Colbert Goes Deep For Old Time’s Sake

For one swing of the bat, it was like the glory days of old for Nate Colbert.

Colbert became the Padres’ first hero when he hit 38 home runs in 1970 and again in 1972, and he unleashed a sample of his old power in the Equitable Old-Timers home run derby Saturday night at San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium.

After hitting a 390-foot drive that would have left the park if it hadn’t gone to dead center field, Colbert sent one of Bill (Spaceman) Lee’s pitches over the left-field wall in the sixth inning of the National League’s 6-1 victory over the American.

Colbert’s home run struck the scaffolding used by an unsuspecting photographer behind the wall. The photographer was looking elsewhere at the time, and the ball missed him by no more than two feet.

“I didn’t know if it would go out,” Colbert said afterward. “It wasn’t like when I was 22. At 22, I knew right away, but at 44 I wasn’t sure. At this point, I have warning-track power.”

Colbert is the Padres’ all-time home-run leader, having hit 163 as their first baseman from 1969 to 1974. He is now a coach for their Riveride farm club and serves in their community relations department in the off-season.

Asked if he had gotten a special kick out of reliving a bit of his dynamic past before the home folks, Colbert said, “Not really. I do it simply because of the purpose of the game. It’s for old-time players who need help.”

A donation of $10,000 from each of the 26 games in of the Equitable series goes to the Baseball Assistance Team (BAT) foundation, created to aid players of pre-pension days.

Another man in a Padre uniform hit a home run immediately after Colbert’s, and for him it was a thrill. Denny Summers, the Padres’ bullpen coach, who never played in the major leagues, hit a line drive over the right-field wall, also off Lee. Earlier, he hit a ball to the same area that fell about 10 feet short.

“This was great,” Summers said. “It was my first Old-Timers game ever, and I loved it. “Being a left-handed hitter, I wasn’t too happy when they ran a left-hander (Lee) out there. I thought to myself, ‘They really want to get me out.’ The first one I hit, there had to be a little more strength on it, but I knew the second one had a chance.”

The champion home-run hitter of the night was Rico Carty, 50, who hit two off Fergie Jenkins in the same time at bat. He also just missed a homer on a drive that went even farther than the two others but was barely foul.

“Once a hitter, always a hitter,” said Carty, who hit 204 home runs and had a .299 career average.

The other National League home runs were hit by Hall of Famer Lou Brock and Ellis Valentine who, at 36, was the youngest Old-Timer. Brock’s struck the right-field foul pole about 30 feet up, and Valentine’s was the most prodigious poke of all, landing in the 10th row of the left-field-seats.

And for the American League? With such musclemen as Frank Howard, Willie Horton, George Scott and Jim Gentile on the team, it fell to the light-hitting Bucky Dent to hit the only home run.

Dent finished with a career total of just 40 home runs, the most memorable of which propelled the New York Yankees to a victory over the Boston Red Sox in a one-game playoff for the American League pennant in 1978.

“With all those boomers around me, I was really getting teased,” Dent said. “After I hit one out (off Dennis Leonard), I heard the guys saying, ‘Somebody’s got to hit one. We can’t let this little guy get the only one.’ It was a great feeling.”

The contest was played over seven innings as a preliminary to the Padres-Houston Astros game. The format was a first for the Old-Timers series, and it received mixed reviews.

Lee May said, “I liked it. People get to see more players hit. There’s one thing about hitting. No matter how old you get, you can still hit the ball.”

Hall of Famer Billy Williams cast a negative vote, saying, “I don’t think the fans got much out of this. There are guys who can still make plays in the outfield, and Lou Brock can still run the bases. I think the people would rather see that than just a bunch of guys hitting.”

Old Timer Notes

Frank Howard managed the Padres only in their disastrous, strike-torn season of 1981, yet he has positive memories of his only chance to lead a club. “It was one of the greatest experiences of my life,” Howard said. “We had some great young talent, like Ozzie Smith for example, and the guy who followed me (Dick Williams) added good leadership to that talent.” . . . Hall of Famer Ernie Banks brought along an aluminum bat, which he and Bill Lee used once each. “I’m testing it for Sadahara Oh (the all-time Japanese home-run champion). He’s marketing it over there,” Banks said.