Ian Holness

Ian Holness

• Bats Left, Throws Right
• Height 6' 3", Weight 201 lb.

• Born May 12, 1978 in Germiston, Gauteng South Africa

Olympics-Reference page

Biographical Information

Ian Holness was South Africa's most potent offensive threat in Olympic baseball.

Holness hit .174/.269/.304 with 10 strikeouts in 23 at-bats for South Africa in the 1998 Baseball World Cup. He was their main DH (4 games) and also saw regular action in right field (splitting time with Marvin Jonathan). He starred again in the 1999 All Africa Games, going 11 for 13 with a double, 3 triples and 5 home runs in 3 games, driving in 17. He led the Games in average (.846), slugging (a whopping 2.538), RBI (one ahead of teammate Errol Davis, who played all 5 games to Holness's 3) and homers (2 more than Neil Adonis). He went 7 for 7 with 4 homers and 14 RBI in the opening win over Lesotho alone.

In the 2000 Olympics, Ian batted .360/.385/.720 and played error-free ball in right field. He scored almost half of South Africa's Olympic runs (5 out of 11) and his 4 RBI tied former minor leaguer Nick Dempsey for the team lead. Holness had three of the club's five doubles and two of their four home runs. He led the team in average (.080 ahead of Dempsey), slugging (.280 over Dempsey) and OBP (.017 over Francisco Alfino). In South Africa's lone Olympic win ever, Holness was a one-man offensive show, driving in all of their runs in a 3-2 win over the Dutch national team. He had two doubles on the day and two homers. In the 6th, he started the scoring by going deep off Patrick De Lange. In the 8th, he doubled off former major leaguer Radhames Dykhoff to score Darryl Gonsalves. He then homered off Rikkert Faneyte in the 10th for the game-winning blow. His two homers tied Orestes Kindelan, Doug Mientkiewicz, Norihiro Nakamura, Yoshinori Okihara, Sharnol Adriana, Paul Gonzalez and Yukio Tanaka for second, one behind leader Mike Neill.

In the 2002 Haarlem Baseball Week, Holness was again South Africa's star batter, leading the team in average by going 6 for 19. He also banged out three doubles. He tied Chien-Ming Chang and Yung-Chi Chen for the most two-baggers in the tourney. He tied Eric Patterson and two others for second in total bases (9), behind only Chen.

Sources

• Marco Stoovelaar's coverage of the 2000 Olympics
• Defunct IBAF site
• 2002 Haarlem Baseball Week