Background

Ty Cobb, in full Tyrus Raymond Cobb, was born on December 18, 1886, in Narrows, Georgia, United States. He was the first-born of three children in a family of William Herschel Cobb, school principal, state senator and newspaper publisher, and Amanda Cobb.

Education

Ty Cobb was raised in Royston, Georgia, where he learned the value of hard work while helping his parents on a farm. Cobb's father, school principal and state senator, expected his son to choose a career of a doctor or lawyer but his impulsive and headstrong scion turned his attention to sport instead.

He began playing sandlot ball (playground baseball) as soon as he could swing a bat and quickly developed a passion for the game. Cobb honed his skills for hours with neighborhood boys, and his natural abilities were immediately revealed. As a teen, he shined in a local team, the Royston Reds but believed that he could certainly do more than competing as a hobby.

The first step to his ambitious goal was made in 1904 when he received an opportunity to play with the Augusta Tourists of the South Atlantic (Sally) League. Cobb managed to hit a single and double in four at-bats in his first game as a center fielder but was released within few days. Then, he joined the semiprofessional Anniston team, Alabama. He did well in the team this time, and the new management of the Tourists invited him to come back for the rest of the 1904 season. Cobb accepted the offer.

Upon his return to the squad, Cobb received the support of George Leidy who encouraged the young player and helped him to considerably improve his batting skills. The accidental death of Cobb's father in August 1905 shattered him but, on the other hand, gave him a great motivation to make his father be proud of his son, even in death, as of the best baseball player he could be.

Career

The start of Ty Cobb's career as of a professional baseball player can be counted from 1905 when he was admitted to the Detroit Tigers team. Cobb's quite controversial approach to play started to emerge from the very first year with the Tigers. He lashed hits, ran into foolish outs and interfered with his own fielders. Though, his behavior on the field added an element of excitement, missed for so long in baseball.

The years 1905 and 1906 when Try Cobb finally gained access to the big leagues were darkened by the accidental death of his father. The return to the Tigers in spring 1906 wasn't easier as the rookie ballplayer faced bias from many of his teammates. The situation was exacerbated by his hair-trigger temper and his ability to have a grudge. The personal dramas and team confrontations, however, did not prevent Cobb from demonstrating a remarkable performance in his first full season. He hit .320, fifth best in the American league, and stole 39 bases. The Tigers occupied the sixth place at the end of the season. Such a limited success would be improved a year later when the team led in the American League championship, the first of three in a row.

The period from 1910 to 1920 was the pinnacle of Cobb's athletic career. Some sportswriters and historians even dubbed the time as the "Cobbian" era. Indeed, The Georgia Peach would win the batting title every year except 1916, including a squeaker over Napoleon Lajoie in 1910 that is still disputed by some fans. In 1911 he hit .420, the second highest season average in modern baseball history. He led the league in stolen bases four times, including 1915 when he stole 96 bases, a record that was beaten only in the 1960s by Maury Wills.

Ty Cobb was as much popular off the field at the time trying his hand at the stage, both at the theatre and on the screen. A stage play, The College Widow, in which the athlete appeared in the winter of 1912, was followed by a part in the 1916 movie, Somewhere in Georgia. Besides, Cobb prudently invested the money earned from the Detroit Tigers in real estate ventures and in collaboration with such giant companies as General Motors and Coca-Cola. That increased his already not-so-small fortune even more.

The years of tough playing style led Cobb to the problems with legs and knees by the 1920s, though he still demonstrated good numbers, with an average of .334 in 1920. That same year, the baseball player succeeded the Detroit Tigers' manager Hughey Jennings on his post with a promised salary of $35,000 a year. The managing methods that Cobb applied weren't softer than the style of his playing. The team occupied the sixth place at the end of the first season under Cobb as a manager and raised to the third and second in the next two years respectively. By his last season in 1926, the Tigers were back in the sixth place. That year, Ty Cobb left the team as a player as well.

In 1927, Cobb reentered baseball and signed with the Philadelphia Athletics which proposed him a salary estimated at $70,000 a year. The comeback to the game paid off. In 134 games, Cobb batted a resounding .357, including 32 doubles and 5 home runs. He even managed to steal 22 bases. In 1928, his last year as a player, Cobb hit a respectable .323. He stole only 5 bases, but one was a steal of home, an exploit he had specialized in as a young player. The total success on a personal level didn't spread to the Athletics which didn't won the American League with Cobb in their squad.

