FORT WORTH, Texas -- Kaelen Culpepper felt like he was always off the radar growing up in Memphis, Tenn., away from many eyes in baseball as he wanted to pursue a future in the sport. His family didn¡¯t have the money for the big tournaments, and he and his brother were often the only Black players on their baseball teams.

¡°He knocked that door down,¡± said his dad, Kenneth Culpepper. ¡°He kept knocking doors down. But being local and not being known, OK, not being on the best teams, that kind of hurt us and whatnot. He kind of fell under the radar, you know what I mean? But we didn't stop there. We just kept going to the best opportunities I could to put him out there, and as a result, he got picked up and he kept going, and now he's here because of that.¡±

¡°Here¡± on Sunday was at the Fort Worth Stockyards, where Culpepper followed three seasons of excellence at Kansas State by becoming a first-round selection in the 2024 MLB Draft, taken by the Twins at No. 21 as the first of their four picks on the first night, alongside Louisiana-Lafayette shortstop Kyle DeBarge (No. 33), Tennessee infielder Billy Amick (No. 60) and Grapevine (Texas) High School left-hander Dasan Hill (No. 69).

Culpepper was one of six players on-site in Texas to hear his name called in person with his family, because after all the ¡°baseball hours¡± they poured into his career together, they wouldn¡¯t have dreamed of missing what he called a ¡°once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.¡±

¡°I¡¯ve always been overlooked as a player and I¡¯ve always felt like I was underrated,¡± Kaelen Culpepper said. ¡°Just being here means a lot to me. All my hard work definitely paid off.¡±

• 'I mean business': Culpepper brings relentless work ethic to Draft

Even off baseball¡¯s beaten path, Culpepper always loved the sport. He would sleep cradling his glove when he was young -- he laughs as he says he named it ¡°Lucy, or something.¡± Kenneth remembers how Kaelen, at age 11 or 12, was fast asleep and cradling his MVP trophy from a tournament in Mississippi when the family car got hit by a truck -- and when Kenneth looked back, Kaelen was still cradling that trophy.

From the ninth grade on, Culpepper and his brother played alongside athletes two years older, an effort to teach them failure and mental fortitude, along with instilling in them the desire to physically develop to match the older boys around them -- and their work ethic has always held most strongly of all.

¡°I'd hit ground balls to him until my hands were bleeding,¡± said Ryan Knott, the hitting coach at St. Benedict at Auburndale High School, to K-State Extra. ¡°Literally, I'd have bloodstains all over the bat.¡±

And then, at around 10 p.m., even on school nights, Culpepper would hop into a car with his dad and his older brother, Tyler, to drive from home in Memphis across state lines to a facility in Arkansas about 45 minutes away to get even more work in, with Kenneth Culpepper coaxing the baseball training out of his boys even when they didn¡¯t feel like it.

¡°My mom, she would be mad because, ¡®You have to be up in the morning for school,¡¯¡± Culpepper said. ¡°We¡¯re out there until 12, 1 o¡¯clock, just getting work in. Hitting BP, taking ground balls, doing it all.¡±

All that is how Culpepper became the first position player ever to be drafted in the first round out of Kansas State, which he estimates to have been one of five offers he¡¯d received out of high school. He most recently hit .328/.419/.574 over a 61-game season for the Wildcats as he transitioned back to shortstop, where he hopes to stick again, after two seasons at third base.

He hit .474 in the NCAA Tournament as he led Kansas State to the Super Regionals, and he has excelled on bigger stages in the Appalachian League, Cape Cod League and on a prospect-loaded U.S. Collegiate National Team with a flat swing that generates hard contact all over the field and a disciplined approach -- the sort of profile the Twins have liked in hitters of late.

It¡¯s because he put in the relentless work to get there.

¡°Oh, it¡¯s setting in right now,¡± Culpepper said. ¡°You probably saw I was very emotional. I¡¯m probably going to shed more tears later on. Right now, I¡¯m just going to enjoy the moment and take it from there."