Early Life and Career
The son of an Italian dad, Joe (who shortened the family name from Maddonini), and a Polish mom, Albina (Beanie), Maddon grew up in an apartment over his dad's plumbing shop. His father, Joe Sr. passed away in 2002, six months before the Angels won the World Series with Maddon as bench coach. His mother, Beanie, 78, is still a waitress at the Third Base Luncheonette restaurant in Hazleton, PA, a family business so named by his Aunt Ted in 1947 because "Third Base is the next closest place to Home."
Maddon attended Lafayette College, where he played baseball and football. He is a member of Zeta Psi fraternity. He received an Honorary Doctorate of Letters from Lafayette College on September 2, 2010.
He is a former minor league catcher, who never advanced higher than A ball, which he played for four seasons. In his four seasons, he never had more than 180 at bats, and the most home runs he ever hit was three for Salinas in 1977.
He served in the Angels organization for 31 years.
Read more about this topic: Joe Maddon
Famous quotes containing the words early, life and/or career:
“O troubled forms, O early love unfortunate and hard,
Time has estranged you into a jewel cold and pure;”
—Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892–1950)
“While I enjoy the friendship of the seasons I trust that nothing can make life a burden to me.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Whether lawyer, politician or executive, the American who knows what’s good for his career seeks an institutional rather than an individual identity. He becomes the man from NBC or IBM. The institutional imprint furnishes him with pension, meaning, proofs of existence. A man without a company name is a man without a country.”
—Lewis H. Lapham (b. 1935)