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Title: Who Was Ty Cobb? The History We Know That’s Wrong
Source:
Hillsdale College
URL Source: https://imprimis.hillsdale.edu/who- ... e-history-we-know-thats-wrong/
Published: Aug 15, 2016
Author: Charles Leerhsen
Post Date: 2016-08-15 12:11:31 by redleghunter
Ping List: *Baseball* Subscribe to *Baseball*
Keywords: None
Views: 955
Comments: 6
The following is adapted from a speech delivered at Hillsdale College on March 7, 2016, during a program on “Sports and Character” sponsored by the College’s Center for Constructive Alternatives. Ty Cobb was one of the greatest baseball players of all time and king of the so-called Deadball Era. He played in the major leagues—mostly for the Detroit Tigers but a bit for the Philadelphia Athletics—from 1905 to 1928, and was the first player ever voted into the Hall of Fame. His lifetime batting average of .366 is amazing, and has never been equaled. But for all that, most Americans think of him first as an awful person—a racist and a low-down cheat who thought nothing of injuring his fellow players just to gain another base or score a run. Indeed, many think of him as a murderer. Ron Shelton, the director of the 1995 movie Cobb, starring Tommy Lee Jones in the title role, told me it was “well known” that Cobb had killed “as many as” three people. It is easy to understand why this is the prevailing view. People have been told that Cobb was a bad man over and over, all of their lives. The repetition felt like evidence. It started soon after Cobb’s death in 1961, with the publication of an article by a man named Al Stump, one of several articles and books he would write about Cobb. Among other things, Stump claimed that when children wrote to Cobb asking for an autographed picture, he steamed the stamps off the return envelopes and never wrote back. In another book—this one about Cobb’s contemporary Tris Speaker—baseball historian Timothy Gay wrote (implausibly, if you think about it) that Cobb would pistol-whip any black person he saw on the sidewalk. And then there were the stories about how Cobb sharpened his spikes: before every game, numerous sources claim, he would hone his cleats with a file. In the 1989 film Field of Dreams, Shoeless Joe Jackson says that Cobb wasn’t invited to the ghostly cornfield reunion of old-time ballplayers because “No one liked that son of a bitch.” The line always gets a knowing laugh. When I pitched my idea for a book on Cobb to Simon and Schuster, I was squarely in line with this way of thinking. I figured my task would be relatively easy. I would go back to the original source material—the newspaper accounts, documents, and letters that previous biographers had never really looked at. I would find fresh examples of Cobb being monstrous, blend them with the stories that Al Stump and others wrote, and come up with the first major Cobb book in more than 20 years. But when I started in on the nuts-and-bolts research with original sources—the kind of shoe-leather reporting I had learned working at Newsweek in its heyday—it didn’t even take me ten minutes to find something that brought me up short. Cobb being from Georgia—he grew up and is buried in Royston, a town in Georgia’s northern hills—I had begun by searching old issues of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. I quickly came across a curious article written in late 1911, after the baseball season had ended, when Cobb was touring in a three-act comedy called The College Widow. (In those days, ballplayers were tied to their teams by the reserve clause and couldn’t sell their services for their true market value; to make extra money, they often capitalized on their fame by appearing in plays or vaudeville.) The writer of the article was recounting a backstage visit with Cobb, and described him as a man who very much wanted to please the audience. Cobb was also going out of his way to accommodate the interviewer (who was asking tedious questions) while simultaneously being hospitable to a second guest—a catcher he had played with in the minor leagues—who showed up in the small dressing room smoking a cigar. It was like the crowded stateroom scene in the Marx Brothers’ A Night at the Opera, and meanwhile the play was in progress, Cobb was trying to make costume changes, and the stage manager was barking at Cobb to be on his mark in 30 seconds. Poster Comment: Great piece for baseball fans. Please go the link for the full story.
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#1. To: redleghunter (#0)
He may not have been as bad as he was rumored to be, but I don't think he was a very much liked player throughout the game. Almost no one showed up to his funeral when he died. I do think the line from the 1995 movie was pretty funny. A reporter is asking him how well he thinks he would hit against modern pitchers. He says he believes he would only hit about 0.240. The reporter says, "Really, you think modern pitchers are that good"? Cobb says, "no I think I am 72 years old, you dumb son of a bitch." Obama has played at being a president while enjoying the perks … golf, insanely expensive vacations at tax-payer expense. He has ignored the responsibilities of the job; no plans, no budgets, no alternatives … just finger pointing; making him a complete failure as a president
How can anyone really know the truth of this? Secondly, how many of his contemporaries were alive when he died? How badly was his reputation destroyed by the lies spread by a vindictive writer? We all know now the lengths reporters and writers will go to shape history and truth. The example is Ronald Reagan. The liberals now say they loved him. If you were there, you know it was not one bit true. Exercising rights is only radical to two people, Tyrants and Slaves. Which are YOU? Our ignorance has driven us into slavery and we do not recognize it.
That is pretty well documented. As for the all the other, Cobb was well known by his peers to be a violent nasty person and a person with a short fuse. I find no real historical references of his peers finding him "misunderstood" or "caring." In the end, we pretty much get the reputation we deserve. Obama has played at being a president while enjoying the perks … golf, insanely expensive vacations at tax-payer expense. He has ignored the responsibilities of the job; no plans, no budgets, no alternatives … just finger pointing; making him a complete failure as a president
Right on....SPOT ON! Ir is amazing how some folks can read an article and instantly decide what is right and what is wrong without ever having been there or learning the other side of the story.
I've been a fan of Cobb for many years. I think he was the best player of his day -- even better than Ruth or Wagner. I also believe he was a complete prick. Maybe he was accused of things he didn't do, but I see no reason to believe EVERYTHING about him was just made up. Obama has played at being a president while enjoying the perks … golf, insanely expensive vacations at tax-payer expense. He has ignored the responsibilities of the job; no plans, no budgets, no alternatives … just finger pointing; making him a complete failure as a president
You gotta remember that he played back in the day when baseball was more or less a contact sport. Baseball just recently changed the rules so the catcher can no longer block the plate and a runner cannot aggressively try and break up the double play at second.
#2. To: no gnu taxes (#1)
Almost no one showed up to his funeral when he died.
#3. To: jeremiad (#2)
Almost no one showed up to his funeral when he died.
#4. To: jeremiad (#2)
How can anyone really know the truth of this? Secondly...
#5. To: Gatlin (#4)
#6. To: no gnu taxes (#5)
I also believe he was a complete prick.
“Truth is treason in the empire of lies.” - Ron Paul
"America is at that awkward stage. It's too late to work within the system, but too early to shoot the bastards."
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