Posted on 04/26/2016 6:47:57 PM PDT by 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.
(Excerpt) Read more at imprimis.hillsdale.edu ...
I e-mailed this article to three people I know who are baseball historians, and they loved the article. One is in radio broadcasting, and he made it a part of his show.
Outstanding.
Bookmark
Mel Ott was another with a bad reputation.
Back in the 50s, maybe early 60s, a manager named Casey Stengel was on the show “You Bet Your Life” with Groucho Marx. They naturally began to talk baseball. Groucho asked him who he thought was the best player of all time. Stengel replied, “Ty Cobb, no one else was even close”.
Groucho agreed with him then asked how he thought Cobb would do against modern pitching. Casey replied, “oh around 270” to which Marx said, “that is not all that great.
Casey then delivered the punch line. “Well you have to remember that Cobb is in his 70s.”
I got my imprimus. Good research by the author and great story.
I’m reading the book right now . . . very enlightening. If you want to know something of the Tiger’s history - this is the book for you.
Most Americans dont know who Ty Cobb was . . .and of those who do, most don’t know or give a Flying F about his racial views
He is simply one of the Greatest of All Time. But he’s a white guy so let’s smear him whilst overlooking the transgressions of say, MLK
A good read
Great story. For once Groucho played the straight man.
Thanks.
From all of the tales I've heard about Cobb, it seemed that such a "racist" talking about black players being in MLB in flattering terms seemed so out of character.
I guess the truth comes out eventually.
And I didn't know that the "sweet, poor little handicapped man" who kept taunting him, and Cobb beat up was anything but "sweet".
That story gets repeated so often I really though Cobb was some kind of monster.
I believed everything, right down to the sharpened spikes. And the black groundskeeper who dared to speak with him.
Glad to hear there truly is another side to all of the stories.
Looks like Al Stump is a real piece of work.
No wonder Cobb was so furious with that guy's "biography" of him.
SMEAR a dead man is the procedure.
I always knew slimebag Al Stump was full of it.
Cobb was suing to stop distribution of the book when he died.
It's guaranteed that you are absolutely right......Luke 8:17 For nothing is secret, that shall not be made manifest; neither any thing hid, that shall not be known and come abroad.
Al Stump also was a thief and a con artist who would buy objects at flea markets and then resell them as supposed Cobb artifacts. It upsets me to no end when the MLB Network broadcasts the Cobb movie, a despicable hatchet job.
Zing!
I hope you read the article because they got the racist part wrong, too - maybe that is why he was targeted back in those apartheid days when he spoke in favor of integrating baseball.
Looks like the real a__hole was Al Stump.
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