The Legend of Nate Colbert

you know i learned a lot from my dad about baseball not because he was the greatest expert on the the diamond but he always recognized talent of other teams that would obviously sometimes show up with the expos or the blue jays in the tail end of his career now this guy became a montreal expo in the tail end of these great campaigns injuries were hampering him in 1977 he went to training camp with the blue jays but a back injury quelled that dream to uh have this guy as one of the blue jays first superstars so today ladies and gentlemen we're going to talk about somebody what i basically believe is the most underrated uh slugger in baseball history if he would have stayed healthy ladies and gentlemen could have hit literally five six hundred uh home runs but for the time he was with the padres he was the first superstar of the team long before dave winfield long before any of the the pitching prospects did well so today ladies and gentlemen we're going to be talking about the great nate colbert now nathan colbert jr born april 9 1946 is an american former pro baseball player and coach he played in the major leagues as a first baseman from 66 to 76 now the majority of these campaigns of course were with uh with the padres although he later went on to the tigers uh the expos the athletics and again almost the blue jays in their uh their first campaign now what's interesting about colbert's career ladies and gentlemen he's more well known for what he did in one game that he did in his whole career now although he holds the san diego record for the most uh home runs in franchise history at 163 as of this writing he also was top 10 in numerous offensive categories for the padres now the tree time all-star averaged 30 home runs and 85 rbis as a member of the expansion padres for five consecutive seasons from 69 to 73 and again becoming the first star for the team long before dave winfield now he also played for the astros the tigers the expos in athletics and again uh the back injury into 77 quelled his possibility with the blue jays and that's maybe why would he traded for john mayberry the year after wanted a good veteran presence off the bench now after his plane career ended he spent several years as a hitting instructor for a pod raise during spring training and later served as a hitting culture manager in the minor leagues he also became gay back by becoming an ordained minister working with disadvantaged youths in 99 nate was among the inaugural class of inductees to the very prestigious san diego padres hall of fame now born in st louis he was signed by his hometown cardinals as an amateur free agent 64. however he eventually saw some action with the astros in 66 and 68 before being selected by the padres in the expansion draft for the 869 campaign now colbert a good first baseman known for his heavy power as a right-handed hitter he hit 24 homers in his first full season in the big leagues which led the club and drove in 66 while batting 255. he was a natural league all-star from 71-73 of course he's best known for that could be one of the greatest day in major league baseball history on august 1st 72 when he hit five home runs one of two players that have done so sam usual being the utter in 54 and drove in 13 runs in a doubleheader breaking the record of 11 runs batted in this helped the padres sweep the braves 9-0 and 11-2 coincidentally a young colbert had extended attended the game in which mutual originally set the single day home run record now his 508 slacking percentage 87 runs 286 total bases 38 homers 111 rbis 70 walks 67 extra base hits 14 intentional walks and 14.8 at bats per home run helped to finish eight in the voting for the nl mvp in 72 he finished second only through the chicago cincinnati reds johnny bench who had 40 in home runs that year he has 111 runs batted in also set a record sell still stands uh for the padres trout whose career with san diego from 69 to 74. he often was the only bright spot in an otherwise dismal san diego line lineup now after hitting 207 in his last year with san diego he was traded from the padres and tigers for ed brinkman bob strampy and dick sharon in their three-team deal on november 1874 that involved brickman also being sent to the cardinals for sonny siebert alan foster and rich folkers danny breton went from the padres to the cardinals to subsequently complete the transactions now with detroit after batting 147 with four homers and 18 rbis in 45 games colbert's contract was sold by the tigers to the expos on june 15 75. now 75 was okay but he spent much of 76 in the minor leagues before resurfacing very briefly with the athletics at the end of the season he did attend spring training with the blue jays again in 77 but his recurrent back problems forced his retirement at the young age of 30. now he played on nine consecutive last place teams from 68 to 76 only the teams at the very start and end of colbert's career escaped the seller colbert went over seven for the 16 and six astros who finished an eight in the ten team league and all for five for the 76 a's who finished second in a division in 75 colbert played for two last place teams of course detroit and montreal now uh in 10 seasons covering a thousand four games 243 average 833 hits 481 runs 141 doubles 25 triples 173 homers 520 rbis 383 bases on balls 902 strikeouts 322 on base percentage and a ford 51 slugging defensively he recorded a 991 fielding percentage primarily first baseman he also played 66 games at all three outfield positions now nate colbert the the comparison is like this when david ortiz came into major league baseball and started slowly with the twins but picked up when he when he went into boston my father made a very interesting comment he said willie stargel and nate colbert were almost exact replicas of each other in the early part of their career play a good first base get you know 30 35 homers colbert would open out can you imagine ladies and gentlemen him playing an exhibition stadium that short fence in in right field the short fence in left field he could have 25 30 home runs with the winds blowing out because you know uh old exhibition stadium was a was a hitters park but nick colbert he is the last superstar of the late 60s early 70s because and he was a role model in the black community as well because he did have several black pair young black players that were rising up at the time and nate was one of them reggie jackson as well and a lot of crossover but without nate colbert there would be no dave winfield because colbert made people look more seriously at san diego and is what he called its hometown hero approach nate did a lot in the community as a volunteer as a charitable organization uh organizer a very spiritual man nate colbert has always been one of my heroes because he always tried to give the best on and off the field and it's not he's forgotten he's still polite on the west coast of the states but for montreal fans they remember when they got tony perez from the reds to play first base native who if he was still uninjured he would have that first base position so the reason why tony perez eventually ended up in montreal traded from cincinnati is because nate was a possibility that we're looking at but it never worked out and nate didn't look normal in those montreal jerseys those powder blues in the mid 70s he san diego jerseys that's when he was power and you took him out of san diego you can tell by the stats he was never the same he uh you know he's big booming smile and he's booming and he wasn't like the biggest guy in the world i think at most if i'm not mistaken he probably uh 200 pounds wasn't a muscle guy obviously he wasn't part of the steroids era but anyway nate colbert again what a what a pleasure to see him reach uh five or six year consecutive super numbers because you know san diego didn't have much to cheer on the padres back in the day and you know i think every san diego padre has the spirit of nate colbert in them because everybody likes a good san diego player we always have and nate started that which led to winfield and everybody else tony gwynn you know you know what i'm talking about so no no colbert no gwen because he put the black athlete and the padres on the map you must say so ladies and gentlemen if you like what we're doing here with our uh national league major league baseball vintage podcast let us know what a like comment or subscribe don't forget to share and as we like to say norton brunswick on our channel here where it's in tribute every day requests are always appreciated and always highly respected and considered thanks for