Early Life
Puckett was born in Chicago, Illinois, and raised in Robert Taylor Homes, a housing project on Chicago's South Side (the escape from which he frequently referred back to during his career). He attended and played baseball for Calumet High School. After receiving no scholarship offers following graduation, Puckett at first went to work on an assembly line for Ford Motor Company. However he was given a chance to attend Bradley University and was a star on the baseball team, despite his under-sized 5' 8" frame, before the Minnesota Twins selected him in the 1st round (3rd pick) of the 1982 MLB Draft.
After signing with the team, he was assigned to the rookie-league Elizabethton Twins in the Appalachian League where he immediately showed why the Twins considered him so highly, hitting .382, with 3 home runs, 35 RBI, and 43 steals, in only 65 games, albeit against predominantly younger players. In 1983, Puckett was promoted to the Single-A Visalia Oaks in the California League and although his average was not as high as the previous year—he still hit an impressive .318, with 9 home runs, 97 RBI, and 48 stolen bases over 138 games—and continued to turn heads in the organization. After being promoted to AAA Toledo to start the 1984 season, Puckett was brought up to the majors for good 21 games into the season.
Read more about this topic: Kirby Puckett
Famous quotes containing the words early life, early and/or life:
“... business training in early life should not be regarded solely as insurance against destitution in the case of an emergency. For from business experience women can gain, too, knowledge of the world and of human beings, which should be of immeasurable value to their marriage careers. Self-discipline, co-operation, adaptability, efficiency, economic management,—if she learns these in her business life she is liable for many less heartbreaks and disappointments in her married life.”
—Hortense Odlum (1892–?)
“Mormon colonization south of this point in early times was characterized as “going over the Rim,” and in colloquial usage the same phrase came to connote violent death.”
—State of Utah, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
“It is, in both cases, that a spiritual life has been imparted to nature; that the solid seeming block of matter has been pervaded and dissolved by a thought; that this feeble human being has penetrated the vast masses of nature with an informing soul, and recognised itself in their harmony, that is, seized their law. In physics, when this is attained, the memory disburthens itself of its cumbrous catalogues of particulars, and carries centuries of observation in a single formula.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)