War on the Basepaths Read online

  Daniel, notably, mentioned the fact that Cobb hadn’t penned his autobiography, and wrote that it was “to be deplored” that such a volume hadn’t yet been released. Ty, however, was inching toward the evitable at his own speed, and may have actually spoken to potential editors during his stay in New York. After being readmitted to Emory Hospital in Atlanta a few days later, he continued his treatment, but it became known that Cobb was negotiating with two publishing houses to finally create the authorized story of his life.22 A deal was reached with the largest operation in the business, Doubleday and Company, and the only major component left to decide was who would work as Cobb’s co-author (ghostwriter). The obvious answer was George “Stoney” McLinn, the newspaperman Cobb had worked with covering the World Series for syndicated news outlets decades earlier. It was reported that prior to his death, McLinn was working on a book of “baseball lore” with Cobb, slated for a 1954 release. However, nothing came of it, as McLinn passed away in 1953.23 Conversely, Shirley Cobb Beckworth, Ty’s daughter, said that her father wanted Gene Fowler to work with him on his autobiography. Fowler, the author of biographies on Jimmy Durante and John Barrymore, was also ill and was unable to help Cobb at the time.24

  The Sporting News, in June 1960, revealed Cobb’s collaborator to be Clem Boddington, an eminent sports cartoonist and magazine writer from New York City. The two were going to meet at Cobb’s Nevada home near Lake Tahoe and record stories on a tape recorder, then figure out what material was going into the book. Cobb envisioned the project featuring biographical information about his life, clarification on certain controversial moments, and instructional content for youngsters on how to play ball. Cobb was motivated to get started, telling Dick O’Connor, “It’s about time [I wrote my memoirs]. Everybody else has written stories about me.”25 For reasons unknown, Boddington’s tour of duty alongside Cobb was brief, and after several other interim writers, another magazine writer, Alvin J. “Al” Stump, a forty-three-year-old from Santa Barbara, California, took over.26

  Stump’s interest in Ty Cobb got off on the wrong foot very early in his writing career. In 1946, as a journalist for the Portland Oregonian, he inaccurately claimed that Joe Percival, a small-time manager in Sheffield, Alabama, in 1904, had been “Cobb’s first manager and the man who pointed his first steps along the diamond trail.”27 By 1960, Stump was a more polished writer, and had contributed innumerable articles in national periodicals. The task of transforming a wealth of memories and documentation into story form for baseball’s “Georgia Peach” was all his, and the two men got to work. It wasn’t long before Cobb’s irrationality, brought upon by his severe health problems, became an issue. Stump held firm, and refused to relent in spite of the enormous, multilayered job.28

  Aware of his duty as a man of the public and a baseball Hall of Famer, Cobb was respectful, dignified, and humble when in New York speaking to the press months earlier. These qualities were representative of his true self, and his professional attitude was admirable when his health condition was taken into consideration. Stump was afforded a lengthy glimpse into Cobb’s private life, and there he witnessed the other side of Cobb’s true self, a world in which things weren’t neatly packaged and righteous. It must be said that Cobb was a difficult man to begin with, but his progressive cancer and the tremendous pain he was suffering challenged him—and those around him—from morning to night, and made the simplest of things at times almost impossible to bear.

  To deal with his pain, Cobb binged on alcoholic concoctions, and his struggle with liquor had been a lingering problem for some years.29 The demands of writing his long awaited autobiography, his natural high tension personality, and the cancer eating away at his insides undoubtedly created a combustible perfect storm that few individuals could tolerate. But Cobb wasn’t the kind of man to throw in the towel, and once he set out to produce the final word on his life and career, he was thoroughly dedicated to finishing the job. Wild horses, or, in his case, a deadly disease, wasn’t going to be enough to drag him away from completion, and in Stump, Ty had put his absolute trust. He believed that the sportswriter would do his diligence to tell his story accurately, setting the record straight once and for all.

  Ty Cobb passed away at 1:18 p.m. on July 17, 1961, at Emory Hospital in Atlanta, and his physician, Dr. Wood, told the press that he died “peacefully and without pain.”30 A few days later, from Santa Barbara, Stump informed the Associated Press that Cobb, shortly before going into the hospital in early June, had indeed completed the principal work on his autobiography, an amazing triumph.31 To capitalize on the publicity surrounding his passing, Stump and Doubleday worked overtime to hurry the story through the editing process. Advance reading copies were mailed out to newspaper sports editors and book reviewers across the nation by September, and a little at a time, notices about the forthcoming release were printed. The interest was astonishing. Wally Provost in the Omaha World Herald wrote, “Five men in our newsroom already are on the waiting list for this Doubleday publication.”32

