Early Years
Born in Chicago, Wakefield was the son of Howard Wakefield, who was a major league catcher from 1905 to 1907. The scouts started taking notice of Wakefield when he was in high school in Chicago. He recalled: "I was a skinny kid who could hit." (Donald Honig, "Baseball Between the Lines: Baseball in the Forties and Fifties as Told by the Men Who Played It" (Univ. Nebraska Press 1993), p. 81.)
Wakefield attended the University of Michigan where he played only one season, 1941, with the Michigan Wolverines baseball team. In his one season playing for the Wolverines, Wakefield hit for average (.372) and power (9 home runs), as he led the team to a 24–8 record and its first Big Ten Conference baseball crown since 1936.
Read more about this topic: Dick Wakefield
Famous quotes related to early years:
“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)