Carl Yastrzemski's father was a potato farmer. The family also grew vegetables and raised cattle for meat.
Yastrzemski began working on the family farm at a very young age, passing his after-school hours lifting heavy sacks of potatoes onto tractor carts.
"I used to love those little sacks," he told Biography. "Christ, I was like 12 years old, picking those things up. Seventy-five pounds. I kept saying to myself—and this is why I loved it—this is going to help me get strong, help me make it to the big leagues. It was going to help me in baseball."