Tim Combs, right-handed relief pitcher for the Eastern Michigan University baseball team, is the first player from the 2011 senior class to sign a professional contract.
Combs, who will turn 22-years-old Thursday, signed a contract June 6 to pitch for the Gateway Grizzles of the Frontier League in Sauget, Illinois.
Combs is from Dayton, Ohio and played his high school ball at Wayne High School, where he was a three-year letter winner with a 10-0 record and a 1.21 career ERA.
When making his decision on where to attend college, he had many choices, including Wright State, Ohio
Northern and Trinity.
“I figured it’d be the best place to come to and play right away and be able to contribute to the team,” Combs said of choosing EMU.
In his four years with the Eagles, he made 79 appearances on the mound and accumulated a 5-10 record with a 6.70 ERA.
Combs came in and got right to work making 23 appearances, including three starts in his freshman season.
He earned a 2-0 record and posted 16 strikeouts in 33.1 innings.
In his senior season, Combs pitched 31 innings in 18 appearances with a 4.65 ERA to allow a career-low 22 hits with no home runs and held the opponents’ batting average to a team-low .202.
One of Combs’ best games came on April 25, 2009, when he had seven strikeouts in 4 2/3 innings to get the 13-11 comeback win against Northern Illinois University.
Combs started playing baseball at the age of five or six, but said it wasn’t his sport of choice.
“It was something my parents got me into,” Combs said. “It was the only sport I could play because I was a lot smaller than the other kids.”
Combs isn’t a one-sport kind of guy, though. He enjoys many other sports and was even considering choosing a different sport to pursue in college.
“I was going to go to college to bowl,” he said.
When he’s not working on his baseball game, the Criminal Justice major also likes to play golf and video games in his spare time.
“He has quite the temper at video gaming time and has broken plenty of controllers while throwing them,” fellow graduate and pitcher Corey Chaffins said of Combs. “He’s a comedian and a reliable guy
out of the pit.”
Combs’ favorite thing about baseball is the “pressure situations that pitchers walk in to,” and his
favorite thing about the Eagles is “all the different personalities on the team.”
In 2010, he recorded a career-high four saves and finished his career tied for 10th on the EMU all-time saves list with six.
For more information about the Gateway Grizzlies go to www.gatewaygrizzlies.com
