Steve Olin


Steven Robert Olin was an American right-handed pitcher in Major League Baseball who played for four seasons in the American League with the Cleveland Indians. Olin was a right-handed submarining relief pitcher for the Cleveland Indians from 1988 to 1992. Olin died in a 1993 boating accident while still an active MLB player.

Early life

Steve Olin was born on October 4, 1965 in Portland, Oregon, and grew up in nearby Beaverton. He graduated from Beaverton High School in 1984, and was recruited by baseball coach Jack Dunn to attend Portland State University.

Career

In 195 career games, Olin pitched 273 innings and posted a win–loss record of 16–19, with 48 saves, 118 games finished, and a 3.10 earned run average. He earned his final win on September 9, 1992 against the Milwaukee Brewers. Olin won the game in relief when Cleveland scored two runs in the top of the ninth.

Death

Olin was killed in a boating accident during spring training of 1993 on Little Lake Nellie in Clermont, Florida. The boat he was in struck a pier, killing him and fellow reliever Tim Crews and seriously injuring Bob Ojeda. Crews, who was piloting the boat, was legally drunk at the time; Olin and Ojeda only had negligible traces of alcohol in their bodies. It was the first death of active major league players since Thurman Munson in 1979. In response to the accident that took Olin and Crews in 1993, the Indians wore a patch on the sleeves of their jerseys. It consisted of a baseball with their numbers on it. Olin's #31 is on the left, with an arrow above. Crews' #52 is on the right, with a star above it.

Remembrance

song "Yellow Submarine" was played before each of submariner Olin's appearances for the Indians in home games.
Garth Brooks' song "The Dance", a favorite of Olin, was played when the Indians clinched the 1995 American League Central Division. Before the game, manager Mike Hargrove phoned the Indians scoreboard room requesting that it be played when the Indians clinched.