Cobb, Tyrus "Ty" Raymond 1886-1961

COBB, TYRUS "TY" RAYMOND 1886-1961

Master hitter and base runner

Champion and Psychotic

Tyrus "Ty" Raymond Cobb, "the Georgia Peach," was arguably the greatest and certainly one of the most controversial baseball players in the history of the game. His biographer, Al Stump, asserts that Cobb was probably psychotic throughout his adult life; he clearly exhibited psychotic behavior, for he played with a hostile aggressiveness that provoked fistfights with opposing players, fans, umpires, managers, and his team-mates. He was a brilliant hitter and base stealer.

Records

Cobb began his baseball career in the so-called "dead ball" era, a time when baseball was primarily a game of strategic hits, bunting, and base stealing. Cobb elevated these skills to a fine art, especially as a singles hitter. He gripped the bat with his hands wide apart in order to control placement of hits. During his twenty-four seasons he played in 3,033 games, in the course of which he had 11,429 at-bats and 4,191 base hits. His 3,052 singles and 5,863 total earned bases are records that still stand in the mid 1990s, Cobb amassed a career total of 118 home runs at a time when they were valued less than they later were to become. His runs batted in totaled 1,901, and his lifetime batting average of .367 remains the highest in baseball history. Only in his first season—when his average was .234—did he bat less than .300, and he hit .400 or better three times; from 1907 through 1915 he won nine consecutive batting championships. Cobb was an extraordinary base runner and base stealer. He led the American League in stolen bases six times and had a career total of 892 stolen bases, including a record 35 stolen home bases in regular-season play.

Early Career

Cobb's long baseball career represented a triumph of talent and will over self-created difficulties. The career started in 1904 when he was seventeen and playing for the Augusta, Georgia, Tourists, who cut him from the team before he was placed on the payroll. His first paying position was with the Anniston, Alabama, semiprofessional team; in 1905 he again played for the Augusta team but was so hated by manager Andy Roth that he was sold for $25 to the Charleston, South Carolina, Tourists, whose owners rescinded the deal the next day.

Major Leagues

Called up to the Major Leagues by the American League's Detroit Tigers in 1905, Cobb remained with the Tigers as an outfielder and, later, manager through 1927, spending his final 1928 season with the Philadelphia Athletics. Although he hated Cobb and had even campaigned to have him thrown out of the league, Athletics owner Connie Mack signed Cobb in 1928 for a salary of $70,000, 10 percent of the preseason gate receipts, and a $20,000 bonus if the Athletics won the pennant—which they did not—for a total of $85,000. According to Stump, "Since Babe Ruth did not enjoy a share in Yankee preseason income, that left Cobb still the highest-paid individual in the profession." He officially retired from baseball on 11 September 1928 in Yankee Stadium but made his final appearance in an exhibition game in Toronto on 14 September. In 1936 he was the first of the original five players elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame, along with Babe Ruth, Honus Wagner, Christy Mathewson, and Walter Johnson.

Personal Difficulties

Cobb's brilliant baseball accomplishments were marred by his personal difficulties on and off the field. From the very beginning his fierce competitive nature raised hostilities in his teammates, opposing players, team managers, team owners, fans, and himself. He was infamous for, in full view of opposing teams, sharpening his spikes so that they would shred the clothes and limbs of infielders who tried to prevent his base stealing. He received such rough treatment from teammates that on 17 July 1906 he was hospitalized for an emotional breakdown. From that point on he was forever at war with everyone else involved with baseball. In 1919 Cobb challenged American League umpire Billy Evans to slug it out after a game. When Evans asked how he wanted to fight, Cobb answered, "No rules—I fight to kill." Cobb particularly hated blacks whom he thought might have shown signs of disrespect toward him: he physically attacked a black waitress over a $1.50 bill; he slapped a black elevator operator at the Euclid Hotel in Cleveland, and then nearly murdered the black night watchman who came to the operator's defense. George Napoleon "Nap" Rucker, one of the few players who ever agreed to room with Cobb, once returned to their hotel room early to take a hot bath; discovering Rucker in the bathtub, Cobb screamed, choked his roommate, and tried to yank him from the tub: "I've got to be first at every-thing—all the time." This desire always to be first and its accompanying attack mentality contributed to much of Cobb's troubles with others.

