NORTH PORT, Fla. — Since he was only 4, Matt Olson doesn’t remember the moment he blew the minds of his older brother, Zack, and his brother’s friends. Matt has heard the story many times from different perspectives.
“I’m a few years older, so I had a leg up in terms of development,” Zack Olson said from London, England, where the Harvard graduate and former college pitcher works in commercial real estate. “But from age 2 or 3, Matt was playing sports with us. We’re out in the front yard playing Wiffle Ball. He was 3 or 4 years old and, no joke, he’s hitting Wiffle Balls over the house.”
Advertisement
The Olsons lived in a two-story house in Lilburn, a suburb north of Atlanta. Their parents still live there.
“I was wondering if he might tell you that story,” said Scott Olson, their dad and baseball coach until the Olson boys reached high school. “I happened to be home the first time it happened. Matt was probably 4, and Zack and his buddies were gracious enough to let Matt play with them.
“I’m in the kitchen and all of a sudden the door flies open and I’ve got three or four 7-year-olds in my face going, ‘Mr. Olson! Mr. Olson! Matt just hit it over the house!'”
If it hadn’t been clear before, that moment confirmed it: The younger Olson was a precocious athlete.
“I’ve heard that story,” Matt Olson said, smiling. “I think it was me and my brother and one of his friends; I was always hanging out with my brother’s friends. And I took one deep, and it was kind of like a ‘Holy crap’ moment. At least, for them I guess it was one of those moments. I still don’t really remember it.”
His dad does. Like it was yesterday. Even though there have since been countless other moments in the annals of the most accomplished baseball player from Parkview High — also the alma mater of Jeff Francoeur, the former Brave and current Braves broadcaster who is 10 years older than Olson but knows him well.
“Honestly, for a 4-year-old it was a massive achievement,” Scott Olson said of that first house-clearing Wiffle Ball. “But I get a kick thinking about that, just because one of Zack’s buddies wore glasses back then, and this little goggle-faced kid comes running in, ‘Mr. Olson! Mr. Olson!’
“Ever since, those guys have done nothing but support Matt. And that’s sort of hard when you’ve got a three-year age difference. Several of them were seniors playing on Parkview’s team when Matt was a freshman, and they welcomed him with open arms.”
Advertisement
Jack Esmonde, close friends with Olson since sixth grade and half of a potent Parkview pitching tandem with him, believes that having an older brother who was both inclusive and extremely intelligent helped Olson become the athlete and the man he is today.
“Matt’s definitely mature. And I think probably having an older brother helped expedite that process of being more mature than most of his peers,” Esmonde said. “Zack was the perfect big brother for him, because (Zack) was hilarious. He was always cutting up. And Matt had already hung out with all of his friends growing up, so they just incorporated him into the group.”
Matt Olson, age 4, playing fall ball. He was the first baseman because he was the only one who could catch consistently, his dad said. (Courtesy of Scott Olson)You might think it would be difficult to be a teenage athlete with a brother three years younger who’s significantly better in sports. Annoying, right?
That wasn’t the case for Zack Olson, who said his brother comported himself such that big bro had neither resentment nor jealousy — even when the kid was promoted to the high school varsity baseball team as a freshman, when Zack and his friends were seniors.
“I’ve had tons of people over the years say, ‘Oh, you must have hated your younger brother coming up and getting all the success,’ and it couldn’t be further from the truth,” Zack said. “Because he’s always handled himself in such a great way that with all of his successes, it’s not jealousy or wishing that I was the one that was 6-foot-5 and jacked. I’m just happy for what he’s been able to accomplish.”
Zack has lived in England for 10 years, keeping up with his brother’s career online and watching Oakland games on MLB.TV, catching the late innings in the early morning hours before going to work. He said Matt’s move to Atlanta, three time zones closer, will help.
“I’ve given my parents a hard time and said that because of older-brother complex, I guess I never really appreciated how good Matt was,” said Zack, whose self-deprecating humor and admiration of Matt are evident minutes into a conversation. “A couple of years ago I asked my mom, ‘When did you guys know that Matt was a better baseball player than me?’ She’s pretty level headed, but even she was like, ‘Yeah, we knew pretty much immediately that he had more talent than you did.'”
Advertisement
Scott Olson, who pitched at Wake Forest, is a former employee with Southern Company gas and electric in Atlanta, and Lee is an elementary school teacher. They raised two sons who grew up playing sports together in the front yard, vacant lots, and ballfields and gyms around Gwinnett County.
“Growing up, he always kind of hung out with my group of friends,” Zack said. “It usually didn’t take long, even with older kids, before Matt was being picked first to be on the team, whether it was baseball, basketball, football — whatever we were playing.”
Zack said the only time they played on the same team was Parkview High baseball in 2009, after Matt was promoted from the junior varsity team, unusual for a freshman.
“He had been a third baseman up to that point, but we had a guy playing third base that was one of our better players. So the best way to get (Matt) into the lineup was to shift over to first base,” said Zack, one of Parkview’s best pitchers at the time.
