2024: Eddie Olsen, 89, Baseball Lifer

The hand shake was a vise grip.

I first shook that hand in September, 1964, when Eddie Olsen was hired to manage the Billiard Den, a trendy, new watering hole and pool parlor at 58th Street and El Cajon Blvd.

I last saw Eddie months before he passed recently at age 89 and the handshake had not lost any of its strength. That was a reflection of Olsen, direct, sometimes blunt, but always honest.

He left with a legion of friends from an almost lifetime of baseball.

ORGINALLY A PADRE

Olsen was in the game from as a pre-teen serving as a ball boy and bat boy and working in the clubhouse for the Pacific Coast League San Diego Padres.

He played baseball for coach Walt Harvey at La Jolla High and earned all-Southern California second team honors as a first baseman and occasional pitcher. The 1953 Vikings ousted San Diego High for the City Prep League championship and advanced to the CIF finals, bowing to Compton, 5-2, and posting a 24-4 record.

Some 1953 La Jolla Vikings (from left): Eddie Olsen, Dick Greenfield, Joe Barrington, Dick Corrick, Art Luppino, Hal Maler.

Eddie played professional baseball for seven years and served a stint in the Marine Corps before going into coaching, first at Morse High, then as head coach for nine seasons at El Capitan High.

Olsen moved in 1982 to Grossmont College, where his teams posted a 516-373-7 record in 22 seasons before he retired in 2004.  He was inducted into the California Community College Baseball Association Hall of Fame in 2008.

La Jolla first baseman Eddie Olsen took pickoff throw from pitcher Dave Jordan (background) and reached to tag Lynwood’s Jim Thompson in La Jolla Vikings’ 5-2 playoff victory in 1953.

Eddie Olsen (right) was ball boy for San Diego Padres when Jack Graham was greeted at home plate by Max West (left) and Minnie Minoso at Lane Field after Graham hit home run in 1950 game. Courtesy, Bill Swank.