LJ baseball: Holdgrafer elevated to Hall of Fame

Former Viking Tim Holdgrafer (right), a right-hander

who went 10-1 with a 0.87 ERA his senior year

at LJHS, hit .364, and stole 20 bases to be named

the 2015 CIF Player of the Year. Tim, pictured

with his proud dad, is the newest inductee

into the Vikings' Baseball Hall of Fame.

(Photos by Ed Piper)

By Ed Piper

Throwing out the first pitch at the Vikings' annual Alumni Game, former standout Tim Holdgrafer was announced as the newest inductee into the LJHS Baseball Hall of Fame, largely on the merits of the right-hander's 2015 CIF Player of the Year selection.

Holdgrafer, who his proud dad agreed had transformed his body from a "toothpick"-ish 160 pounds to his bulked-up condition now, eight years later and still playing professional baseball, excelled in La Jolla's batting order his senior year with a .364 average. He usually hit third in the lineup.

A sportswriter covering the event Sat., Feb. 18, had to look around, remembering the "old" Tim Holdgrafer from almost a decade ago, and took a wild guess at a thicker, more massive specimen near him to be the HOF selectee.

On the mound in Spring 2015--which took the Vikings as a team to the division finals, where they lost to San Ysidro, 7-2, in a game played at USD--the player who wore jersey number "7" went 10-1 (the Vikings' single-season win record) and held the opposition to an anemic 0.87 ERA over 88 1/3 innings. He struck out 85 batters.

Holdgrafer came in during the D2 title game

against San Ysidro on June 6, 2015 in relief.

The speedster also stole 20 bases in his Player of the Year season.

After his high school days, Holdgrafer starred at Grossmont College, where he and now-assistant LJHS coach Noah Strohl helped lead the team to the California state JC title, as well as Cal Poly Pomona. At Pomona, he threw the second no-hitter in the school's history. At Grossmont, he set a school record for most wins without a loss.