Ty Cobb announced his retirement from sport for good in 1928. Rich enough by the end of his athletic career, Cobb rejected all propositions to become a ball club executive or acquire a club. Part of his money was spent on charitable causes, including the construction of the Cobb Memorial Hospital (currently the unit of the Ty Cobb Healthcare System) in Royston, Georgia, to honor his parents. The Cobb Educational Fund, aimed to financially support worthy Georgia students, was also established.

Achievements

• 

  Ty Cobb is one of the most eminent baseball players who ever lived. During the 24 years devoted to sport, he set about 90 major league records in virtually every area of the game, many of which remain unshattered as of today.
  
  In addition to being a holder of an unattainable lifetime average in the history of Major League Baseball, he was also number one among all-time runs scored leaders (surpassed by Rickey Henderson in 2001), one of the leaders in hits and triples, in stolen bases (surpassed by Lou Brock in 1979), and one of the top scorers in runs batted in, doubles, at-bats and games played.
  
  These incredible achievements, combined with the admiration from baseball lovers, led him not only to become the first player inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1936, but also to collect the unprecedented number of votes (222 out of a possible 226). The record stood until Tom Seaver shattered it in 1992. The name honored by the Detroit Tigers and the Major League Baseball All-Century Team, Cobb was voted third by the Sporting News in their 1999 list of "Baseball's 100 Greatest Players."

Works

More photos

• book

  • Busting 'em and Other Big League Stories

    (A wonderful batter and the greatest base runner that base...)

    1914
  • My Life in Baseball: The True Record

    (Cobb's autobiography co-written with writer Al Stump.)

    1961

Views

Playing in the so-called "dead ball" era, when emphasis was on base hits, sacrifice bunts, base running and stealing, Ty Cobb held his bat in an unusual manner, with his hands about six inches apart, and would slide one hand up or down for better control. His conception was the more chances he took, the more likely opponents were to be forced into making an error, and he usually had a point.

Cobb played with a fervor that has rarely been matched. His rough style on the bases led players, fans, and writers in opposing cities to call him a dirty player. Cobb felt no compunction about sliding into base with shoes spikes high, deliberately colliding with a defender to dislodge the baseball. In 1909, for example, Cobb's tough play led to a conflict with third baseman of the Philadelphia Athletics Frank Baker whose arm was hurt by Cobb's spikes. Later in the game, Cobb knocked over Athletics' second baseman Eddie Collins.

Quotations: "Baseball is a red-blooded sport for red-blooded man. It's no pink tea, and mollycoddles had better stay out. It's a struggle for supremacy, survival of the fittest."

"Baseball was one-hundred percent of my life."

"Rarely should a base runner risk a steal when the game is in balance. It's to be used when you can afford to fail."

"Every great batter works on the theory that the pitcher is more afraid of him than he is of the pitcher."

"I have observed that baseball is not unlike a war, and when you come right down to it, we batters are the heavy artillery."

"A ball bat is a wondrous weapon."

"The great American game should be an unrelenting war of nerves."

"I may have been fierce, but never low or underhand."

"I never could stand losing. Second place didn't interest me. I had a fire in my belly."

"Speed is a great asset; but it's greater when it's combined with quickness – and there's a big difference."

"The crowd makes the ballgame."

"I had to fight all my life to survive. They were all against me… but I beat them and left them in the ditch."

"I regret to this day that I never went to college. I feel I should have been a doctor."

Personality

Ty Cobb was named after the city of Tyre whose inhabitants stubbornly resisted to the besieging armies of Alexander the Great. It was the player's father who chose the name.

An extremely talented as a player, Cobb was also a person of an extremely difficult character. A part of his fierce competitive drive, which manifested through the perception of every game as a war, spread on his relations with his teammates, opponents, friends, and family.

Angry, abrasive, touchy, and usually staying away from the crowd, he was a frequent participant of sharp and ambiguous conflicts. At the time of racist age, Cobb tended to abuse African Americans, largely because of his scrappy temper rather than because of his convictions on them. The family relations of Cobb were also far from ideal. He was a strict, demanding, anger-prone husband and father.

Physical Characteristics: Ty Cobb was 1.85 meters tall and batted left-handed and threw right-handed. Closer to the end of his life, the baseball legend was diagnosed with diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure, degenerative kidney disease, and prostate cancer.

Quotes from others about the person

• Grantland Rice, sportswriter: "I recall when Cobb played a series with each leg a mass of raw flesh. He had a temperature of 103, and the doctors ordered him to bed for several days, but he got three hits, stole three bases, and won the game."
  
  Jimmy Cannon, sports journalist: "He was the strangest of all our national sports idols. But not even his disagreeable character could destroy the image of his greatness as a ballplayer. Ty Cobb was the best. That seemed to be all he wanted."
  
