Bill Kneblekamp

William F. Kneblekamp

Bill Kneblekamp was the owner and president of the Louisville Colonels in the American Association in the 1920s. Not a lot os known about him, except that he must have been a shrewd negotiator: in a widely-reported deal on January 7, 1924, he sold star outfielder Earle Combs to the New York Yankees. In return for the future Hall of Famer, he managed to extract a king's ransom: $50,000 in cash, outfielder Elmer Smith and the promise by the Yankeed to play an exhibition game in Louisville, KY with Babe Ruth in the line-up. That game netted him another $5,000 in profits.