Ty Cobb: A Controversial Legacy

Ty Cobb going home. This picture is a great testament to his style of play.

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     Tyrus Raymond Cobb was born December 18, 1886 in the small town of Narrows, Georgia. His father, William Herschel, made up the name after reading a book about Alexander the Great's conquest of the city of Tyre, which put up a stubborn resistance to Alexander and fighting to the last man. Little did he know how much that name coincided with Cobb's nature.

        His dad wasn't a big fan of baseball. He wanted Ty to be a learned man and take into the medical field or a government job. But Ty loved the game as long as he could remember. Ty's father couldn't stand it. He didn't want his son to be the rag-tag, sex machine that a lot of ballplayers of the day were, but Cobb was in love. He loved playing the game, he loved to run hard, hit everywhere, and use his mind as well as his physicality to win. Cobb hated losing, and played harder than anyone one:

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

         Cobb started playing professional baseball with a local amateur team, the Royston Reds, in his mid-teen years. By 1904, at 18 years of age, he tried out for a minor league team, the Augusta Tourists. He was cut, and then played a few months for another minor league affiliate before making the Tourists' roster and being sold to the Detroit Tigers in 1905.

          Around this time is where Cobb seriously changes, and the aggressive, nasty Cobb most people know turns into the aggressive, nasty Cobb. The year he cracks the Tigers' roster in 1906, his dad is shot dead: by Cobb's mom. There was a bit of mistrust between the two and W.H. Cobb snuck around his wife's room to spy on what she was doing every night. Cobb's mom, Amanda, apparently thought a thief or burglar was in the house, pulled out the shotgun, and knocked William Herschel Cobb down. These were some of the hardest months Cobb had to go through. The closest person to him, his dad, shot dead by his mom. His dad, months before said to Cobb over a phone call, "Don't come home a failure", and now that he was gone, he couldn't prove it to his beloved father. Cobb says his influence to play like he played was owed a lot to that incident:


                                               "I did it for my father, who was an exalted man. They killed him when he was still young. They blew his head off the same week I became a major-leaguer. He never got to see me play. Not one game, not an inning. But I knew he was watching me...and I never let him down. Never." -Ty Cobb (http://wso.williams.edu/~jkossuth/cobb/dad.htm)


          And with that, the legend of Cobb was born. The hardened, quick-witted, speed demon of the deadball era was born. He filed his spikes in the dugout; he cursed and shouted at his teammates, he fought with his teammates to the point where he slept with a loaded pistol under his pillow. He hated northerners, had a lot of off field incidents, etc. etc. But before that, it was said he was the most innocent, calm person you'd meet. Of course this was all before he became the legend Cobb, but here goes the story of the rookie they called Tyrus Cobb:

                          (paraphrased) When Ty came to spring training, March 9, 1906, in Georgia, he wasn't out for trouble. But if he had seen what the season had in store for him, he'd have made a beeline back to Royston. His father's death left the family in some serious financial problems. At the age of 18, all family responsibilities fell right on him. He had to crack the Tiger's starting lineup and start getting money to the family back home, all while dealing with the death of his closest friend, his favorite person in the world, his dad. His mother was in real trouble of losing the family property. All through 1906, Cobb was hammered with all kinds of traumatic and brain rattling events. The anti-Cobb group on the Tigers took rookie hazing to the extreme. They thought that their "pranks" were harmless fun. But they knew nothing of Ty's family problems, the situations of his father's death, and of his hardened resolve to fight anyone of them at every point along the line. His nemeses thought he'd give in, accept their ignorant behavior with the usual force laugh it off that other rookies did when picked on. Man they got it wrong. The leaders of the little clique included Matty McIntyre, Ed Siever, and all time triples leader, Sam Crawford and a few other teammates.

It started with soggy newspapers thrown at him, then destroying his hats. They even sawed Cobb's home made ash-bats in half. He had spent a lot of time perfecting those bats and felt so bad about it. But when he rebelled, that started fights. The group got the catcher, Charlie Schmidt to fight Ty. Schmidt had a rep as the toughest guy in the league. He fought with Jack Johnson, who later was the world's heavy-weight champion. Ty went to Augusta, GA, for spring training, on March 9, 1906 and left Friday afternoon, March 30 to get to his mother's trial. The next afternoon, his mother was found not guilty of manslaughter. Ty was with his mom for a few days and then got back to the Tigers in Birmingham a week later. He then got tonsillitis, and had his tonsils taken, without anesthetic, by a physician who was placed in an asylum the next year. Few rookies went through what Cobb did in 1906. The constant quarreling among Cobb, Crawford, Siever and McIntyre went on. Ty finally started carrying a pistol, fearing further abuse and beatings. Suddenly, he left from the team. Not even his teammates knew where he was. He was in a sanitarium in suburban Detroit. He had suffered a nervous breakdown. (http://baseballguru.com/bburgess/analysisbburgess04.html)

