Interesting article claims Ty Cobb not racist / dirty / murderer

[cfhofer]

I always felt the Al Stump biography on Cobb was largely fictional. Just look at all the handwritten letters he sent to fans asking for autographs later in life (which this article eludes to). I've seen dozen of these letters and all have been cordial and polite.

Thanks for posting. I now have a new book to read...

[packs]

He was by no means a racist, not even in his own time. Ty Cobb set up the Ty Cobb Scholarship fund, which has always funded largely African American students from rural Georgia. It continues to fund education for kids today. Not only that, but when Cobb bought up huge plots of land in Georgia he did it with the express purpose of renting out cheap housing, again for mostly minority citizens. Here is his quote about Jackie Robinson in 1952: “The negro has the right to compete in sports and who’s to say they have not?”

[bravos4evr]

I think it's been pretty well established that Al Stump used Cobb as a launching pad for his literary career and pretty much made up 99% of the more lurid tales.

[CMIZ5290]

Originally Posted by packs

He was by no means a racist, not even in his own time. Ty Cobb set up the Ty Cobb Scholarship fund, which has always funded largely African American students from rural Georgia. It continues to fund education for kids today. Not only that, but when Cobb bought up huge plots of land in Georgia he did it with the express purpose of renting out cheap housing, again for mostly minority citizens. Here is his quote about Jackie Robinson in 1952: “The negro has the right to compete in sports and who’s to say they have not?”

+1, and Mark is right as well. Al Stump was a vampire, he even had Cobb sign tons of balls for him as they worked together. Cobb was very generous and gave a lot of money to numerous charities. He was extremely aggressive when it came to baseball, and a lot of his baseball stories are true. He would fight anybody at the blink of the eye, but he did have a lot of good qualities that were not reflected in Stump's book or the 1994 movie...

[bravos4evr]

Originally Posted by CMIZ5290

+1, and Mark is right as well. Al Stump was a vampire, he even had Cobb sign tons of balls for him as they worked together. Cobb was very generous and gave a lot of money to numerous charities. He was extremely aggressive when it came to baseball, and a lot of his baseball stories are true. He would fight anybody at the blink of the eye, but he did have a lot of good qualities that were not reflected in Stump's book or the 1994 movie...

They only hinted at this, but it turns out the Cobb was supporting 5 or 6 other HOF players who had fallen on hard times, all without using this for personal gain via the press.

Stump's book was a tabloid quality hack job.

[timzcardz]

That is a great read. Thanks.

[byrone]

Nice to see the truth. Beats lies any time.

Hopefully Cobb can be rightfully represented as he should be going forward.

Flawed. Not perfect. Like the rest of us.

Not a monster.

[mouschi]

Since posting on other sites, several other people have brought up lots of information stating that the guy who did his bio was apparently a hack. Such a shame to have someone's name ruined because of someone else for all these years. I know I thought of him poorly all this time.