Lee graduated from Capital High School in Olympia, Washington in 1993, where he also played football. Being ambidextrous Lee played as a lefty in baseball and as a QB for the Capital High football team threw with his right. While playing for San Diego State University in 1996, Lee won the Golden Spikes Award, annually given to the best amateur baseball player by USA Baseball. Lee was initially drafted as the second pick in the 1996 Major League Baseball Draft by the Minnesota Twins, but was declared a free agent by MLB after the Twins failed to tender him a contract within fifteen days of the end of the draft. He then signed a four-year, $10 million contract with the Arizona Diamondbacks. Lee played on the 1996 Olympic baseball team for the United States. The team went 7-2 with losses to Cuba in the preliminary round and Japan in the semifinals. The U.S. team won the Bronze medal by defeating Nicaragua.\n', '

Lee was the starting first baseman in the Diamondbacks\' inaugural season of 1998, and he hit .269 with 71 runs scored, 22 home runs, and 72 RBI and finished 3rd in the voting for NL Rookie of the Year. Lee has the distinction of having the first hit (a single) as well as hitting the first home run in Diamondbacks history on March 31, 1998 in a home game against the Colorado Rockies, however the team lost the game 9-2 (Lee also had scored and drove in the first runs in D-Backs history with that blast). Lee was part of the Diamondbacks\' trade for Curt Schilling from the Philadelphia Phillies, along with pitchers Vicente Padilla, Omar Daal, and Nelson Figueroa on July 26, 2000.\n', '

In 56 games with the Phillies in 2000, Lee batted .239 with 19 runs scored, 1 home run, and 14 RBI. In 2001, his first full season with the Phillies, Lee appeared in 157 of 162 games, the most of any season in his career. Lee batted .258 with a career best 75 runs scored, while hitting 20 home runs, and also driving in a career best 90 RBI. The Phillies finished 86-76, just two games behind the Atlanta Braves for the National League East. In 2002 with the Phillies, Lee played 153 games and batted .265, however his stats began to decline as he scored 55 runs, hit 13 home runs, and drove in 70 RBI. On December 21, 2002 the Phillies released Lee granting him free agency, two weeks after signing free agent first baseman Jim Thome.\n', '

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