Ty Cobb and the hobby

[Casey2296]

Originally Posted by Touch'EmAll

Love the picture Kawika posted of Cobb & Matty!

The foremost reason why he has his top tier place in the hobby is because on the field he was truly great. Best of his era and then some.

I've posted about this before, always amazing when I think about it, but Ruth defeated Walter Johnson 5 out of 6 of their head-to-head matchups.

Interesting stats from Fenway101 regarding Johnson pitching/Ruth batting.

Let’s take a look. In 107 at bats, Babe hit .280 with 8 doubles, 2 triples and 7 home runs. He walked 19 times giving Babe an on base percentage of .389, and Ole Walter punched him out 25 times. Not bad, but let’s take a closer look. Babe hit .342 lifetime but Johnson held him 62 points under his lifetime mark. In his career, his home run to at bat ratio was 1 homer in every 11.76 at bats; against Johnson he hit a homer in every 15.29 at bats. Babe whiffed 1 in every 6.43 at bats but when he faced the Big Train, he went down swinging once every 4.28 at bats. Babe’s numbers against Johnson were pretty damn good however, in essence, the Big Train reduced the Sultan of Swat to a mere mortal.

However, there is a flip side. Throughout Johnson’s career, opponents hit .222 against him. He surrendered a total of, ready for this, 97 home runs. THAT’S IT!! That translates to a home run every 227.2 batters! The on base percentage of opposing batters throughout Johnson’s career was .281. So, if you consider that Babe took him deep once every 15.29 at bats and hit him at a .280 clip and got on base 39% of the time then one could conclude that Babe reduced the great Big Train Walter Johnson to a mere mortal as well.