Rod Carew

High school

George Washington High School

Pro team(s)

Minnesota Twins, California Angels

Hall of Fame

⭐ National Baseball Hall of Fame

Rodney Cline Carew was born on October 1, 1945, on a train passing through the Panama Canal Zone; his family named him Rodney after the physician who assisted his mother during the delivery. The family moved to the Washington Heights neighborhood of Manhattan in 1962, where Carew attended George Washington High School and played sandlot baseball in the streets of upper Manhattan. The Minnesota Twins signed him out of high school in 1964, and he never looked back. Carew became one of the purest hitters in the history of baseball — a seven-time American League batting champion (1969, 1972–75, 1977, 1978), an 18-time All-Star, and the 1977 AL MVP after hitting .388 with 239 hits — the most by any player since 1930. He won his seven batting titles through an almost supernatural ability to place the ball anywhere on the field, choking up and slapping hits through holes that no one else could find. In 1977, with the Twins going nowhere as a franchise, his pursuit of .400 captivated the baseball world all summer. He finished at .388 — the highest average since Ted Williams hit .406 in 1941. Carew spent 12 seasons with Minnesota and seven with the California Angels, retiring in 1985 with a career .328 batting average and 3,053 hits. He was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1991 on the first ballot with 90.5 percent of the vote. Grew up in Washington Heights, New York City.