We all heard the stories growing up. Cobb used to sharpen his spikes. He was a vicious man, a dirty player and was a big time racist.
All untrue.
If baseball games are won by either crossing the plate yourself, or inducing others to cross the plate, Ty Cobb is arguably the greatest ball player to ever live, and he was a victim of fake news.
ht/ jerry manderin
My dad lives about 20 miles from where Ty Cobb grew up. An old man that lived across the street from us when I was growing up used to regale us with tales about how he used to beat Tyrus Cobb in foot races as a teenager (and a couple of old timers confirmed that this old man was a very swift runner in his day and likely did best Cobb in a few foot races).
Ty Cobb invested some of his earnings from his playing days in a small soft drink company called “Coca-Cola” and did very well financially over the years. He donated enough money to to build a decent sized hospital in his home town that was operating until about 15 years ago and saved countless lives of all races by making decent medical care available to a small town in rural GA. There were also a few other charitable projects undertaken in his home town of Royston, GA that were financed by Ty Cobb (including monies to start a nursing home that is still operating today).
This is yet another of many examples of how the truth can be twisted about people by lying scum that call themselves “journalists”. Most of them have never accomplished anything of value themselves, so they take pleasure in tearing down those that have. Sadly, this kind of character assassination didn’t stop with maliciously destroying the reputation of Ty Cobb.
A museum with some of Cobb’s gear from his playing days and other artifacts is located in Royston, GA for anyone that is interested in it.
Charles Leerhsen, the author of “Ty Cobb: A Terrible Beauty”, cited in the linked AT article, wrote an essay for Hillsdale’s Imprimus a while back:
https://imprimis.hillsdale.edu/who-was-ty-cobb-the-history-we-know-thats-wrong/
It’s a terrible shame that mean-spirited (evil, really) people would destroy a man’s reputation like this. I hope the true historical record is widely known about Cobb in the future. But don’t expect Ken Burns to tell the true story.
And this is why I love to get Imprimus. It’s free for the asking or you can get it online anytime. I’ve shared a lot of issues of it with friends.
AA – the article you linked was an excellent read. I never paid much attention to the negative stories about him because I knew that locally, Ty Cobb was thought of as a fair and generous person even if was a bit “hard-nosed”.
People that knew him personally didn’t seem to think of him as a bad person and his philanthropy was greatly appreciated by the small town he grew up in. I was far more impressed by his proven exploits on the field rather than the stories about him.
There is a story (told by famous sports writer of the time, Grantland Rice) about him from an old baseball history book I have that when Cobb was about 16, he was playing baseball professionally in Alabama in the “farm leagues”. His father had told him that playing games was no way to succeed in life, but Cobb believed differently.
Rice, who wrote for the Atlanta Journal, started receiving letters from a couple of “scouts” about a young phenom (Ty Cobb) in the farm leagues that was as swift as a deer and as cagey as a fox that was making a name for himself with his exploits. Rice wrote about this budding “star” in the newspaper which had a pretty large circulation in GA.
Many years later after Cobb had retired, Rice was presenting an award to him at an affair that was in honor of Cobb and his achievements. Rice related the story about getting telegrams about the young Cobb tearing up the league in Alabama. When Cobb accepted the award, he confessed that he was the “scouts” that wrote the glowing reviews about the young phenom. He knew that his father read the Atlanta newspaper every day and would see the stories. It was his way of showing his father that he really did have a future playing a “child’s game”.
Contrary to popular belief, the saying “rough as a Cob” had nothing to do with Ty…
“History is bunk.”
A lot of what comes to us is nonsense – which is why a society needs a healthy dose of skepticism whenever a newspaper (or book) is picked up and (especially) when the television is turned on. “Great” men are always under sniper fire by “lesser” men, jealousy and envy being quite powerful emotions. And “great” men are (generally speaking) prickly pricks, for the most part – which is why they work and play well with others only so long as it serves their interests.
Apparently, when you demand much of yourself, you expect others to rise to the same level and are angered or disappointed when they don’t – which can engender some dislike (or distaste or disgust) on the part of those who “fail” to make the mark.
izlamo delenda est …
Abigail….. Thanks for the heads up on Imprimis. I’ve given up on all my old colleges: too nutty, today. I’ve bought stuff from Hillsdale in the past and they bug me for money, a bit, but they are a damn fine college in a sea of under-educated profs and snowflake students, otherwise. We hope to enjoy our new subscription.
They shine. ….Lady in Red
BUBBAS
I started college the year Ty died. Unless your older than I your man was full of sh*t!
Ty was the greatest ball player EVER. Many of Herman’s fans were jealous of Ty and spread malicious gossip.
