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Monday, April 2, 2012

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Apr 2nd 2012, 17:51

By Carl Kolchak, Yahoo! Contributor Network

Earl Combs, nicknamed the Kentucky Colonel, is one of the more overlooked and underappreciated New York Yankees. The Hall of Famer played long before I was born, but as a Yankees fan, a quick glance at his numbers shows me how much value he had to the great New York clubs of the 1920s and 1930s.

My grandfather spoke to me often about how accomplished a player Combs was, always reminding me that he named my father, Earl, after the Yankees star. Combs was a table-setter who had the job of getting on base and scoring runs. He did this unusually well.

One of Earl's greatest assets was that he nearly always made contact. Combs struck out just 278 times in 1,455 games played. He collected at least 202 hits in a season three times, topped by his magnificent 1927 campaign during which he had 231 base hits. Combs was by no stretch a power-hitting threat, belting only 58 lifetime home runs, with never more than nine in one year. But like my grandfather would tell me, Combs only had to get on base for good things to happen for the Yanks in those days.

Combs batted in front of Yankee legends such as Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig and Bob Meusel, so once he got on base, he rarely just stayed there. He was a supreme run scorer, tallying over 112 runs eight consecutive seasons from 1925 through 1932. His high water mark was the 143 runs he crossed the plate with in 1932, which happened to be his last great season.

After his initial season in which he batted .400 in 24 games, Combs was a steady .300 hitter, eclipsing that coveted standard eight times and landing squarely on the .300 mark once. His worst year as a full-time contributor to the New York cause was 1926—Earl batted "just" .299. He had speed, but with hitters such as he had waiting behind him, the stolen base was not a necessary part of his game. He managed 91 steals in his 12 years with the Yankees. Although my grandfather passed away many years ago, were he alive today I feel he would have compared current Brett Gardner quite favorably to Combs.

Combs was exclusively a shagger of fly balls, playing in the outfield. He staffed all three positions, but mostly he patrolled center field, playing the majority of his games there. In the postseason, Earl hit .351 in the four World Series he participated in for New York. He was very effective in the winning effort of the Yankees in the 1932 Series, hitting .375 and scoring eight runs against the Chicago Cubs. Combs retired after the 1934 season and he passed away in 1976 at the age of 77 in his home state of Kentucky.

I have been a New York Yankee fan since the middle of the 1960s.

Sources:

http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/c/combsea01.shtml

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