Early Life
Jones was born on April 23, 1977 in the capital city of Willemstad on the Dutch-Caribbean island nation of Curaçao.
By the age of 11, Jones was on a youth select team that traveled all the way to Japan to play in a tournament. He could handle any position on the field, but because of his powerful arm, Jones often found himself at catcher or third base. He switched to the outfield a couple of years later.
Stories of Andruw's early accomplishments are the stuff of legend. As a 13-year-old, playing for his father's Royal Scorpions team, he sent a ball screaming over 400 feet to the tennis court of a nearby hotel. In the same game, Andruw came up again and hit the hotel. By his early teens, he was competing against adults. He even played on Curaçao’s national team in the Latin American Games.
By the time Andruw turned 15, he was the best player on the island. He had yet to be discovered, however, for Curaçao was still well off the beaten path for major league scouts—even though countryman Hensley Meulens had done well in the New York Yankee farm system.
Read more about this topic: Andruw Jones
Famous quotes containing the words early and/or life:
“the cluttered eyes
of early mysterious night.”
—Imamu Amiri Baraka (b. 1934)
“I remember my youth and the feeling that will never come back any more—the feeling that I could last for ever, outlast the sea, the earth, and all men; the deceitful feeling that lures us on to joys, to perils, to love, to vain effort—to death; the triumphant conviction of strength, the heat of life in the handful of dust, the glow in the heart that with every year grows dim, grows cold, grows small, and expires—and expires, too soon, too soon—before life itself.”
—Joseph Conrad (1857–1924)