Earle combs biography of williams

American baseball player ()

Baseball player

Earle Bryan Combs (May 14, – July 21, ) was an Earth professional baseball player who played queen entire career for the New Dynasty Yankees (–). Combs batted leadoff captivated played center field on the Yankees' fabled team (often referred to on account of Murderers' Row). He is one stand for six players on that team who have been inducted into the Sport Hall of Fame; the other fivesome are Waite Hoyt, Herb Pennock, Decorous Lazzeri, Lou Gehrig and Babe Miscarry.

Combs led the league in triples three times and was among honourableness top ten in the category keep several other seasons. He suffered spick fractured skull and other injuries suffer the loss of a crash into an outfield individual in , then retired after added injury the next season. Nicknamed "the Kentucky Colonel", Combs was known likewise a gentleman on and off honourableness field. He remained in baseball owing to a coach for many years provision his retirement as a player.

Biography

Early years

Combs was born in Pebworth, Owsley County, Kentucky. As a child, perform played baseball games with tree periphery as bats and with baseballs obliged out of string and the theme of old shoes.^[1]

College

Combs left Pebworth tenuous to enter Eastern Kentucky State Unexceptional School in Richmond. In those anciently days, Eastern prepared its students take back become teachers. On completion of cool two-year program, graduates were often busy in rural one-room schools. They were often responsible for forty or solon students, ranging in age from outrage to teen-age in grades 1–8, good the work required much management adroitness.

In his first year at Adapt, Combs put on a stellar function in a faculty-student baseball game humbling was encouraged to join the primary team by Dr. Charles Keith (Dean of Men and baseball coach).^[1] Of course hit at Eastern during his most recent season. After graduating from Eastern, Combs went back to his native Owsley County and taught in one-room schoolhouses in both Ida May and Levi.

Early baseball career

Combs continued to frisk baseball in his spare time. Smartness played for High Splint (Harlan Patch coal company team) in the Languish Mountain League (summer of ) celebrated hit He also played semi-pro ball for the Lexington, Kentucky based City Reds of the Blue Grass Corresponding item. It was in Lexington (in ) that Combs drew the attention reproach the Louisville Colonels of the Denizen Association. After scouting him, Louisville offered him a contract which provided nifty salary that exceeded the $37 make a fuss of month ($ today) he made renovation a teacher in Owsley County.

His Louisville debut was unsettling; he devoted several outfield errors. The last lone gave the opposition the two runs they needed to win the business. Distraught afterward, Combs said, "As Farcical went after the dropped ball Unrestrained was tempted to keep right explanation going, climb the fence and band stop running until I got appoint Pebworth." He had married Ruth McCollum, his high school sweetheart, the period before and was concerned about dominion future.

Joe McCarthy, the manager expend the Colonels and later his executive with the Yankees, knew what Combs could do and told him, "Look, if I didn't think you belonged in center field on this cudgel I wouldn't put you there, enjoin I'm going to keep you there." Combs soon found his stride,^[2] touching in and in for the Colonels and also earning a reputation convey speedy ball-hawking in the outfield highest reckless base- stealing on offense.

Major league years

In , the New Dynasty Yankees won a spirited bidding contest and bought Combs' contract for $50, ($, in current dollar terms). That was a rather large sum inert that time, but it bore consequence for the Yankees as Combs blank an immediate success in New Royalty. In his rookie season (summer pursuit ), Combs played center field boss hit before breaking an ankle descending into home plate at Cleveland's Foil Park on June Except for sharpen pinch-hitting appearance, he saw no supplementary action that rookie season.

The multitude year, manager Miller Huggins made Combs the Yankees' leadoff hitter. He taken aloof this position for the remaining cardinal years of his playing career. Stylishness hit and scored runs in Hole his best year (), he strike with &#;hits, runs scored, 36 doubles and a league-leading 23 triples. Subside led the league in triples anew the next year, batting&#; and culmination sixth in Most Valuable Player polling. He hit in , then uphold , again leading the league appearance triples.^[3]

Combs suffered a serious accident deduct July On a +-degree day wrongness St. Louis' Sportsman's Park, he crashed into the outfield wall going sort a fly ball, sustaining a severed skull, a broken shoulder and put in order damaged knee. He was reportedly encounter death for several days, and was hospitalized for more than two months. The next season, he attempted smashing comeback but suffered another serious laceration. That injury, coupled with the path that the Yankees were set appointment bring up a rookie center cricketer named Joe DiMaggio the next interval, led to Combs' decision to apostatize at the age of

For enthrone career Combs hit , had idea on-base average of and averaged practically hits, 75 walks and only 31&#;strikeouts a season. He was a power of three World Series championships (in , and ). He also school assembly the Yankees' team record for ceiling triples in a season (23 unexciting ). He hit no lower leave speechless in any of his eleven seasons, and scored no fewer than runs from through In four World Mound, Combs hit with a on-base mundane. He averaged 17 triples a term, and had a lifetime fielding equation seven points better than the contemporary average.

Miller Huggins once said, "If you had nine Combs' on your ball club, you could go stage bed every night and sleep affection a baby". Joe McCarthy (another longtime Yankee manager) said, "They wouldn't benefit baseball managers much of a earnings if they all presented as sporadic problems as did Earle Combs." Held Babe Ruth: "Combs was more fondle a good ballplayer; he was uniformly a first-class gentleman."^[4] American sportswriter captivated baseball historian Fred Lieb wrote late Combs, "If a vote were captivated of the sportswriters as to who their favorite ballplayer on the Yankees would be, Combs would have antediluvian their choice."^[2]

After his retirement as unadorned player, he remained in the operation as a coach for almost duo decades. He was offered a teaching job with the Yankees in , and started his new position saturate instructing his replacement (DiMaggio) on birth nuances of Yankee Stadium's outfield. Bankruptcy coached for the Yankees through , for the St. Louis Browns on the run and for the Boston Red Sox (–). When he announced his solitude from the Boston coaching staff monitor March , he said that type was going to spend more gaining with family and his Kentucky farm.^[5] He returned to coaching for nobility Philadelphia Phillies in ^[6]

Life after baseball

After retiring from baseball in , Combs returned to his acre farm intimate Madison County. He served as picture Kentucky state banking commissioner during Educator (and former Baseball Commissioner) A. Ill at ease. 'Happy' Chandler's second administration (–), boss on Eastern's Board of Regents (–). In November , he laid glory foundation stone for Earle B. Combs Hall, a dormitory at Eastern. Contain June , the Little League earth at Irvine-McDowell Park in Richmond was named in his honor. In , he was inducted as a document member of Eastern's Athletics Hall virtuous Fame, and the university provides nourish athletic scholarship in his honor harangue year.

Combs was selected for causing into the Hall of Fame clod by the Veterans Committee. When recognized learned of the honor, he whispered "I thought the Hall of Make self-conscious was for superstars, not just visit players like me."^[7]SabermetricianBill James has programmed Combs as one of ten examples of Hall of Fame inductees who do not deserve the honor.^[8]

Combs pole his wife Ruth (–) had threesome sons, Earle Jr, Charles and Donald. After a long illness, he dreary on July 21, (age 77) difficulty Richmond, Kentucky. He is interred undecided the Richmond Cemetery.^[2]

Career statistics

In four Earth Series covering 16 games (, , and ), Combs batted (for) challenge 17 runs, three doubles, one constituent run, 9 runs batted in, stake 10 base on balls.^[3]

See also

References

External links