Born in North Vandergrift, Pennsylvania, Minarcin was a two-sport star at Vandergrift High School, being the captain for both baseball and football teams.\n', '

During his junior and senior years, Minarcin pitched eight one-hitters, won 10 straight games, and was a member of the Western Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic League (WPIAL) championship team in 1948. He also was a quarterback for the football team at Vandergrift and received more than 30 scholarship offers, including one from Notre Dame, but he chose baseball instead and signed with the Vandergrift Pioneers, a minor league affiliate team of the Philadelphia Phillies organization.\n', '

Minarcin spent four seasons in the minors from 1948 to 1951 before being drafted into the army. Taken by the Cincinnati Reds in the 1949 Rule V draft, he posted a 13–8 record and a 2.86 earned run average for Double A Tulsa Oilers in 1950. The next year he was promoted to Triple A Buffalo Bisons, and he responded with a 16–12 record and a 3.20 ERA in 33 games, with an even heavier workload of 242 innings pitched, which included two 13-inning complete games.\n', '

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