       To read about Cobb being such an innocent, abused teen as a rookie, just makes me want to reach out to him. Reading that piece really makes you feel bad for the guy you thought was a regular bitch. No wonder he hated northerners, his teammates, etc. His life made him like that. It's sad to have the truth brought out from underneath the legend and myth after such a long time that everyone has already given Cobb a negative association. But a couple of sources and myself are trying to get a bit more of Cobb's good side out there. The man was a lonely wreck after baseball. He hated retirement, he drank a lot, he had no one to live for, nothing to live for, and died with only 3 ex-ballplayers to attend his funeral. (<a href="http://sports.jrank.org/pages/932/Cobb-Ty.html">Ty Cobb Biography - Chronology, Awards And Accomplishments, Cobb, Selected Writings By Cobb:, Career Statistics, Further Information</a> (the link was for the funeral fact) )

        I hope I've educated people about Ty Cobb, for that was what the piece was about. I hope I have changed thoughts, feelings and denotations of Cobb with this article. Now, I close out the article with another touching article, one to amaze you for sure, something you've probably never heard of. R.I.P. Tyrus Raymond Cobb:

            "SASKATOON — The old man and the Doukhobor teenager from Saskatoon sprawled out in a California mansion one winter day in 1953. Theirs was an unlikely friendship, carved from long-distance correspondence and a mutual love of dusty baseball diamonds.........Young Koozma Tarasoff cast his eyes on the spike-wound stitching that ran from foot to kneecap. Cobb was 67. He'd carried those scars, permanent reminders of a violent career in baseball, for decades.

        It was Tarasoff's first and only up-close look at Cobb's history-book legs — the thoroughbred engines that powered a tempestuous roll through baseball's record books.......Young Koozma Tarasoff cast his eyes on the spike-wound stitching that ran from foot to kneecap. Cobb was 67. He'd carried those scars, permanent reminders of a violent career in baseball, for decades........There was no evil afoot during the two days Tarasoff spent at Cobb's home; no oppressive and demented displays from a man widely known as a hate-filled, bitter, tormented soul. Cobb treated his pal to generous helpings of ice cream. He took him to a smorgasbord restaurant. He potty-trained his dog, Cobb, setting the example by peeing into a bush outside his mansion, the dog following obediently.

      This firestorm of a man placed young Tarasoff under his protective embrace during a friendship that lasted nearly three years. "It was a real opportunity," said Tarasoff. "It was a great learning experience and I learned a lot from the attitude of Ty Cobb."........

      "You should make a good ballplayer," Cobb scrawled during one five-page letter, full of hitting tips and advice on psychological preparation. "You have the right spirit and interest." Tarasoff's baseball career never panned out. The correspondence slowed, then stopped. But during those wonder years, Cobb flashed a kind, helpful, selfless version of a guy many people believed was beyond redemption. The two met at a baseball camp in the Ozarks during the summer of 1952. Cobb was there briefly as a guest instructor;...... Cobb saw something in Tarasoff right away. He liked his place-hitting, sliding, and spirit. He picked Tarasoff out of the crowd of boys, and forged a friendship........Cobb dished out advice, provided conditioning tips, and penned detailed instructions — complete with hand-drawn diagrams — on how to make protective "sliding pads" out of sheep skin and sateen. Tarasoff was overwhelmed...........

    Some people speculate that Cobb was psychotic; Cobb himself once said, "Sure, I fought. I had to fight all my life to survive. They were all against me and tried every dirty trick to cut me down. But I beat the bastards and left them in the ditch." That Cobb collides head-on with the Cobb who built a hospital in his hometown of Royston, Georgia, who quietly sent checks to old baseballers going through hard times, and who established a foundation that continues to put impoverished youths through college." 

  "I had a very positive experience with him," Tarasoff said. "Sure I've heard he had a bad, Irish temper. But, that didn't matter at all, he was a good human being and I think his actions show things."    (http://www.spirit-wrestlers.com/excerpts/2004_Ty_Cobb.html#top) 

Cobb later goes on to offer the kid a pro tryout with the Pirates in which Koozma Tarasoff faced a minor league team featuring Ted Williams and Satchel Paige. Tarasoff didn't do well, but he gives a lot of respect and sincerity towards Cobb. After the tryout, they wrote back a few more times and then never saw each other again.  

       I'd like to give credit to these sources:

     1.<a href="http://sports.jrank.org/pages/932/Cobb-Ty.html">Ty Cobb Biography - Chronology, Awards And Accomplishments, Cobb, Selected Writings By Cobb:, Career Statistics, Further Information</a> 

      2.http://wso.williams.edu/~jkossuth/cobb/death.htm

      3.http://www.spirit-wrestlers.com/excerpts/2004_Ty_Cobb.html#top 

      4.http://baseballguru.com/bburgess/analysisbburgess04.html