Wichitan Ernie Jacobs balanced police work, scouting baseball

Wichitan Ernie Jacobs, who started as a part-time baseball scout in 1982 and has been looking for players ever since, will be inducted into the Midwest Scouts Association Hall of Fame on Saturday night at Kauffman Stadium in Kansas City.

It’s a wonderful honor for a man who, for years, scouted by night and worked by day as a Wichita police officer in a variety of roles, including as a homicide detective.

But what I want to know is this: What Hall of Fame is his wife of 40 years, Denise, going into?

She’s been the wife of a baseball scout and the wife of a police officer. And on the list of occupations that are difficult on wives, those two are at or near the top.

Ernie Jacobs, who has been a full-time scout since retiring from the WPD in 1998, says he’s on the road 200 to 250 days per year. And everybody knows the fallout from being a police officer.

“It’s been different,” Denise Jacobs said, “being the wife of both a scout and a police officer.”

Ernie and Denise met when they were students at West High and dated for four years before they were married. They have a daughter, Jenise, and two granddaughters.

“The hardest has been when Ernie’s on the road and you have family functions and have to go to them by yourself,” Denise said. “A lot of family members do not understand. They think Ernie can just fly home and fly back out and that’s not the way it works.

“But when our granddaughters are doing something special at school, I tell you, Ernie will get home to see those girls.”

Ernie Jacobs, 60, said baseball has always been his passion. He helped West join North as co-City League champions in 1974 and played some at Crowder (Mo.) Community College before family life beckoned.

He has been a full-time scout for the Baltimore Orioles since 2010, assigned to cover Kansas, Nebraska, South Dakota, North Dakota, Missouri, Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana and Michigan.

“They put me in Siberia where I can’t hurt them,” Jacobs said.

He’s in Wichita, though, until Feb. 1, when he’ll do what all scouts do: Dust himself off and head back on the road looking for players who might be able to help the Orioles someday.

“I still love scouting, just the thing about going out there and maybe finding that one guy,” Jacobs said. “Everybody knows the (Dylan) Bundys and the (Darren) Dreiforts and those kind of guys. Anybody can pick those guys out. But it’s maybe finding those guys that only a handful of clubs have any interest in scouting and that guy ends up being a bonafide big leaguer. That’s scouting.”

Jacobs had a big hand in getting Dylan Bundy signed by the Orioles out of Owasso, Okla., in 2011, after Bundy was the fourth pick in the MLB draft. He also scouted Raul Gonzalez, Kris Johnson, Tommy Hottovy, Junior Lake, Francisco Pena, Freddy Sanchez and several others who reached the majors.

But there have been some that have gotten away, and none bigger than future Hall of Famer Albert Pujols, who moved from the Dominican Republic to Independence, Mo., as a high schooler.

While Jacobs and every other scout who watched him knew Pujols could hit, there was concern about his potential age and body type.

“He kind of had a soft spot so there were concerns on where his body would go. The one thing he would show you, for sure, was big-time power. That’s the thing I found so intriguing about him,” Jacobs said.

At the time, Jacobs was in his first year as a full-time scout with the Red Sox, eager to make a good impression.

Pujols was not selected until the 13th round of the 1999 draft by the St. Louis Cardinals. In 16 big-league seasons, he has hit 591 home runs and driven in 1,817. Those numbers, by the way, make Jacobs cringe.

“One of our national guys with the Red Sox called me in about the 10th round of that draft and asked if Pujols could play third base in the New York-Penn League,” Jacobs said. “I knew he could. He also had to be a quick sign because they needed somebody for there right way and I told them that probably wasn’t going to happen with Albert. I thought he would sign, but I thought it would take all summer.”

Pujols didn’t sign with the Cardinals until three months after the draft, so Jacobs was right. But that doesn’t make it any easier.

“I saw him the next year at Cedar Rapids in the Midwest League, his first full year in pro ball,” Jacobs said. “And I thought, ‘Gosh darn, I missed on that guy. I should have told them he would sign. But all scouts have those kind of stories and as an area scout you don’t always have full control of things.”

Jacobs said he’s adjusted to a new way of scouting over the years, one that relies on computers and variables as much as it does eyes and ears. Sabermetrics has changed the way players are evaluated and Jacobs said he has adapted.

“I try to incorporate anything I think will help me,” he said. “I don’t fight that stuff and every team uses it. I’m a company man.”

Jacobs was a devoted Wichita police officer for 20 years that included time in vice, sex crimes and homicide. Being the wife of a scout can be a challenge, Denise Jacobs said, but it’s nothing like being the wife of an officer.

“I know when he was on cases he would bring files home and say, ‘Whatever you do, don’t look at that file,’ ” she said. “Well, you know what I did. I opened up that file.”

She was often horrified with what she found.

“They see all the gory stuff, all the trauma,” Denise said. “I knew why he had trouble sleeping at night at times. I knew all the stuff he was going through.”

Looking for baseball players was always Ernie’s passion. It was also his release.

This story was originally published December 8, 2016 at 11:57 AM with the headline "Wichitan Ernie Jacobs balanced police work, scouting baseball."