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.
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