Amateur Career
Munson was born in Akron, Ohio to Darrell Vernon Munson and Ruth Myrna Smylie, the youngest of four children. His father was a World War II veteran who became a truck driver while his mother was a homemaker. When he turned eight, the Munson family moved to nearby Canton, Ohio. He was taught how to play baseball by his older brother Duane, and usually played baseball with kids Duane's age, who were four years older. His brother left to the United States Air Force while Thurman was a freshman in high school. He attended Lehman High School in Canton, Ohio where he was captain of the football, baseball and basketball teams and was all-city and state in all three sports. Munson played halfback on the football squad, guard on the basketball squad, and mostly shortstop in baseball. Munson switched to catcher in his senior year in order to handle the pitching prowess of his teammate, Jerome Pruett (a fifth round draft pick of the St. Louis Cardinals in 1965 who never reached the Major Leagues). He attracted scholarship offers from various colleges. opted to attend nearby Kent State University on scholarship, where he was a teammate of pitcher and broadcaster Steve Stone.
In the summer of 1967, Munson joined the Cape Cod Baseball League, where he led the Chatham A's to their first league title with a prodigious .420 batting average. In recognition of this achievement and his subsequent professional achievements, the Thurman Munson Batting Award is given each season to the League's batting champion.
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