Early Life

Cobb's psychotic character undoubtedly was influenced by the circumstances of his early life, particularly the manner of his father's death. Born in a three-room, pine-and-clay cabin in Royston, Georgia, Ty Cobb was the first child of W. H. Cobb, a locally prominent educator and later state politician, and Amanda Chitwood Cobb. When they married in 1883, W. H. Cobb was twenty-nine and Amanda Chitwood was twelve; she was fifteen when she gave birth to Ty Cobb. On 19 August 1905 eighteen-year-old Cobb was called up to the Detroit Tigers to replace an injured outfielder; the day before he left for Detroit, Cobb received news that his father had been shotgunned to death by his mother, who allegedly mistook his father for a burglar and blasted him at close range with both barrels. Cobb had revered his father; he was the one man—besides Jesus Christ—whom he loved, Cobb was later to say. Throughout his life Cobb wept when expressing his regret that his father never saw his Major League successes. The death of W. H. Cobb and the complicity of his mother in that death no doubt contributed to Cobb's pathological personality and his subsequent wars with teammates and others.

Emergence of Babe Ruth

The character of baseball changed with the arrival of Babe Ruth, who brought to the Major Leagues his extraordinary home-run hitting, dubbed the "long-ball" approach to the game. The fans who had appreciated the earlier, more strategy-driven approach to baseball now gave way to those who wanted the dramatic excitement of the homer. Cobb was extremely jealous of Ruth, claiming that anyone could hit home runs: "I knew Ruth couldn't hit with me—that is, real hitting—or even run bases with me—or [play] outfield with me." Cobb also used virulently racist language to goad Ruth into a fistfight, but several Tigers separated the two before any blows were struck. From that point on, Cobb incurred the Yankee star's contempt.

Wealth

Though hated by other players, managers, umpires, and baseball fans, Cobb nonetheless counted celebrities as friends, including President Warren G. Harding and his cronies, with whom he played poker in the White House; Jack Dempsey, the heavyweight champion; and a variety of national business and political leaders. Through these connections and through his hard-headed negotiations with team owners, Cobb was able to accumulate a fortune, estimated at $12 million when he died. After his first season with the Tigers, Cobb insisted on a raise, and in January 1906 he was offered and signed a contract for $1,500, $300 dollars more than he had asked for. In 1921 his salary was raised from $20,000 plus bonuses to $35,000 a year when he became the team's player-manager. During the 1920s most players earned $4,000 to $10,000 a season. Cobb regularly negotiated his own salary and with the help of a banker friend was also able to obtain longterm bonuses and acquire stock in the team. By 1924 his income from baseball was nearly $60,000, while his earnings from investments closely matched this sum. Early on he bought stock in Coca-Cola, Hupmobile, and General Motors, and the value of his Coca-Cola stock alone made him a wealthy man during the 1920s. Moreover, his political connections helped him evade scandals late in his career, especially one that suggested Cobb and Cleveland manager Tris Speaker had taken part in a gambling conspiracy by fixing a game between Detroit and Cleveland on 25 September 1919. In the wake of the Black Sox Scandal, important baseball figures and Cobb's political friends prevailed on Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis, newly appointed baseball commissioner, to acquit the two players of any wrongdoing.

Death

Cobb died of cancer on 17 July 1961 at age seventy-four. On 5 June he had signed himself into Emory University Hospital in Atlanta, undressed, and placed on his bedside table a brown paper bag filled with $1 million worth of securities and topped with a Luger pistol. Only three representatives from baseball came to his funeral—catchers Mickey Cochrane and Ray Schalk and his minor-league roommate, Nap Rucker. Even at his death, baseball officially shunned one of the most gifted and most difficult players in the game.

Sources:

Robert W. Creamer, Babe: The Legend Comes to Life (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1974);

Al Stump, Cobb: A Biography (Chapel Hill, N.C.: Algonquin Books, 1994).