Who Was Ty Cobb: The History We Know That's Wrong

imprimis.hillsdale.edu ^ | March 2016 | Charles Leehrsen

[Texas Eagle]

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.

[buffaloguy]

I used Cobb’s split grip and found it superior to the normal grip. You can easily direct the head of the bat into the ball. The difference was startling as I could hit nearly any ball that was close to the plate. Try it, you’ll like it.

[backwoods-engineer]

Great article. I get Imprimis at home, and read this article as soon as it came. Thanks for posting it for wider audience.

[kiryandil]

Thanks for posting this!

Isaw a copy of Impris laying around at my buddie's house, and noted this story on the cover.

I was going to look it up, then forgot.

Thanks again! :)

[kiryandil]

Thanks for posting this!

I saw a copy of Imprimis laying around at my buddie's house, and noted this story on the cover.

I was going to look it up, then forgot.

Thanks again! :)

[driftless2]

, a manager named Casey Stengel was on the show

You're giving away your age. Stengel is one of the most famous managers in baseball history and had one of the most recognizable faces in the country. Virtually every male in the country knew who he was. He was also know for his entertaining style of giving interviews using what became know as "Stengalese."

[kvanbrunt2]

i will do that. i loved ty cobb as my favorite baseball player. i read a biography somewhere in grade school or high school that probably predates these characterizations. my dad would comment against my fondness for him and i never knew why. (we had fights about FDR as well)
But this is hard for me to believe coming from a journalist:

What I didn’t understand before was the power of repetition to bend the truth.
that is about all we have now.

[NTHockey]

Elaborate please. Mr. Ott was such a pleasant man that Leo Durocher aimed his famous line at him: “Nice guys finish last”.

Now if we’re talking nasty, look up Eddie Stanky.

[Slyfox]

Stump sounds a lot like Roger Stone.

[kvanbrunt2]

I used Cobb’s split grip and found it superior to the normal grip. You can easily direct the head of the bat into the ball. The difference was startling as I could hit nearly any ball that was close to the plate. Try it, you’ll like it.>>> i tried it too after reading a biography that made ty cobb my greatest baseball hero. I just wasn’t that good at baseball.

[bboop]

Glad to see this posted. I thought it was a very good article, even tho I don’t know anything about baseball or Ty Cobb.

[spel_grammer_an_punct_polise]

I may have the wrong person in mind. Supposedly and if I remember correctly, Mel Ott was supposed to be a bad-butt off the field. He reportedly had fights in bars, etc., even suffering a stab wound. He had the scar to prove it.....unless I have that information mixed up with someone else.

[Slyfox]

The same thing happened to Queen Mary I of England. After she died, her sister Elizabeth was peeved at the fact that the people liked Mary better than her. So, her administration, led by William Cecil, hired a fellow to write a history about the days of Mary.

Within the last few decades, historians have went back to the state records and other original sources and have found that much of what the supposed historian wrote during the days of Elizabeth was wrong. He would mash up accounts, he would interject his own opinion, he would misrepresent the words of those he interviewed. This was realized when the state records were compared to his written account.

Added to the book that was written, it was illegal to write or speak favorably of the previous queen, even though the numbers of people who were killed under Mary was about one twentieth the number Elizabeth had killed.

Yes, someone got the wrong moniker.

[VanShuyten]

Thanks for posting this. It’s a great read, and I will foreword this to all my baseball friends, and a few friends that don’t even like baseball.

[riverdawg]

Ty Cobb was also a shrewd investor who made a fortune after he retired from baseball, and donated much of it to help build a small but state-of-the-art hospital in his hometown of Royston, GA.

[Texas Eagle]

I wonder if that made Mr. Stump's book or Mr. Burns's "documentary".

Thanks for sharing.

[jch10]

Thank you for posting this. I was a very ignorant baseball fan.

[Verginius Rufus]

If you don’t know who Casey Stengel was, you can look it up.

[SunkenCiv]

Note: this topic was posted 4/26/2016 by Texas Eagle

"Ty Cobb’s Character: What We Know That’s Wrong” - Charles Leerhsen [YouTube version]