On September 10, 2024 Manny Machado became the San Diego Padres all-time home run leader by slugging his 164th as a Padre.  Machado is a worthy leader who will undoubtedly add many more home runs to his team total, but I’m going to focus on the man whose 55-year old record Manny Machado recently surpassed—the late Nate Colbert.  I will touch on some of Nate Colbert’s personal and professional ups and downs, as well as his surprising Yuma connections.

Nate Colbert was an original Padre who spent six seasons (1969-1974) with the team, and in each of those six years San Diego finished with the worst record in the National League.  As a three-time All Star first baseman, Nate Colbert gave Padres fans much-needed reasons to cheer during those challenging early years.  Since Yuma was the San Diego Padres spring training home from 1969-1993, local fans also had many opportunities to see Colbert and the other Padres in action at Yuma’s Desert Sun Stadium.

When he arrived at Yuma’s spring training camp in February 1969 as the Padres’ 18th pick in the recent expansion draft, Colbert was not even projected to be the team’s starting first baseman.  That distinction went to Bill Davis, nicknamed “The Jolly Green Giant” due to his 6’7” stature.  Davis looked like a slugger, but in his brief Major League career he managed to hit just one home run.  Shortly after the opening of the 1969 regular season, Padres manager Preston Gomez replaced Bill Davis with Nate Colbert, and Colbert held down the team’s first base duties for the next five years.  (In 1974, his final season with the team, Colbert was unceremoniously moved to left field when Willie McCovey of the Giants was signed by San Diego to play first base.)

Nate Colbert had shown signs of becoming a productive power hitter in the minor leagues, but after his dismal 1968 rookie season with the Houston Astros, few would have predicted Colbert’s sustained offensive excellence with the Padres.  In 1969 Colbert slugged 24 home runs, four more than the Padres’ other young star, “Downtown” Ollie Brown.  Colbert followed up with 38 homers in 1970, 27 in 1971, 38 in 1972, 22 in 1973, and 14 in 1974.  Those numbers seem modest by today’s standards, but it is worth noting that when Nate Colbert hit 38 home runs in 1970, the National League home run champ was Johnny Bench with 45.  And when Colbert had his best overall season in 1972, his 38 home runs were just 2 fewer than Johnny Bench who again led the league.  Nate Colbert also played in a home ballpark, San Diego Stadium, that was characterized by spacious outfield dimensions and a 17-foot high outfield fence that robbed many home runs from home and visiting players.

Atlanta’s Fulton County Stadium was a much more hitter-friendly ballpark, and it was there that Nate Colbert had one of the greatest single-day performances in Major League history.  In an August 1, 1972 doubleheader against the Braves, Colbert hit 5 home runs, which had previously been achieved only by his boyhood hero Stan Musial.  And Colbert’s 13 RBIs and 22 total bases that day were new records for a doubleheader.  By the end of the 1972 season Colbert had accumulated 42 home runs, 111 RBIs, 27 doubles and 15 stolen bases.  While he probably deserved better than his 8th place finish in that year’s National League MVP voting, Colbert was honored at the following season’s spring training in Yuma.  March 15, 1973 was declared “Nate Colbert Day” at Desert Sun Stadium, and Yuma mayor Tom Allt presented Colbert with the keys to the city.

Throughout his career Nate Colbert battled a chronic back condition which caused his offensive power numbers to fall off dramatically after 1972.  Willie McCovey’s arrival in 1974 resulted in Colbert’s being “put out to pasture” (his words) in left field for his final Padres season.  After his 1975 trade to Detroit, and later failed stints with Montreal and Oakland, Colbert ended his career at the age of 30 at the conclusion of the 1976 season. 

Once his playing days were over Nate Colbert remained active in baseball in various coaching roles in various localities.  In 1983, when he and his second wife, Kasey, were living in Yuma, the Padres announced that Colbert would be a roving minor league instructor, as well as a community relations representative for the team.  This was a good fit for a man who, like his wife, had recently become an ordained Baptist minister.  The couple had moved to Yuma the previous year, and Colbert became affiliated with both Union Baptist Church and Mt. Zion Church.  He also played on Mt. Zion’s softball team.  Throughout Nate Colbert’s post-playing days, he conducted many youth baseball clinics, including ones in Yuma.

From 1987-1990 Nate Colbert served as hitting coach for the Padres’ Class A affiliate in Riverside. Colbert had only recently been terminated from that position when in October 1990 he was indicted on several felony counts related to bank loan fraud.  He served a six-month sentence at the Lompoc, California penitentiary.  At the sentencing hearing Colbert apologized for creating what he called “an embarrassment to my family, my team that I worked for, and the community.”

Nate and Kasey Colbert settled in Escondido, California in the late 1980s and devoted themselves to their joint “multicultural interdenominational” ministry.  Kasey Colbert explained, “We reach out to the people nobody else wants—alcoholics, drug addicts, unwed mothers, people on the streets—people who have really been wounded.”  The couple’s ministry continued after Nate Colbert’s release from prison, but it took them to other locations, such as Clarksville, Tennessee where in 1996 Nate Colbert managed the independent minor league Clarksville Coyotes.  By 2000 the Colberts had settled in Utah where it was reported that Nate Colbert was coaching an American Legion team in Cedar City.

When asked to state his “ambition in baseball” on a 1964 questionnaire, 18-year-old Nate Colbert answered, “to be successful, reach hall of fame.”  Colbert certainly experienced failures in baseball and in his personal life, but he also achieved many noteworthy successes while touching the lives of many young people and many persons in need.  Colbert did not realize his dream of making the Major League Hall of Fame, but in 1999 he had the honor of being named an inaugural member of the San Diego Padres Hall of Fame, along with Randy Jones and Ray Kroc.

Nate Colbert died in Las Vegas at the age of 76 on January 5, 2023.  He was survived by his wife Casey and their large, blended family which included several grandchildren.  One week later Bill Davis, the “Jolly Green Giant” who lost his first baseman job to Colbert in 1969, passed away in Minnesota where he had worked for many years in the real estate business.