Early Life
Pettitte was born in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and is of Italian and Cajun descent, the younger of two children born to Tommy and JoAnn Pettitte. He attended Deer Park High School in Deer Park, Texas. Pettitte pitched Deer Park to within one win of the state title. He also played center and nose guard for the school's football team.
The Yankees selected Pettitte in the 22nd round of the 1990 MLB draft. Recruited by San Jacinto College North in Houston, Texas, he opted to play college baseball when coach Wayne Graham compared him to Roger Clemens. At San Jacinto, Pettitte won eight of ten decisions.
As Pettitte enrolled in a junior college rather than a four-year school, the Yankees retained the right to sign him as a draft-and-follow prospect. On May 25, 1991, he signed with the Yankees, receiving an $80,000 signing bonus ($136,506 in current dollar terms).
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“Many a woman shudders ... at the terrible eclipse of those intellectual powers which in early life seemed prophetic of usefulness and happiness, hence the army of martyrs among our married and unmarried women who, not having cultivated a taste for science, art or literature, form a corps of nervous patients who make fortunes for agreeable physicians ...”
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