  The book, entitled Ty Cobb: My Life in Baseball, was 283 pages with a foreword by General Douglas MacArthur. It featured a range of stories and descriptions, including tales from his childhood, his tumultuous early days in the majors, and covered a scattering of important events from his career. In the publicity circulating around, Cobb was quoted as saying, “My critics have had their innings. I will have mine now.” And rectifying the misconceptions about his time in baseball was the crux of his autobiography; although, he asserted that it wasn’t an “alibi book.” George W. Clark of the Washington Evening Star stated, “Ty attempted to refute many of the anti-Cobb legends … [and] he made some good arguments in his favor.”33 L. H. Gregory of the Portland Oregonian called it the “finest baseball book ever written,” and stated, “while it confirms some impressions of Ty Cobb, it also gives you others you wouldn’t have dreamed of about him.”34

  Cobb’s collaborator had to be praised too, and Gregory noted, “Stump no doubt did organize, put the book together, and perhaps suggest topics, and did it all extremely well.”35 In the Springfield Republican, Donald Bagg wrote, “Mr. Stump rates a cheer for conveying so much of Cobb’s competitive spirit and will to win.”36 The compliments continued and Cobb’s legacy, particularly the voice he wanted to communicate to the world, seemed assured going into the future. But within a matter of months, his voice was going to be completely drowned out by an unexpected source in one of sporting history’s most noteworthy turnabouts. Stump, himself, had organized a separate work about Cobb on the sly, and proponents of the “Georgia Peach” were not prepared for the atom bomb that was about to explode in their collective faces.

  Unquestionably, the fascinating personal life of Cobb was of interest to readers and people wanted more insight into the man who set so many baseball records. But was the public clamoring for a firsthand chronicle of Cobb’s brutal last months, a detailed story about his struggle with terminal cancer, focusing on the ugliest and most embarrassing moments of his losing battle? Stump believed so, and his article, titled “Ty Cobb’s Wild, 10-Month Fight to Live,” was featured in the December 1961 edition of True—The Man’s Magazine. Apparently Stump felt it was appropriate to share his experiences during an extremely private time in Cobb’s life, even though his last months were not exactly necessary for public consumption. Instead of considering the personal feelings of Ty’s family and respecting the recently deceased, Stump went forward with the article, and to supporters of Cobb, it was in incredibly bad taste.

  Needless to say, there was plenty of material to exploit, and Stump was not holding anything back. He made cruel allegations and cited many examples of Cobb’s out-of-control and contemptible behavior. These ranged from recklessly firing a pistol to his quick tempered, hateful outbursts that were unacceptable in any civilized society. His actions were presumably spawned by his excessive alcohol and pill intake and by the effects of his aggressive cancer. Stump made startling generalizations, and found ways
to connect the downcast personality of Cobb in 1960 (once again, the man near death in his early seventies) to the baseball warrior of decades before. He used much of what he garnered to sweepingly paint the rest of Cobb’s life story, utilizing a creative mix of disputed theories, assumptions, and the use of nameless informants.

  Ironically, this wasn’t the first time Stump had created similar controversy. Seven years before, a flurry of backlash was ignited by his article on football star Hugh McElhenny, a graduate of the University of Washington and a member of the San Francisco 49ers, also featured in True magazine. Eugene H. Russell, sports editor of the Seattle Times, responded by saying that Stump “apparently doesn’t let facts interfere with his writing, as we know much of his McElhenny tale is pure fiction, derogatory of the university and of Hugh.” Additionally, he cited embellishments “with incidents critical of the university and derisive of McElhenny.” Russell then proceeded to pick apart a number of Stump’s inaccurate statements, offering a rebuttal in each case with confirmed facts.37

  Stump likely didn’t all-out fabricate his stories about Cobb, but that makes the public release of such information all the sadder. Cobb’s antics were genuine; at least the stories cannot be completely dispelled as inauthentic. The fact is that Cobb was severely troubled, mentally and physically, and in the kind of pain suffered by terminal cancer patients. Dr. Stewart Brown Jr., a close friend of Cobb’s, did what Russell of the Seattle Times did by taking portions of the Stump article, piece by piece, and offering a rejoinder. His response was printed in full in The Sporting News on January 3, 1962. Brown explained that he met Stump in December 1960 and thought he “seemed like a top-notch type man.” Yet after reading Stump’s article on Cobb, Brown had to ask, “What is the make-up of a man who would write such an article? Principle and honor have been sacrificed.” He added that “Surely [Stump] knew that Cobb’s entire body was riddled with cancer and that certainly he could not be responsible for any of his acts or deeds. Surely one would not judge a person by his acts when in such a state of both physical and mental collapse.”38

