Earle combs biography of williams
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Full Name: Earle Bryan Combs
Position: Center field
Born: May 14, 1899 (Pebworth, KY)
Died: July 21, 1976 (Richmond, KY)
Yankee Years: 1924-35
Primary Number: 1
Yankee Statistics: 1,455 G, 1,866 H, 309 3B, .325/.397/.462, 125 OPS+, 45.0 rWAR, 41.5 fWAR
Biography
We are approaching the 100-year anniversary of the 1927 Yankees, inarguably the greatest and most famous baseball team in history. While the public can barely be bothered to remember Shohei Ohtani, a modern instantiation of Babe Ruth, then what does that say of anyone less famous on that team than, say, Lou Gehrig? It’s sad to say that someone like Earle Combs has been almost completely lost to the modern Yankees fan’s mind.
While Murderers’ Row is usually remembered by those two towering aforementioned names, people forget that Combs stood at the top of that very lineup, wearing the No. 1 to match his lineup spot as it did in those days. If a lineup called “Murderers’ Row” ever put you at the top, there h
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By Marty Appel
Forty summers ago, it became official. The hallowed ground of center field in Yankee Stadium, to which everyone thinks “DiMaggio,” “Mantle” (and for younger fans, Bernie Williams), was in fact hallowed ground going back to 1925.
That’s because 40 years ago, Earle Combs, the gentlemanly, pre-maturely grey center fielder on the Murderer’s Row team, was elected to the Hall of Fame.
The man with the same lifetime batting average as DiMaggio, .325, the table-setter at the top of the lineup for Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig, had earned his place.
Combs was the leadoff hitter for the great Yankee teams of the ‘20s, and as the leadoff hitter in that magnificent lineup, he wore #1 when numbers were introduced in 1929.
He was an unlikely ballplayer, encouraged by his father to go to college and become a teacher. Well mannered and trouble-free, Combs was obedient and headed off to Eastern Kentucky State, pursuing a teacher’s certificate. But on the side, he played ball for picku
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EARLE COMBS
bygd Marty Appel, September 8, 2016
“If you had nine Combses on your grupp, you could go to bed every night and sleep like a baby.” ~ Yankee Manager Miller Huggins
What does a guy have to do in front of Yankees fans to get a little respect? Hit .325 lifetime?
During the 16 years that Bernie Williams patrolled center field for the New York Yankees (and before him Bobby Murcer, among others), there was frequent talk of that del av helhet of real estate being “sacred” in the annals of Yankee Stadium history—hallowed ground, as it were, for its having been manned bygd Joe DiMaggio and Mickey Mantle, almost continuously from 1936 to 1966.
The point was embraced by Yankee fans. It added to the team’s cultural importance as well as to the reputations of Williams and Murcer, et al.
But mysteriously, it left off Joe DiMaggio’s predecessor, who was han själv a entré of Famer.
Earle Combs went back to the second year of Yankee etapp, 1924, and had a stellar career there when the vastnes