever known. He’s passed that fire on to them, but Jackson and Ethan face pressures their dad could never have comprehended when the Rockies drafted him in the seventh round in 1998 out of Stillwater High.
“It’s not even close,” Matt said. “It’s completely different now. When I came up, we didn’t have social media, texting, cell phones or all of these summer tournaments.
“There’s so much more attention now, even on high school players. Everybody knows who Ethan is, especially with all of the success that Jackson’s had. It’s all magnified.”
But Matt says his sons’ time spent in big-league clubhouses has prepped them for the ups and downs of baseball and instilled a passion for the game that will help sustain them in the future.
“I can’t imagine that didn’t help them,” he said. “I don’t know if that’s the only reason they love it. But I assume the fact that they were around me, and on the fields and around great players, and got a chance to see behind the curtain, made the dream more tangible. And maybe more realistic.
“And I do know that they grew up loving to be (at the ballpark). So, obviously, when you love to practice, you have a much better chance. And they love being around the game, and they love to talk the game, so that gives them a chance to take advantage of their God-given ability.”
The sports landscape is littered with talented players who burn out quickly because of the weight of pressure and unreachable expectations. However, Jackson says that’s not the case in the Holliday family.
“That’s 100% right,” he said. “My parents always let us do what we wanted. We never really had to play baseball. It’s just something that Ethan and I always enjoyed. They never really pushed us to play and I think that helped us fall in love with the game.”
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Originally Published: September 1, 2024 at 5:45 a.m.
