100 Years of Ty Cobb Today

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Posted By: Seth B.

Good article on Ty Cobb at mlb.com. I hope this isn't off topic; I think it's fairly interesting. He debuted 100 years ago this very tuesday. The Detroit Free Press lamented, "If he gets away with a .275 [average] he will be satisfying everybody."

Wish I had a cobb card to add to the post!

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Posted By: Robert

I put this up this morning and nobody even responded

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Posted By: Seth B.

oops, should have just scrolled down! sorry for the duplicate posting...

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Posted By: joe maples

I also posted something a couple days ago under Ty Cobb Anniversary, check it out, 1st payment to Cobb for $7.00 in expense ledger.

Joe

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Posted By: cmoking

No doubt he was one of the greatest players ever in the game. And he had a colorful and nasty personality, so that made him even more interesting as a player. However, is he well liked? He was such a mean and crude person, at least by many accounts I've read. I can admire his great baseball feats and talent, his feisty nature on the field. But at the same time, I find it hard to be excited about any of his cards, because of the person he was. Does it bother anyone else that his card is a key card in many vintage sets?

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Posted By: Scott Elkins

Fact - we all know what Cobb accomplished on the field!

HOWEVER, none of us knew him personally. So, HOW can any of us judge his character?????? Sure, the liberal media has blasted Cobb. We should all know by now that the media is NEVER 100% correct about anything!

Put yourself in Cobb's shoes - What would you be like if your mother killed your father? Then, you went to the big city to play a game you LOVE where all the Northerners made fun of you b/c you were from GA. How would you react?????

Sure, we all hear the sad stories about Jackie Robinson being verbally abused b/c he was black. However, the liberal media would never tell you all the stories about the verbal abuse Cobb had to endure b/c he was from the South!

Lastly, Cobb will always be the greatest to ever play the game! How many people can play that many seasons and not even strike out 400 times?????? Cobb's greatness is why his cards are usually the most valuable in the sets he is in!

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Posted By: joe maples

A lot of Cobb's bad publicity came from Al Stumps' book, Cobb, written when Cobb was a very ill man. The book was basically Cobbs life in his last 10 months when he was dying of cancer. He also donated $100,000.00 to build the Ty Cobb healthcare sytem which was the start of the hospital in 1949. Donations of that size are appreciated today, that size in 1949 is gigantic. He is and always will be the greatest player in baseball history.

Joe

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Posted By: ErikV

Four days after Ty Cobb made his Major League debut, Cobb's teammate made his first big league appearance. He's seen in the lower left corner of this picture dated 1905. (Cobb is top row on the right).



Answer: Infamous Black Sox pitcher, Ed Cicotte

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Posted By: cmoking

Scott & Joe,
I'm not familiar with the "other side of the story". I haven't read anything that contradicts the negative accoutns I've read. Is there a good source I can turn to to see your point of view? I'd like to keep an open mind, so I'd like to investigate what you guys said. A book, website, etc would be very useful.

As for his play on the field - you guys don't need to say anything about that. Clearly he's one of the greatest players ever. There's no argument about that.

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Posted By: dennis

http://www.freep.com/sports/tigers/cobb23e_20050823.htm> http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/encyclopedia/t/ty/ty_cobb.htm

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Posted By: Anonymous

As Mr. Cobb stands and stares at us in Evik Vs photo above, his left "throwing" hand is in a fielding glove??? I don't think the image is reversed, the guy with the long jacket in the middle of the top row, he has a pocket correctly positioned over the left breast...

So what's the deal with the glove on the wrong hand?

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Posted By: Andy Baran

Ty Cobb batted left handed, but he threw right handed. The glove is on the correct hand.

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Posted By: Bryan

Ty Cobb beating a black security personnel at a hotel in Ohio because he wouldn't let Ty use the elavator after hours. He had to travel to the 1909 World Series in Pittsburg via Canada to avoid an arrest warrant in Ohio.

And there are countless other incidents where Cobb beat other people for no good reason. It was too bad that his father was killed allegedly by his mother but that isn't the incident that set Ty off. He was a jerk long before that. Although I will say that moving to Detroit immediately after his father was killed to a team that absolutely hated him sure didn't help him be a better person.

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Posted By: Mike W

I'm glad you sited some instances of Cobb's crazy antics, Bryan. Although it was common back then, he was a racist- and an all around jerk… and his mom killing his dad when he was younger doesn’t justify his behavior (just explains it). But these accounts about Cobb’s personality are part of what attracts people to him. People are always intrigued by eccentric personalities... especially when it is supplemented by greatness. Mozart, Beethoven, Jim Morrison, artists Van Gogh & Jackson Pollach, and yes, Ty Cobb.

