Vladimir Guerrero - Early Years and Family

Early Years and Family

One of nine children, Guerrero is the younger brother of ex-major leaguer Wilton Guerrero, who also played with the Montreal Expos. He is also the cousin of current minor leaguer Cristian Guerrero of the Sioux Falls Pheasants, and the uncle of Seattle Mariners farmhand Gabriel Guerrero.

His 6'3" frame, strong arm, and unusual ability to hit balls out of the strike zone drew attention at a Dodgers training camp. After injuring his hamstring running out a double, he allegedly hit a home run in his next at bat to avoid having to run the bases. Due to his leg condition, Guerrero only received a 30-day contract. But he grew frustrated with the structure of the Dodgers camp, and left. In March 1993, Guerrero signed with the Montreal Expos. During the process he lied about his age, claiming to be born February 9, 1976. It was not until March 2009 that he revealed to Major League Baseball that he was born February 9, 1975.

In 1994, Guerrero hit .314 in 37 games with the Expos' Rookie League team. The next year he hit .333 with the Albany Polecats. In 1996, while advancing from Single-A to Double-A, Guerrero batted .360 with 24 home runs and 96 RBI. His September callup was unproductive, although he hit his first major league home run.

Read more about this topic:  Vladimir Guerrero

Famous quotes containing the words early, years and/or family:

    Very early in our children’s lives we will be forced to realize that the “perfect” untroubled life we’d like for them is just a fantasy. In daily living, tears and fights and doing things we don’t want to do are all part of our human ways of developing into adults.
    Fred Rogers (20th century)

    Unlike Boswell, whose Journals record a long and unrewarded search for a self, Johnson possessed a formidable one. His life in London—he arrived twenty-five years earlier than Boswell—turned out to be a long defense of the values of Augustan humanism against the pressures of other possibilities. In contrast to Boswell, Johnson possesses an identity not because he has gone in search of one, but because of his allegiance to a set of assumptions that he regards as objectively true.
    Jeffrey Hart (b. 1930)

    My family pride is something inconceivable. I can’t help it. I was born sneering.
    Sir William Schwenck Gilbert (1836–1911)