Ty was smart! Artillery Cptn and made a giant fortune on coke. He told all his teammates Coke was the thing. But since he talked “funny” they figured he was wacko. BTW the proper Anglo plural of you is YOU ALL; I gave up on trying to explain proper language to my friend from NY about 60 years ago.
PS
One of TY’s very rich grandsons died a few years back. Lived on Russian Hill in Frisco. An area where homes start at 8 digits and go up to nine – $xx,xxx,xxx.
there are, and have been for hundreds of years. some rich folk in San Fran!
My kin were their servants.
Hmm… Who was jealous of him in the media? Who hated him? That’s who wrote the stories about him. What pieces of shit they all are.
Here is another good article about the baseball myth about – Shoeless Joe Jackson
https://www.abbevilleinstitute.org/blog/shoeless-joe/?mc_cid=26af61a28c&mc_eid=bc8b29cd04
I’ve always been fascinated by the media invention of Ty Cobb. Even before reading Charles Leersen’s groundbreaking bio, I always had a sense that the popular conception of Cobb as a sort of psychotic racist/sadist was impossible. No one could be that one-dimensional, especially someone as smart as Cobb…and he was an exceptionally smart man.
By his own admission, Cobb played an antagonistic brand of baseball, what he described as “letting the opposition beat themselves”. It was all about outsmarting the other team, riling them up, breaking their focus and, ultimately, their spirit. My grandfather once told me about how he was at a Yankees/Tigers game and could hear Cobb, who was the runner on first, verbally berating an opposing pitcher, taunting him to try to pick him off. The increasingly agitated pitcher threw the ball over the 1st baseman’s head and Cobb wound up on 3rd! This way of competing was almost non-existent before he broke into the majors in 1905 and was a form of psychological warfare that didn’t endear him to many players…or non-Tiger fans for that matter. The big stars before him: Larry Lajoie, Honus Wagner, Cy Young, Christy Mathewson…were tough, competitive players who outplayed everyone else, but they didn’t rub their noses in it like Cobb. Cobb didn’t just beat the opposition. He humiliated them. He found out what their emotional sore spots were and would verbally hammer away at them until they were completely unhinged and unable to focus. That breeds a lot of resentment and that’s where the myth began. Jealous players, even Cobb’s teammates, would run their mouths to reporters over what a dirty player Cobb was, screaming “He cheated!!” like children because that was easier to swallow. Still, most of his contemporaries acknowledged that Ty could take it as well as dish it out. Almost none ever described him as a dirty player.
Cobb was tough as nails, but so were most of the players of his generation. You had to be! If you lost your job in baseball, you probably wound up behind a plow or in a fire trap of a factory for the rest of your life. So the other myth that he brought chaos to a gentleman’s game is nonsense.
The one person who really put the narrative of “Cobb as demon” on steroids was a 2nd rate sportswriter named Al Stump. For whatever reason, at the end of his life, Cobb hired this a-hole to help with his autobiography. Ty died before it was published so this left Stump (whose writing style was like that of the pulp writers of the Old West: big on drama but all BS) to do what he wanted with the material. Long story short: Stump would have been a great CNN reporter.
A few facts about Cobb that run contrary to the fake news:
– His beloved maternal grandfather was an outspoken abolitionist.
– His father, whom Cobb worshipped, believed in the equality of the races.
– He applauded the breaking of the color barrier in 1947, lamenting that it should have happened years before.
– During the Jim Crow years, he set up a college scholarship fund where recipients were NOT filtered by race.
– He had many friends inside baseball. One of his best being the great Tris Speaker. Others included Babe Ruth, Casey Stengal, Ted Williams, Mickey Mantle and Ralph Kiner. Joe DiMaggio and his family loved Cobb for all the help he gave young Joe in negotiating his first contract with the Yankees.
– Cobb was always enthusiastic about helping others with their hitting, including opposition players.
– He was diligent about replying to fan mail, often composing long letters written in his trademark green ink.
– Later in life, he got a fan letter from a young man, who was still a teenager and also a possible professional prospect. Cobb invited him to stay the summer at his home in California where he could personally train him. The young man did and later wrote that, although he didn’t wind up playing professionally, it was one of the great experiences of his life and that Cobb was a really great guy.
As to Fur’s contention that the game is about plating runs and that Cobb may be the greatest ever, I concur. In fact, I believe he was. Cobb retired 90 years ago and is still near the top of the list in combined RBI and runs scored…achieved when outfield fences were 100 miles from home plate and the ball was as tight a bag of rags. What’s often overlooked is that Cobb had a reputation as the best DEFENSIVE outfielder (after Tris Speaker) with a cannon for an arm during the first decade of his career.