  Smoky Joe Wood, professional baseball player: "He was the best ballplayer I ever saw. I always said if there was a league higher than the Majors, Ty Cobb would be the only fellow in it. Just as you'd be thinking about doing something, Ty would be doing it. He was always one step ahead of you."
  
  George Sisler, professional baseball first baseman and player-manager: "The greatness of Ty Cobb was something that had to be seen, and to see him was to remember him forever."

Connections

Ty Cobb was married twice. Charlotte Marion Lombard, Augustan Roswell Lombard's daughter, became his first wife in August 1908. The family produced five children, Tyrus Raymond, Jr., Shirley Marion, Herschel Roswell, Beverly, and James Howell. Cobb and Lombard divorced in 1947.

Two years later, the baseball star formed a family with Frances Fairburn, from Buffalo, New York. They had no children and broke up in 1956.

Father:

William Herschel Cobb

(born February 23, 1868 – died August 8, 1905)

William Herschel Cobb was shot dead by accident with a handgun. His wife took the silhouette of William outside of her bedroom window (he expected to catch her cheating) for a thief and made a shot.

Mother:

Amanda Cobb

(née Chitwood; born January 15, 1871 – died October 13, 1939)

Amanda Chitwood married William Herschel Cobb when she was just twelve years old. She was charged with voluntary manslaughter of her husband but an all-male jury acquitted her. Her alleged infidelity was never proved, and she never remarried.

Brother:

John Paul Cobb, Sr

(born February 23, 1889 – died October 27, 1964)

Sister:

Florence Leslie Cobb

(born October 29, 1892 – died June 8, 1944)

ex-wife:

Charlotte Marion Cobb

(née Lombard; born about 1890 – died June 19, 1947)

ex-wife:

Frances Cobb

(née Fairburn; by first marriage Cass; born about 1909)

Son:

Tyrus Raymond Cobb, Jr.

(born January 30, 1910 – died September 9, 1952)

Tyrus Jr. died of a brain tumor.

Daughter:

Shirley Marion Cobb

(by marriage Beckworth; born June 1, 1911 – died January 19, 1991)

Son:

Herschel Roswell Cobb

(born September 29, 1917 – died April 13, 1951)

Daughter:

Beverly Cobb McLaren

(by marriage McLaren; September 19, 1919 – died February 16, 1998)

Son:

James Howell Cobb

(born July 24, 1921 – died November 4, 1996)

companion:

Al Stump

(born October 20, 1916 – died December 14, 1995)

One frequent companion of Ty Cobb at the end of the baseball star's life, author and sportswriter Al Stump helped him to write an autobiography My Life in Baseball: A True Record, issued posthumously. In addition to the volume, Stump produced a magazine article dedicated to Cobb and two more books, Cobb: The Life and Times of the Meanest Man Who Ever Played Baseball and Cobb: A Biography.

Friend:

William Taft

(born September 15, 1857 – died March 8, 1930)

Friend:

Woodrow Wilson

(born December 28, 1856 – died February 3, 1924)

Politician and academic, Woodrow Wilson was the 28th president of the United States from 1913 to 1921.

Friend:

Warren Harding

(born November 2, 1865 – died August 2, 1923)

Harding served as the 29th president of the United States from 1921 until his death in 1923.

References

• Ty Cobb, the Greatest A biography of the Detroit Tigers' star who is considered to be one of the greatest baseball players in history and who was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1936.
  1978
• Tyrus Patrick Creevy takes a unique literary look at the man dubbed "the Meanest Man in Baseball" as he left boyhood behind and began the baseball journey that made him a legend.
  2002
• The Story of Ty Cobb Originally published in 1948 in Sport magazine, the book describes the amazing career of the legendary player who set 90 major league records and whose lifetime batting average of .367 is the highest in baseball history.
  1948
• Ty Cobb This account of Cobb's life and career pictures the baseball player as an explosive personality, a shrewd realist, and a great base stealer.
  1975
• Ty Cobb: A Terrible Beauty A fascinating and authoritative biography of perhaps the most controversial player in baseball history.
  2015
• War on the Basepaths: The Definitive Biography of Ty Cobb Tim Hornbaker offers a fresh look of one of the greatest players ever to grace a baseball diamond. Based on detailed research and analysis, he offers the full story of Cobb's life and career, some of which has been lied about and mythologized for almost a century.
  2015
• Cobb: A Biography Based on Stump's interviews with Ty Cobb while ghostwriting the Hall-of-Famer's 1961 autobiography, this award-winning new account of Cobb's life and times reveals both the darkness and the brilliance of the "Georgia Peach."
  1994
• Official Website of Ty Cobb