“He came in and was just an instant impact. I think it was like in his first 11 at-bats he had something ridiculous like seven extra-base hits or something like that. It didn’t faze him at all, that jump to the varsity.”
Olson had a school-record 168 RBIs, 45 home runs — second to Francoeur’s 55 — and a school-record 28 wins as a pitcher, going 12-1 with a 1.64 ERA as a senior. Parkview retired Olson’s number in 2019.
Matt Olson, with David Palmer, Parkview’s pitching coach until 2012, and Zack Olson. (Courtesy of Scott Olson)Olson smiles at the mention of Francoeur and the trash-talking that he instigates about who was better at Parkview. It’s mostly one-sided banter, in that few humans are as gregarious as Francoeur.
“You know Frenchy, he likes to talk about it,” Olson said, laughing. “We did an interview (for Bally) and he made a point to talk about who had the most home runs. I had to bring up who had the most RBIs.”
Chan Brown, Parkview’s head baseball coach since 2005, can recite Olson’s high school stats and describe his penchant for coming through repeatedly in big moments, from the playoffs in his sophomore year to walk-off homers in his junior and senior years when Olson led Parkview to consecutive state championships.
Advertisement
Brown gets more passionate when the discussion is about Olson the person and his background.
“Very, very intelligent family,” Brown said. “Very smart brother. Dad pitched at Wake Forest. Mom’s a brainiac, too. So from that standpoint, the brain cells and the athleticism is there for the whole family.”
Zack was the best man at Olson’s November wedding to Nicole Kidder in Atlanta. He had everyone laughing.
“Really good speech,” Matt said. “He started it with, ‘If you’re wondering, this is what the shallow end of the Olson gene pool looks like.’ Very witty. But he’s short-selling himself — he got plenty of the gene pool. My brother was definitely an athlete. He likes to downplay it a little bit now. We joke that I got the athleticism and he got the brains.”
Scott Olson said that Zack, who was student-athlete of the year as a senior at Parkview, virtually eliminated typical difficulties associated with raising two teenage boys.
“We talk about it all the time,” he said. “I mean, we have all the challenges that other people have with having kids, but in the same sense, we really had it pretty easy. They were self-maintenance. And once they got to Parkview it was completely hands-off. Chan Brown, he laid down the law in terms of what they were supposed to do and how they were going to be required to put in a lot of time on the baseball field. That meant that they had to manage their time off the field. And they did it.”
Olson wasn’t always 6-foot-5 and jacked, his brother said.
“I don’t know if he’ll like me they saying this, but let’s just say he was a bit on the heavier side, pretty much up until he was 13,” Zack said. “My mother’s nickname for him, still to this day, is Buddha. Because basically when he was a kid, he had a few extra pounds on him.”
Looking at him today, that’s hard to imagine. Olson is long and lean.
Advertisement
“Exactly,” Zack said. “He filled into it pretty well. But growing up, all the way from when he was little to when he was probably 13 or 14, he was just a little bit heavier — but still able to be athletic around it.”
Esmonde said even when Olson was heavy, he was always a “smoother” athlete than the rest of them. Esmonde was a Parkview quarterback and tried to get Olson to play tight end, but Lee wouldn’t let her sons play football because she didn’t want them to risk injury. And though Matt was a promising basketball player — “He fashions himself as the point forward that’s bringing the ball up and being able to shoot 3s and also make passes,” Zack said — he gave up hoops to focus on baseball at Parkview.
“He was he was our No. 1 pitcher, and it felt like every time he went out there, even in the playoffs, you were going to win the first game and then it’s like, OK, how do we win one of the next two?” Esmonde said. “Because it felt like it was automatic when he was pitching. And hitting — two times he came up in the seventh inning and hit home runs in the clinching state championship game to take the lead.
“I always joked with him that he’s got a flair for the dramatic. He always comes up big in big moments.”
Brown recalls moving Olson to first base as a freshman. Olson was about 6-foot-3 at the time, two inches shorter than today.
“I honestly felt like he could play anywhere on the field for us,” Brown said. “He probably would have been a heck of a catcher. But we had some guys. We just felt like he was going to make us better at first base because of the range he had the way and the height he had and everything else.”
Brown added, “Rob Youngblood was our third baseman. Matt and Rob were best friends, and it’s cool how close Matt still is with Rob and all his high school teammates. I think that that speaks volumes of the person he is. And then to go to his wedding and you see nine big leaguers in there and we’re in a circle with all the big leaguers and all these high school baseball players, and we’re just talking trash about Matt, you know. It was a cool moment, for sure.”
Advertisement
Many former Parkview players were at the wedding, along with former Oakland teammates such as Matt Chapman and Marcus Semien. Chapman, Olson and Semien have six Gold Gloves between them, two for Olson. It’s his superb defense — he scoops balls as well as any first baseman in the majors — that Brown thinks is going to surprise fans who haven’t seen him play much with Oakland.
“He’s just a baseball player, and that’s probably the ultimate compliment,” Brown said. “You hear about five-tool guys who are power guys, and this, that or whatever. But he’s a guy that takes pride in showing up every day and doing the right thing. He takes pride in trying to be in the lineup every day. Some people will see the power numbers and RBIs, but he was also brought up in the A’s way of taking a walk when they need you to. So you’re gonna see that side of him. But more than that, he’s an unbelievable person, and that makes him an unbelievable teammate.
