Joe Kelley - Early Life

Early Life

Kelley was born to Patrick Kelly and Ann Kelly (née Carney) in Cambridge, Massachusetts on December 9, 1871. Kelley's parents emigrated to the United States from Ireland, and he had five siblings. According to the 1880 United States Census, Patrick worked as a marble cutter.

As a child, Kelley was educated at a parochial grammar school and St. Thomas Aquinas College in Cambridge, where he starred for the school's baseball team as a pitcher. He worked for a local piano manufacturer and the John P. Lowell Arms Company. He practiced with the Harvard Crimson, the college baseball team of Harvard University, and played semi-professional baseball for the Lowell Arms Company.