Ernie Young
Baseball player
Ernest Wesley Young (born July 8, 1969) is a former professional baseball outfielder. He played all or part of eight seasons in Major League Baseball for the Oakland Athletics (1994–97), Kansas City Royals (1998), Arizona Diamondbacks (1999), Detroit Tigers (2003), and Cleveland Indians (2004). He also played one season in Japan for the Yokohama BayStars (2002).In his major league career, Young played in 288 games, had 179 hits, 27 home runs, 90 RBI, 10 stolen bases, and a .225 batting average. In 2000, he led the Triple-A Memphis Redbirds with 35 home runs (second in the entire St. Louis Cardinals organization to Jim Edmonds'42) and 98 RBIs (third in the organization behind Troy Farnsworth with 113 and Edmonds with 108). He won an Olympic gold medal for the United States in the 2000 Sydney Olympics. On June 12, 2006, he hit his 300th career minor league home run. As a member of the Oakland Athletics, in a game against the Detroit Tigers, Young started a triple play with a leaping catch in center field.Following his retirement after the 2007 season, Young became the hitting coach on the Chicago White Sox's rookie-level team, the Great Falls Voyagers. On November 21, 2008, he was named the manager of the Kannapolis Intimidators for the 2009 season. In 2011, Young was tabbed to manage the West Michigan Whitecaps, the class A affiliate of the Detroit Tigers, a position he retained for the 2012 season, but not for 2013. Young currently serves on the Board of Directors of USA Baseball and managed the Team USA Professional Team for the 2011 World Cup and Pan Am Games.