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Posted By: joe maples

cmoking, some info I posted came from the Daily Press & Argus dated August 30, 2005, a michigan paper printed and distributed about 20 miles northwest of Ann Arbor.
Also a book written by Dan Holmes, Cobb, Baseballs Greatest Hitter who runs the Baseball hall of Fame Website. The book came out last year.

Ernie Harwell long time loved announcer is also quoted " But he was a very warm, very hospitable. I sat in the living room with him and we talked for about 15 minutes on the air. He filled the whole program, then we sat around and talked a lot more". This was in 1949 when Harwell was just starting his carer in Atlanta. Ernie's bosses said he is not going to talk to a kid like you, who's just starting out. Also, more info at The Ty Cobb Museum in Royston Georgia, Julie Ridgeway is the curator. I'm sure there are some unflattering stories of many baseball stars and non stars ffom the past, it's just easier to keep harping on Cobb.

Joe

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Posted By: jay behrens

Scott, can you spare use the "liberal media" rant. Save that label for the politcal boards.

Jay

My place is full of valuable, worthless junk.

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Posted By: Scott Elkins

The statement was appropriate to this thread, b/c we were discussing Ty Cobb and how he is portrayed today. And, who does this portrayal - mostly the "LIBERAL" media.

Also, I belong to a Ty Cobb newsgroup. They do a great job reporting the truth about Cobb, usually rebutting a "LIBERAL" media story view of Cobb with true facts that members research.

Added to state for Jay's sake that I will quit calling the media "liberal", when Jay quits whinning about petty things!

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Posted By: jay behrens

Well, crying about the liberal media makes you sound like one of those idiotic Dittoheads, and I know you are much smarter than that. I'd go off on my own rant about you are wrong about the media being liberal, but this board is not the place. Suffice it to say, your point would have been made without having to throw in a politcal term. I doubt James Carvil (sp) and others of the "liberal" media really don't give a rats arse about Cobb and his legacy.

Jay

My place is full of valuable, worthless junk.

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Posted By: cmoking

Thanks Joe, I'll look up that book you mentioned and try to hunt down the Daily Press & Argus article.

Scott, is there a web-link to the Ty Cobb newsgroup you mentioned? Is it available for lurkers (like me)?

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Posted By: Scott Elkins

as soon as I receive another e-mail. I don't have it on hand - I apologize. It is a very interesting group (run by Ron Cobb). I was asked to join a couple years back b/c of my e-mail address (tycobb@optidynamic.com).

And one last thing - Jay, I am not as smart as you think I am!

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Posted By: Max Weder

Here's the link to the yahoo group

http://sports.groups.yahoo.com/group/Ty_Cobb/

Max

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Posted By: cmoking

going through the link that Max provided, I came upon this article:

http://baseballguru.com/bburgess/analysisbburgess02.html

I'm going to read more, as much as time permits. But I'm glad I brought up my question because otherwise I would not have bothered to investigate further. There is more to this story than I knew.

Thanks guys.

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Posted By: Lyle

and a fascinating study of human nature . To combine his unrivaled competitiveness in his baseball exploits , his often untold generosity toward his baseball colleagues, yet his rage directed toward others is a portrait of our own contradictory nature . Thankfully , we often suppress the extreme aspects of this nature . Cobb never did .
I collect almost exclusively vintage Cobb cards because he was one of the most brutally honest athletes ever and there is no one , and I mean , no one I would rather have on my team if I absolutely had to win a baseball game .

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Posted By: Daniel Bretta

I would recommend to anyone interested in Cobb to read his autobiography "My life in baseball: The true record". While he may gloss over the nasty things that he did, he does explain why he reacted the way he did in many instances. Matty McIntyre was a key instigator in the hazing that Cobb received as a rookie. Most players would have taken the hazing in good nature, but Cobb reacted violently to it which only made his instigators continue with the hazing. I really believe that this shaped his career more than anything. The racism may be a little overblown. It is clear that he felt whites were superior to blacks (he did afterall grow up in the Jim Crow South), but he was very kind to a young black child that had taken residence in Briggs field and he took him home with him for the winter, and he also was fond of a black woman that helped raise him. I'm not saying that Cobb was an angel, but his reputation is certainly overblown. There is no proof that Cobb sharpened his spikes. That was a rumor started by if I remember correctly a Philidelphia journalist after Cobb slid hard into Frank Baker. Cobbs charity went unnoticed and he often did it anonomysly. He even helped out one of his tormenters, Ed Killian when Killian was out of baseball and broke.