“My two boys, if they can be half the person that Matt is, then I’m going to be a proud dad.”
Marcus Semien and Matt Olson during their time with the A’s. (Tim Warner / Getty Images)The coach’s own sons, Cade, 17, and Beckett, 13, will have a hero now playing for the Braves at Truist Park, where Parkview won its third consecutive state title in May. When Parkview swept the finals doubleheader against North Paulding, third baseman Cade Brown caught the final out on a stolen base attempt.
‘He got on the bus, and Cade will tell you it was pretty cool to open up the phone and have a text from Olson saying, ‘Hey man, that a boy, keep that tradition going,'” Brown said. “Beckett’s my little left-handed hitter. Every time Matt changes something (in his swing), Beckett changes something. He tries to emulate everything he does.”
If Zack Olson admires anything about his brother, it’s that success hasn’t changed him.
“He’s got a balance of his confidence in his own abilities and the work that he’s put in to get to the level he’s at,” Zack said. “But also a humility to understand that there’s always things that he can improve, and a humility of never needing to be that guy that necessarily demands all the attention. I think he’s very happy to deal with the attention, but he doesn’t need to shine the spotlight on himself.”
It was Esmonde and his fiancée Jenna who introduced Olson to Nicole, Jenna’s friend from Johns Creek, another Atlanta suburb. Esmonde was a student at the University of Georgia, as were both women, and Olson was a minor leaguer staying with Esmonde during the offseason and working out at UGA.
Advertisement
Esmonde and his fiancée are happy to have been matchmakers for the Olsons, and the couples have taken vacations together. “We’ve got double-dates for life,” Olson joked.
Like Olson’s family, Esmonde could hardly believe when Matt was traded to the Braves, then signed an eight-year, $168 million extension within 24 hours. Friends and family were ecstatic for Matt and Nicole, who bought a house in Atlanta last summer and have a 70-pound black lab named Cooper.
Olson’s brother and dad had both worried that a trade to a team in New York or another big city might make it difficult for Matt and Nicole with their big dog. But it all worked out better than anyone could have envisioned.
“Matt and Nicole were out at our place the Friday (two days) before this all happened,” Scott Olson said. “We had dinner and we were just talking. I was thinking of all the scenarios. They were just sort of in a holding pattern, waiting.”
Olson told his dad of the teams that agent B.B. Abbott had informed him of that could be potential trade partners for the A’s, teams that might possibly have a need at first base.
“I told him, I said just cannot see a situation where the Braves don’t re-sign Freddie,” Scott Olson said. “I obviously didn’t know what was going on behind the scenes, but I really felt like he was this generation’s Chipper (Jones) and he was going to die in the Braves uniform.
“Only because Matt had said that they were one of the teams that (Abbott said might have a need at first base) it was on my list, but it was down the list. When he texted and he said that they asked him not to go out to practice, that something (a trade) was going on, and it became more real. Then he said it was the Braves. That was stunning.”
Zack Olson said news about the trade led to somewhat mixed emotions.
Advertisement
“I’ll be honest, my initial reaction when the trade happened was, oh my God, this is so exciting. Being the older brother, it was a bit of nervousness that you’ve got a fan base that absolutely loved (Freeman), rightly for all he’s done for the last 10, 15 years for the city and the organization and the team coming off a World Series. And it’s baseball, it’s a game of failure, there’s going to be times when Matt goes on an 0-for-15 stretch and I’m sure there’s going to be people thinking about Freddie,” he said.
“But I’ve become more comfortable with that, mainly just because of what I’ve known about Matt and how he handles himself, and how he’s going to focus on what he can control. The older brother nerves have gone away a bit on that. I’m sure it’s going to pick up — if he goes 0-for on Opening Day, they’re gonna be right back there. But at the end of the day, it’s like he said in his opening press conference, he can only be Matt Olson. So I’m confident that he’s going to do all that he can.”
Zack Olson plans a trip home this summer to see his brother play, and he knows it will be emotional.
“I haven’t seen Matt play since 2017 in person,” he said. “Just like the rest of the family, I literally could not be prouder. The situation about playing for the Braves, being able to get in the position of Matt’s career where he’s stable and he knows he’s going to be in one place for a while is just great.
“I’ll admit, especially in the 24, 48 hours after the trade, I got a couple phone calls where I got a little bit emotional. Tried to get off the phone before I got to that. But I can’t express how happy I am for him. And he deserves all of it because of all the hard work and dedication that he’s put in.”
(Top photo: Brace Hemmelgarn / Minnesota Twins / Getty Images)
ncG1vNJzZmismJqutbTLnquim16YvK57kmtpcm9ga3xzfJFrZmlsX2WDcK7Rmq2eq12btrO%2F02aZmquVoq6vecyaq61ln6HAsLqMrJ%2BaqJWZeqPFjJump5yjYrOwvsaem2ahnmKutbjAp6uaZZOkuqa%2FjKGmpp1f