Posted on 12/13/2018 7:14:50 AM PST by SeekAndFind
He was the first inductee into the Major League Baseball Hall of Fame and the sport's first national icon. Over 92 years after his retirement from the game, he still holds records for highest career batting average (.367), most career batting titles (12), and highest combined total of runs scored and runs batted in (4,065).
When searching through the MLB record books, his name cannot be missed, as he is credited with setting over 90 throughout his career. He is undoubtedly one of the most accomplished and electrifying athletes ever to live. His name is Ty Cobb, and despite his hard work, winner mentality, and legendary achievements on the field, he is remembered as being an anti-social racist, bigot, dirty player, and downright awful human being.
Every student of the game knows the old stories. Ty Cobb once stabbed a black waiter to death just because of his skin color and got away with it. Ty Cobb would get drunk after ballgames, take to the streets, and pistol-whip every black person he came across. Ty Cobb intentionally ended the careers of other players, spiking them hard in the legs, often leaving them with lower leg injuries they could not come back from. In fact, Ty Cobb would sharpen his spikes before games for the sole purpose of harming opposing infielders. In short, Ty Cobb was mean-spirited, hated humanity, and had no friends by his side.
As a lifelong baseball fan, I believed these stories, as they seemed to be the general consensus in every book on baseball history that I read. The media also sold this narrative. In the famous movie Field of Dreams, Shoeless Joe Jackson states that Ty Cobb was not invited to play in the reunion game because "no one liked the son of a b----."
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
Appears he isn’t. Not too likable. Some people also. Some folks are so focused on winning they block out humanity.
Cobb’s reputation is fake news, in other words.
Admittedly I had never heard most of these false allegations, but the “sharpened spikes” one I certainly had.
From the article: “...shocking stories spiraled out of control, as repetition started to pass for evidence...”
Gee, that sounds familiar for some reason.
Sorry, I meant to post to SeekAndFind, not that it really matters.
So basically, this Al stump character slandered and libeled Ty Cobb, and it got accepted as fact, since Cobb died and couldn’t defend himself.
I have and to tell the truth, I believed them. There was never any evidence not to believe them. Well, I'm certainly glad to have read this articl........Once again, I learn something new.
btt
That’s about it.
This has the potential to twist a lot of knickers on FR.
Cobb knew his days were numbered, was both wealthy (mostly from investing in Coca-Cola stock) and famous. Leerhsen (if it was him) wanted to sell Cobb on getting out an authorized biography, which wasn't easy. Lots of people wanted to make money off Cobb and he wasn't one to trust people easily. Eventually, the writer earns Cobb's trust after a number of sharp confrontations.
Everyone has a human side and Cobb's comes out in the movie. He did admit to killing a guy who tried to rob him walking home from Tiger Stadium early one evening in 1913 or 1914. Cobb left a statement with the local police station and the incident was recorded as a case of justified self-defense. The perp had a knife and Cobb ended up using it on him, nothing more.
Almost everyone sharpened their spikes in those days. It was considered partly routine maintenance; partly to intimidate opposing infielders. In the era, HoF member Nap Lajoie, was as famous for doing it as Cobb. But Lajoie cultivated the press while Cobb shunned them, so the stories grew and got exaggereated over the years.
Remember also that in 1959-61, the civil rights movement was in its infancy and far from the mainstream. So while Cobb bantied about the n***** word as much as any other Georgian did in that era, he was far from the bigot protrayed. In fact, before he sets up his trust to build a major hospital addition for his hometown of Royston, Georgia, he makes sure that they agree to treat n***** patients with the same care they will treat whites. That's hardly a mark of a bigot, particularly given the time and place.
Starting with the fact that he was a son of a southern gentleman who started his national fame as an 18 year old, it is easy to see why Ty did not fit into the normal mode. He hit national prominence in the year his mother killed his father in an incident that never made much sense. While plainly short tempered in an era of brawlers, Ty Cobb was hardly the character that he was painted. This is one of the two biographies of the last five years that was issued and has seemed to balance the record. There is a new book out referring to his alleged racist leanings in its title and as the word had no meaning in that era, I am dismissing it for now.
The way Cobb approached the game (in his mind) says something. It is something like a war.
He paid for a hospital to be built in his home town. Not the actions of a psychopath.
Cobb was from the mountains of NE GA where slavery was almost nonexistent and union sentiment was very strong.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.