A man of determination, strength, and willingness to overcome the odds, Ty Cobb had one goal in life: to be, at all cost, the best baseball player possible. Ty Cobb was born on a farm in 1886 and named Tyrus after the ancient city Tyre, which stubbornly refused to surrender to Alexander the Great. His mother, Amanda, was just fifteen when her son was born; she had been twelve when she was married. His father, William H. Cobb, a former county schoolmaster who had made good as the mayor of Royston, Ga, and editor of it’s weekly newspaper, was determined that his son would too-in medicine, law, or the military.
William Cobb was distant and demanding- “ the only man who ever made me do his bidding ” said Ty. On the baseball field he won the distinction denied him in the classroom. Becoming the star player for the Royston Rompers at fourteen, equally good in the infield and the outfield or at bat. But his father was unimpressed. “Baseball was a boy’s game, a waste of his time ”he wrote his son, to “conquer your anger and wild passions and be guided by the better angel of your nature, not the demon that lurks in all human blood and is ready, anxious, and restless to arise and reign.
At seventeen, Ty rebelled. I was being held in some sort of bondage” he remembered. “So I decided I would become a ballplayer and get away. ” When he left home for the minors in Alabama and Tennessee his Father told him “not to come home a failure. ” That admonition, Cobb recalled, “put more determination in me than my father ever knew. My overwhelming need was to prove myself as a man”(Ward 83). Ty arrived in Detroit on August 29, 1905 after a three-day train ride from Georgia.
He made his debut against New York Highlander (later the Yankees) ace pitcher jack Chesboro. Immediately Cobb drew attention to himself as a precocious rookie by winging three bats in the on-deck circle. The reaction to him doing so indicates that he may have been one of the first players to ever swing multiple bats in the on-deck circle. He showed determination and character in his first major league at bat, driving a two- strike pitch from the fourty game winner into the outfield for a double. The rest of his rookie season did not go as smoothly for Cobb, however.
The very next day he slid head first into second base, only to have Kid Elberfeld, the Highlander second baseman, dig his knee into the back of Cobb’s neck, grinding his face in the dirt. That as the last time Cobb slid head first into a base. Cobb had consistency problems with his glove, which plagued him for his first few months with the Tigers. On some days he was brilliant in the field, and on others it seemed like he was playing with a bag of popcorn in his hand. Overall, Cobb’s first season in the majors, short as it was, showed enough promise for the Tigers to sign him to a lucrative $1500. 0 contract for the His 1905 experience taught Cobb that he was going to have to work extremely hard to be as good in the majors as he wanted to be.
Part of his plan was to gain weight, which e did in the off-season, as well as grow a few inches taller (although that was beyond his control). Despite his intense desire to be the best, he still had difficulty hitting left- handed pitchers in 1906. Despite that failing (which he would later overcome), he earned himself a starting position in 1906 simply because he was hitting right-handers so well. Once in that starting batting order, he figured out how to hit left-handed pitchers.
He stood at the back of the batter’s box, instead of the middle, where he stood for right- handed pitchers. He also closed his stance and shortened his swing, which allowed him ore bat control. Cobb finally had learned to hit all of the American League pitchers well enough to capture his first batting title in 1907, the youngest ever to do so, two months after his twenty-first birthday. Cobb improved his fielding steadily throughout his career, especially after his first two seasons. In 1907, he played very shallow in right field and collected thirty outfield assists, his career high.
Not only did he throw out runners at second, third and home, but he also managed to throw out a few runners who failed to hustle to first on balls hit to the outfield. He would also charge ground balls hit to the outfield to get more power behind his throws. Cobb would also position himself so that he was running forward when he caught fly balls, for a stronger throw. Cobb had essentially mastered the outfield, but in 1913, due to a knee injury that had kept him out of action for a few weeks, he talked Hughie Jennings into letting him play second base, just to get into the lineup.
That was the only trial for him at second base, as he made three errors in five chances, and proved to one writer that he was “the worst second baseman living or dead. ” One of his most devastating approaches to baseball and perhaps the one that left the most lasting impression was his psychological intimidation. One part of that particular program was to nurture the monster image of himself that both he and the media were creating. The more horrible that opponents thought that he was, the more that he could expect to manipulate them to his advantage.
For example, it was a good thing that opposing fielders thought that he sharpened his spikes. It seems that in 1908 at Highland Park in New York, a couple of Detroit benchwarmers sat outside their dugout sharpening their spikes. Eventually, the story became that Cobb would sit “with mouth twisted and eyes ablaze” filing his spikes in front of the dugout. Cobb waited until after his playing his playing days to publicly refute those allegations, since they undoubtedly gave him some advantage over the years (Ty Cobb home page).
I find little comfort in the popular picture of Cobb as a spike-slashing demon of the diamond with a wide streak of cruelty in his nature. The fights and feuds I was in have been steadily started to putme in the wrong…My critics have had their innings. I will have mine now. – Ty Cobb (Stump, inside cover) Cobb always liked to think that he had the advantage in every situation. When he was in doubt, he would remedy the situation. Since he came to the majors in an era when the pitchers dominated, he swung three bats in the on-deck circle, showing the other team his strength and baseball ability.
He was able to hit the way he did be working himself into a hateful frenzy before each at bat. He would bend over to pick up a handful of dirt when the pitcher was beginning his delivery, frazzling the pitcher. One time, with Eddie Cicotte pitching, he kept his back turned and talked to Sam Crawford, waiting in the on- eck circle. Cicotte could not throw a strike, and Cobb walked on four pitches (Ty Cobb home page). “Baseball is something like a war…Baseball is a red-blooded sport for red – blooded men. It’s not pink tea, and mollycoddles had better stay out of it.
It’s…a struggle for supremacy, a survival of the fittest. – Ty Cobb (Ward, 82) Cobb was diagnosed in the fall of 1959 with cancer, diabetes, high blood pressure, an enlarged prostate, and Bright’s disease, which is a degenerative kidney disorder. He returned to his Lake Tahoe lodge with painkillers and bourbon to try to ease his pain, which was constant. He did not trust his initial diagnosis, however, so he went to Georgia to seek advice from doctors he knew, and they found his prostate to be cancerous.
They removed it at Emory hospital, but that did little to help Cobb. From this point until the end of his life, Cobb basically criss-crossed the country, going from his lodge in Tahoe to the hospital in Georgia. He checked into the Emory hospital for the last time in June, 1961, bringing with him a million or so dollars in securities and his Luger pistol. This time his first wife, Charlie and his son, Jimmy and other family members came to be with him for his final days. His final day came a month later, July 17, 1961.
His funeral was perhaps the saddest event connected with Cobb. From all of baseball, the sport that he had dominated for over 20 years, only three old players and Sid Keener from the Hall of Fame came. He had outlived many of his contemporaries, but had alienated most of the others, so a lot of them were glad that he was finally dead (Ty Cobb The honorable and honest Cobb blood … never will be subjected, it bows to no wrong nor to any man … the Cobbs have their ideals and God help anyone who strives to bend a Cobb away from such.
Ty Cobb (Ward, 82) Even though Ty Cobb was less than socialable polite, considered brutally malicient, he was one of the greatest base ball players in history (World Book, 593). Called the Georgia Peach he played 24seasons in the American League, twenty-two for Detroit and two for the Philadelphia Athletics. He had a lifetime batting average of . 367 and stole 892 bases (Hanks, 110). Cobb was an excellent strategist and a brilliant utfielder. He managed the Tigers from 1921 to 1926. Cobb was one of the first players elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1936 (World Book, 593).
