Earle Combs: Louisville Colonel and Gentleman

Earle Bryan Combs had a career in professional baseball that spanned four decades, from 1922 as a rookie with the Louisville Colonels (American Association) through 1954 as a coach with the Philadelphia Phillies.

Endeared, revered, admired and respected by other players, management, media and fans alike, Combs gained many appropriate nicknames: Colonel, The Kentucky Colonel, The Gentleman from Kentucky, The Kentucky Greyhound, The Mail Carrier, The Waiter, The Silver Eagle, The Modest Man, Prince Charming, Big Jim, SANGUWANOC (swift white hawk)—each a tale; each a story. But let us focus on Earle Combs—a Louisville Colonel.

Earle Combs’ rapid rise in organized baseball should not have surprised anyone who knew him. From the games played on diamonds in the fields of his family’s Owsley County (KY) farm with home-made bats and home-made balls to the games at recess with his pupils at the Ida Mae School, people knew he was good. In 1917, in his first “organized” game, a student-faculty pick-up game at Eastern Kentucky Normal School, Combs hit two home runs off Dr. Charles Keith (Dean of Men and one-time pretty fair pitcher). This drew cheers from the crowd and a lecture from Dr. Keith as to why Combs was not playing baseball for Eastern. Inspired by Dr. Keith’s interest, he joined the team.

In 1918, only four years before signing with the Colonels, Combs batted .596 and hit at least one home run in every game for Eastern. From 1919 to 1921 he played for the Pleasant Grove team, the Winchester (KY) Hustlers, the Mayham Coal Co. in High Splint (KY), the Harlan (KY) town team, and the Lexington (KY) Rea’s semipro team. Combs gave former major leaguer and Reo manager Jim Park credit for getting him into professional baseball by arranging a meeting with Cap Neal, business manager of the Louisville Colonels.

Combs signed with the Louisville club in the winter of 1922 and traveled with the team to spring training in Pensacola, Florida. As with any young person on the threshold of living their dream, Combs had mixed emotions: afraid he wouldn’t make the team; knowing he could make the team; convinced that every player on the team could hit better than he could; afraid he needed luck. But his hustle and eagerness to learn and his positive mental attitude about baseball life (he ate, slept and dreamt baseball) tipped the emotional scale.

He immediately impressed players and coaches with his batting, fielding, and speed to run down long flies. Plus, he could get rid of a ball exceptionally fast. Other attributes that impressed: he was modest and unassuming, sincere, level-headed and even-minded.

Play Ball!

Combs’ first plate appearance in an exhibition game in Pensacola was as a pinch hitter against the Dodgers’ Al Mamaux. The result was a home run. Both manager Joe McCarthy and Cap Neal felt Combs (dubbed “Big Jim” in spring training) was an outstanding player. In Combs’ first regular season game he got two hits, but also committed two fielding errors. It was a most miserable day for him. McCarthy told him, “Forget it. I told you today that you were my center fielder. You still are. Listen, if I can stand it, I guess you can.” Combs confided later that it was at that moment he became a baseball player. His .945 fielding average would have been better except for that first game and another game in which he committed three errors on one play.

Combs started strong and finished strong in his rookie season. Major league scouts began watching him long before the season was over. Although he could have been sold to the majors, through Combs’ asking and the Colonels’ own inclination, he was kept for another year in Louisville. And what a year it was.

Cap Neal was quoted in early March as saying, “Earle Combs is the most promising player who has broken into the game since Ty Cobb—he is the nearest approach to Cobb that we have seen. He is a natural sticker, and is constantly improving in the field and baserunning.”

Parkway Field, the Colonels’ new ballpark, held its inaugural game May 1, 1923. Combs caught the first out of the game, scored the first run of the game and went 1 for 3, hitting a double. Former major leaguer turned evangelist, Billy Sunday, was in attendance and wrote regarding Combs, “I want to meet that chap. They tell me he came up from the mountains and that last year was his first year in the big tent. Well, I’ll gamble they’ll sell him about next year for just about what the grandstand cost. He’s a real find. He may need this year’s seasoning, but he is one sweet ball player. He is big league caliber, believe me. And he is a fine hitter. There are only a few real free hitters in baseball today. He’ll make good, that fellow. He has the stuff and before many years, if he doesn’t get the swell-head, which I don’t think probable, he’ll be a major league sensation. Another Cobb? Well, strange things happen in baseball.” Ty Cobb was Combs’ baseball idol.

Combs’ stats in Louisville speak for themselves. But they don’t tell the whole story. One day’s performance (3 for 4, including a grand-slammer, driving in 7 runs; and running down a would-be gapper with the bases loaded, saving at least 2 or 3 runs) got this comment from a Columbus, Ohio sportswriter: “Combs is his name. He’s a tall, powerful, round shouldered, rustic-looking youth. He is in his second season of AA pastiming. Joe McCarthy, Louisville manager, picked him up from the wild and wooly downs of Upsquidink or Compahpah, Kentucky. He doesn’t look much like a ball player and he’s far from a thing of beauty and a joy forever as he lopes around in left field, with all the abandoned grace of a speeding giraffe, but he can run as fast as a scared rabbit, can judge fly balls like Tris Speaker, can bat like Ty Cobb and run bases like Bob Bescher in his palmiest days. Outside of that he isn’t much of a ball player.”

September 23, 1923 was “Earle Combs Day” at Parkway Field. Some 300 fans came by special train from Richmond and the surrounding area in Combs’ native eastern Kentucky to honor him and to see a doubleheader. They presented him with an automatic shot gun. The Colonel fans in Louisville, not to be outdone, presented him with a silver loving cup inscribed “Kentucky’s Greatest Ball Player.” The honoree gave a gift back in his first time at bat by hitting an inside-the-park home run.

At some time during Combs’ stay in Louisville his teammates accepted a bet from the Kansas City team as to which team’s fastest runner was really fastest. Combs won the home-to-first-base race with very little problem.

The Reds, Pirates, Giants and Dodgers from the senior circuit and the Indians, White Sox and Yankees from the junior circuit were all interested in Combs. On January 7, 1924, Combs became a member of the New York Yankees. Yet, it was not that simple. Before signing his 1923 Colonels contract Combs wanted to have included in writing that he would receive some monetery reimbursement from the club when he was sold to a major league team. The Louisville brain-trust assured him they would take care of him and nothing needed to be in writing. No “appreciative settlement” was received and Combs was more than a little upset, more because of the principle than the money.

Combs would not sign the Yankee contract until the Colonels completed their agreement with him. Combs stated, “I have nothing to be scared of. I am not a dumb animal to be browbeaten, cowed, lashed, coerced, or goaded into anything that I do not think is right. I am a human being and I intend to stay that way whether I play with the New York Yankees or not.” During the “holdout” Combs signed a contract to be an assistant baseball coach at Eastern and was building a new home in Richmond. Joe McCarthy entered the picture and was able to get Combs to agree to terms and report to the Yankees for spring training.

Speaking in later years about the Louisville-Combs-Yankee “deal”, Combs said, “They said it was a record in those days, I don’t know what they paid for me but I do know that I was cut in for $3,000 of it. And what’s more, I still got that $3,000 and I believe it’s doubled its value since then.”

Combs’ first year with the Yankees lasted only 24 games before he broke an ankle sliding into home on June 15. Babe Ruth was so impressed with the rookie that he said that injury cost the Yankees the loss of the pennant to Washington in 1924. Combs returned in 1925, and as they say, “The rest is history.”

Earle Bryan Combs was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1970.