More about Kevin Youkilis

• Youkilis was twice (1999 and 2001) named an All-American during his four seasons with the University of Cincinnati. He owns several Bearcats records, including home runs (53), walks (206), slugging percentage (.627) and on-base percentage (.499). He also recorded a .366 career average, second-best in the history of the program. He also played for the Bourne Braves of the Cape Cod Baseball League during the summer of 2000.
• Youkilis became well-known before he reached the majors thanks to a book entitled Moneyball that was released in the spring of 2003. The focus of the book was on small-market teams trying to compete against powerhouse clubs like Boston and New York. Youkilis was coveted by Oakland Athletics GM Billy Beane, who tried to negotiate a trade for him, and was given the nickname the "Greek God of Walks" (though Youkilis is actually of Lithuanian descent).
• Between 19 May and 04 August of 2003, Youkilis reached base safely either by a hit, a walk, or a hit by pitch in splitting time between Double-A Portland and Triple-A Pawtucket, a stretch of 71 games. That matched the longest streak in professional baseball history since Kevin Millar did that over three seasons in the Florida Marlins organization between 1997 and 1999. Only two other streaks in major league history have exceeded that: Ted Williams's stretch of 84 games in 1949 and Joe DiMaggio's stretch of 74 games in 1941.
• In 2004, he made his major league debut after just three professional seasons and appeared in 72 games for the Red Sox and started 55 of those games at third base. His first professional hit was a home run in Toronto at SkyDome, just the seventh Red Sox player to hit a home run in his first major league game and the first since Sam Horn did that in 1987.
• Living up to the hype of Moneyball, he also walked 33 times in his rookie season.
• Moving to first base after the acquisition of Mike Lowell during the 2005-2006 off-season, Youkilis became an everyday starter in 2006 and responded with a .279 average, a .381 OBP, 13 home runs, and 72 RBI. He also scored 100 runs and hit 42 doubles. He also committed just five errors at first for a .995 fielding percentage in 127 games at first.
• Youkilis became just the second first baseman in major league history to finish a season with a perfect 1.000 fielding percentage, stringing together 135 errorless games and 1,094 errorless innnings in 2007; his efforts earned him his first Gold Glove award and the team's first since Jason Varitek earned the honor in 2005. He is also the first Red Sox first baseman to enjoy the honor since George Scott won the award in 1971.
• With 190 straight errorless games at first strung together between the past two seasons, that mark easily gives him the American League record and puts him only three behind former first baseman Steve Garvey for the most consecutive error-free games at that position in MLB history, a mark he is expected to challenge at the start of the 2008 season.