WHEN COMBS CUT HIS FIRST TEETH
"Earle Combs, the best center fielder the Yankees ever had until Joseph Paul DiMaggio came swinging out of San Francisco, didn't have DiMaggio's arm or his power at the plate, but he, too, was a ball hawk and completed his 12-year hitch (1924-35) with a .325 average, same as DiMaggio.
Earle, recently appointed Kentucky State Banking Commissioner, once told of his first game as a professional. It was with Louisville in 1922.
'I was so nervous,' he said, 'I could hardly see straight- and I muffed the first ball hit to me. Joe McCarthy never said a word to me when I went to the bench at the end of the inning, and he didn't say a word when, a couple of innings later, I booted a single into a couple of extra bases for the hitter. In the eighth inning, with the score tied and two on, a hitter singled to center. As I saw the ball coming to me, I said to myself:
' 'I'll stop this ball if it kills me.'
'It didn't kill me. But it went through me to the fence. As I chased it, I was tempted to keep right on going, climb the fence and not stop running until I got home. I couldn't do that, but my mind was made up. If McCarthy didn't fire me, I'd quit. Joe didn't say anything until we were in the clubhouse after the game. I guess he could tell how I felt by the way I looked. Then he said:
' 'Forget it. I told you today you were my center fielder. You still are.'
'Then he laughed and said: 'If I can stand it, I guess you can.'
'I think I can say that from that minute on, I was a ball player.' "
-Frank Graham in the New York-Journal American (Baseball Digest, September 1958)
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