Ty Cobb was born on this day in 1886.

Ten Notes On Ty Cobb

1. Two psychopaths were born on this day- Joseph Stalin and Ty Cobb. Not in the same year. Stalin was born 8 years earlier than Cobb. Of course I think Stalin was a true psychopath. Cobb had a lot of issues, was disliked by about everyone that knew him but you can’t really compare Cobb with a murderer of millions.

2. Ty Cobb hasn’t played baseball since 1927- 85 seasons ago yet some of his numbers are still unbroken. Ty Cobb has the greatest lifetime batting average of any player in the games history. He hit .367 for his career. He held the hits record at 4191 until it was broken by Pete Rose. He has the record for most steals of home, he stole home an incredible 54 times.  His on base percentage was .433.  He played most of his career in the dead ball era so he didn’t hit a lot of home runs only 117. He had 1938 career RBI’s. He is 4th all time in stolen bases with 892.  He is second in career runs scored with 2245. He won a record 12 American League Batting Titles, with an incredible 9 of those being in a row. He only hit under .320 in his career one time. His only season below .300 was as an 18 year old rookie when he only had 150 at bats. Cobb played most of his career with the Detroit Tigers- 1905-1926. He finished up with the Philadelphia Athletics 1927-28. He was a player-manager with the Tigers 1921-26.

3.  Ty Cobb loved and worshipped his father. His father was a state senator in Georgia. He suspected that his wife was having an affair when he was away. He caught her in the act. He was sneaking past the window and she thought he was an intruder and shot him dead. She was charged with murder but acquitted. Ty Cobb would make his major league debut just a few weeks later on August 30th,1905. He was the youngest player in the league at age 18. Ty always said he played at such an intense level, maybe intense isn’t a strong enough word- because his father had never gotten to see him play but he knew he was looking down on him and he was never going to let him down.

4. When Ty retired from baseball he was very rich. He had invested early in Coca-Cola and being a major stockholder made him very wealthy.

5. Pete Rose was a highly competitive and intense player, Cobb was a psychopath. He thought nothing of sliding hard into a base with his spikes up to hurt an opposing player. One of my favourite Cobb stories is how one day his roommate, a pitcher was knocked out of the game early and went back to the  room. Cobb gets there and his roommate who had arrived first was taking a bath. Cobb openned the door and grabbed the teammate pulling him out of the tub. Cobb said “I have to be first, don’t you understand I have to be first” His relationship with his family was also rather intense. He expected his children, especially the boys to be exceptional athletes. His children said he was very demanding but also capable of extreme warmth and kindness. His wife filed for divorce several times before finally ending the marriage after 39 years in 1947.

6. Cobb played in one of the great outfields of all times. Ty, Sam Crawford and Bobby Veach may have been the best ever. Bill James says it was the best ever. Ty and Sam Crawford had a complicated relationship. They played together from 1905 to 1917. There were years when they didn’t even speak to one another. When Cobb broke into the league Crawford was the veteran player and he took Cobb under his wing teaching him how to steal bases, how to pursue fly balls, how to throw out runners. After Cobb established himself the relationship turned sour. A great Sam Crawford story took place in 1950 when they were having celebrations around the American League that year for the 50th anniversary of the league. They had all the greats there in Detroit. When a sportswriter in charge of getting everyone together called Crawford his reply was “Is he going to be there?” They sportswriter and Wahoo Sam got to talking and the sportswriter said “Do you remember the year Cobb stole 96 bases” Crawford replied “130? “No, he stole 96, Sam” and Crawford replied “He stole 130 but there were 34 time he had a base stolen and at the last second I was able to get the bat on the ball to foul the pitch off”  Yet after Cobb died they found letters Cobb had written on behalf of Crawford lobbying influential baseball people that Crawford should be in the Hall of Fame. Crawford was inducted into the Hall a few years before Cobb’s death. He hadn’t known Cobb had helped him.

7. Two great reads on Ty Cobb are ” Ty Cobb” by Charles Alexander and “Cobb” by his biographer Al Stump. You would want to read that book by Stump not the one written during Ty’s lifetime with Stump titled “My Life In Baseball: The True Record”

8. Tommy Lee Jones was an outstanding Ty Cobb in the movie “Cobb” which came out in the mid-1990’s. Excellent baseball biography. The movie revolves around the Al Stump-Cobb book and looks back at Cobb’s life. Cobb was one of those old ballplayers who thought it was always better back in his day. As Wahoo Sam Crawford had been jealous of him, Ty was jealous of Babe Ruth when he came along and replaced Cobb as the greatest player. Cobb prefered the baseball he grew up on, didn’t like the home run. Great line in the movie where he is ripping Ruth and Stumpie says you are talking about Babe Ruth there has to be something good you can say about him  and Cobb replies “He ran well for a fat guy”

9. Ty Cobb was was diagnosed in December 1959 with prostate cancer, diabetes, high blood pressure and Bright’s disease. He died at the age of 74 in 1961. At his death he was worth over 11 million dollars which would be 91 million in today’s dollars.

10. Ty Cobb was considered by many who saw him and Ruth play- as the greatest player ever. In the first class of Hall of Famers in 1936 Cobb got more votes than Ruth. Cobb’s numbers are impressive. He is one of those players I wish I had seen play. Has to be ranked as one of the ten greatest players ever. Cobb has been dead for 51 years, I feel safe in saying-Ruth was better! A great Cobb line, late in his life someone asked him “If you were playing today what would you hit?” Cobb replied something like “.275” “What only .275?” to which Cobb replied “Well I am 70 years old”