Early Years
Hubbell was born in Carthage, Missouri and raised in Meeker, Oklahoma. He was originally signed by the Detroit Tigers and was invited to spring training in 1926. However, pitching coach George McBride and player-manager Ty Cobb weren't impressed with him. Additionally, they were concerned about his reliance on a screwball. Hubbell was sent to the Toronto Maple Leafs in the International League before the start of the season. He went 7–7 on a championship team. In 1927 he was invited to spring training again with Detroit, but McBride and Cobb still weren't impressed and sent him two steps down the minor-league ladder, to the Decatur Commodores of the Illinois-Indiana-Iowa League. Despite a 14–7 record, the Tigers didn't invite him back for 1928, and he was sent to the Beaumont Exporters of the Texas League.
Hubbell was so fed up by this time that he told Beaumont manager Claude Robinson that he would retire and go into the oil business unless he was sold to another organization by the end of the season. Years later, he said that being unloaded by the Tigers was the best thing that ever happened to him.
Read more about this topic: Carl Hubbell
Famous quotes related to early years:
“I believe that if we are to survive as a planet, we must teach this next generation to handle their own conflicts assertively and nonviolently. If in their early years our children learn to listen to all sides of the story, use their heads and then their mouths, and come up with a plan and share, then, when they become our leaders, and some of them will, they will have the tools to handle global problems and conflict.”
—Barbara Coloroso (20th century)
“If there is a price to pay for the privilege of spending the early years of child rearing in the driver’s seat, it is our reluctance, our inability, to tolerate being demoted to the backseat. Spurred by our success in programming our children during the preschool years, we may find it difficult to forgo in later states the level of control that once afforded us so much satisfaction.”
—Melinda M. Marshall (20th century)