Brooks Lee was always meant to be a ballplayer

In another lifetime, Twins shortstop Brooks Lee wouldn't have been named for Orioles Hall of Famer Brooks Robinson. Instead, he would have been named after Cardinals basestealing legend Lou Brock. Only problem: Then he would be named Brock Lee ... you know, like the vegetable.

"Both great names, but I'm happy I'm not named Brock," Lee told Alanna Rizzo with a laugh recently. "I get called it from time to time."

Given the source of his name, it's perhaps not a shock that Lee comes from a long line of baseball fanatics. His father, Larry, has been the head baseball coach since 2003 at Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo, Calif., where Lee attended school. His uncles were players in the Giants' system and his grandfather even played against Satchel Paige. His sister had a giant Fathead poster of Albert Pujols in her room growing up, while Brooks' room was covered in photos of Hall of Famers.

"My room at our old house was just baseball wallpaper everywhere," Lee said. "Once we moved, my room was dark green and there were probably 200 laminated photos of Hall of Famers and, like, Derek Jeter doing the jump throw."

Thanks to a family filled with baseball fanatics, the house was one part home, one part memorabilia display.

"My dad's the best. We had a Jeter All-Star game signed jersey in my closet and it was all lit up," Lee remembered. "There's a bunch of cool stuff: We had Willie Mays and Barry Bonds jerseys and [autographs]. Millions of bobbleheads and cards. As a kid, I wouldn't really be able to tell, 'Oh my god, this is so cool,' but looking back and with everything that has transpired, I can't believe how much stuff we have and how special it is."

Given his upbringing, you might think that Lee was always destined to be where he is now: A first-round Draft pick and former Top 100 MLB prospect who just finished off his first stint in the Major Leagues. Turns out, that wasn't always the case.

"Baseball was always number one," Lee said during an August visit to the MLB Studios. "I'm a field rat. I've been at the field every day of my life. It's just it's been the same thing every day, and I've loved it every single day. There's a few times I wanted to quit when I sucked as a kid, but, yeah, it's been the best and I'm so happy my dad forced me into it."

Wait, wait, wait -- there's a big leaguer who wasn't always the best player on every team he was on?

"I was a fat little kid when I was like 8 to 12, so I always had great fundamentals -- you know, being a coach's kid -- but once I started to grow and lean out, then I started to really become a great shortstop," Lee said. "I think my junior year of high school is when I started to blossom into a Draft prospect. That's when everything kind of fell into place. But yeah, I was never the best kid. I was always second-best. My dad says fundamentals always win out, and that's exactly what happened."

It's a special relationship that Lee has with his father, not only getting to grow up in a house like that and learn to play baseball with him, but to even attend college and head to the field with him every afternoon. The two still regularly work together, with Brooks crafting and continuing to refine his switch-hitting swing with not just the Twins staff, but his father as well.

“This is his passion,” Larry Lee told MLB.com's Do-Hyoung Park before the season. “It's really 24 hours a day, thinking about how to get better, how to prepare his body, and how to be ready for game time.”

Even when they're away from the field, there is still one thing that dominates their conversation:

"When we go out to dinner, it's just me and my dad talking baseball," Lee said. "I'm sure we bore the heck out of everybody else, but it's a special bond that we have. It's one of a kind, and it's just an awesome situation."

Coming from such a background, it's not surprising that his family is at the front of Lee's mind whenever he's on the field.

"I'm just happy to make them proud, and that's what I play the game for," Lee said. "I want to see them smile and I want them to be happy and that's all I care about."

Of course, Lee didn't leave college with just a deeper bond with his baseball-crazy father. The Twins' shortstop also roomed with now-White Sox pitcher Drew Thorpe. And while Lee's first big league home run was special -- "Everyone says they blacked out. I didn't black out," Lee joked. "I was fired up. It was so cool." -- his second may have been even better.

That's because Brooks hit that home run off Thorpe.

"People don't realize that he struck me out the at-bat before," Lee noted. "I would say it's pretty even. I took him deep and I'll never let him hear the rest of it. It's pretty great and I'm so proud of him."

While Lee admits that he could never hit in the video game "MLB: The Show" so he doesn't even touch it anymore, the two would often sit in their house together watching -- what else? -- baseball.

"Junior year, I had the big room, so that's where we'd hang out," Lee said. "We'd go eat, watch Wheels -- which is like a cut-up video of all the college games. And that's what him and I did every single day for every meal."

Living in a house with six or seven other people, it also included one more professional player: Current Astros Minor Leaguer Derek True.

"He's doing great with them, and so we're hoping that he gets called up one day, too," Lee said.

Though Minnesota is now his home, Lee was lucky enough earlier this year to be in the lineup for a series against the Giants -- where he had once sat as a 12-year-old to watch Tim Lincecum pitch in the World Series.

"It's just crazy to play on that field and remember as a kid where I was sitting," Lee said. "It's so special. We had a bunch of people there from San Luis Obispo that came to see me."

That included kids from baseball camps that his father had been coaching.

"They were all wearing Larry Lee or Brooks Lee jerseys," Lee said with a laugh. "It sounds cheesy, but you are giving back to the community. Having those little kids there and they see someone from their area that's doing the best they can at the highest level and it's pretty cool. For me, that was college baseball players at Cal Poly. Those guys were my idols. To be in that same position for kids nowadays is a really cool experience."