  “If Stump had truly known the physical make-up of this man,” Brown continued, “he would have realized that in Cobb was a heart that wouldn’t give up—that refused to remain dormant. He had to be active even though his multiple diseases were making him lose his finer grades of discrimination, memory, concentration, insight, equilibrium and such.” Brown was adamant that Stump didn’t know the real Ty Cobb.39 Jack McDonald, a sportswriter in San Francisco and another longtime friend of Cobb, agreed wholeheartedly. He also said he spent time with Cobb during his final year and stated that he “witnessed no wild temper tantrums and there was no eccentric, bizarre behavior such as described in the magazine piece.” He addressed Stump’s claim that Ty was cheap, insisting that although he wasn’t “the last of the big spenders,” he could “cite examples of his generous moments.”40

  Brown and McDonald were in concert with the belief that Stump overlooked the “tender and human” side of Cobb and didn’t offer a balanced portrayal of their friend. This was the same complaint Cobb had for decades. Time and again, he lambasted writers with an agenda, asking one sportswriter in 1960, “Why is it that everybody has to have an angle? Just say it the way it happened. I played baseball for a long time and I gave it everything I had … everything.”41

  With regard to the unfair reporting, he told ex-boxer James J. Corbett in 1918, “Jesse James and Captain Kidd didn’t have much on me in fierceness—if you’ll take the word of some folks for it. Sometimes when I’d read articles written about me by some of the newspaper boys, I’d actually get afraid of myself—that’s the kind of desperado they pictured me.”42

  How would Cobb have felt had he read the Stump article? He wanted his book to set the record straight, but now, as Francis Stann of the Washington Evening Star put it, Stump’s article “perhaps [would] be better remembered than the biography itself.”43 That essentially meant that a ten-page article, harping on the author’s days with a medicated, drunk, dying Ty Cobb was more important than a lifetime of memories offered by Cobb himself—the book he believed people wanted to read—his true memoirs. That was the story that needed to be featured in a 1994 biopic? That was truly, of all the possible narratives, the best, most interesting representation of Cobb? Sensationalism sells. And in the case of Cobb, it did in the 1910s, the 1960s, the 1990s, and everywhere in between. As a result, people are still greatly misinformed about Cobb today, and the exaggerated stories continue to perpetuate.

  A major part of Cobb’s contemporary image is the supposition that he was racially prejudiced. As a Southern man from Georgia, he definitely acknowledged the color line and had certain expectations and boundaries, both on the baseball field and off during his playing days. But to casually define him “racist” is far too simplistic, and like everything else about him, certain events in his life have to be thoroughly explained in context. One thing can be said for sure, no one can honestly say what beliefs were in his heart one way or another. The facts can be studied, but the absolute truth will never be known.

  Whether Ty Cobb was the most talented ballplayer in history is something to be argued. He can be endlessly compared to the superstars of baseball history and his numbers will be admired for the rest of time. But his statistics don’t tell the whole story. Cobb was more than the myths and the tales passed down through the years by colorful sportswriters. To really know Cobb, the man, people have to look past the fiction and the work of Hollywood and entertain the idea that he was much more complicated and complex than ever realized before. The exploitative version of his life story did sell books and newspapers, but it left the Cobb legacy with decades of regurgitated yarns. These twisted truths and innuendos have just about crippled the memory of Cobb in the modern era.

  Cobb, in 1909, discussed the claims that he was deliberately spiking basemen with a St. Louis writer. He told his side of the story, denying that he was purposefully cutting down rivals, and pleaded for a sense of fairness. “I don’t mind the bleachers roasting me,” he said, “but put me right, will you?”44 The St. Louis journalist likely did what he could, but over one hundred years have passed with many of the old-time allegations still intact. With this volume, readers can absorb the full account of Cobb’s life and make a more informed decision on their own about Cobb’s standing as of 2015. It is hoped that this definitive story will show his competitive fire and highlight his natural yearning to not only win, but to be the best. He was in a war each and every time he stepped onto the field, and regardless of what any defender said, the basepaths were his and his alone.

  1

  “DON’T COME HOME A FAILURE”

  As the American Civil War entered its second year in April 1862, thirty-year-old John Franklin Cobb was facing a life-altering set of circumstances. He was days away from being wed to his sweetheart, Sarah Ann Waldroup, and within a few weeks, would be enlisted in the Confederate Army. The call to duty was an honor, but since the future of a raw private in combat was anything but guaranteed, he looked forward to cementing his bonds to Sarah while he still had the chance. On May 4, the couple exchanged their vows, and by June 20 he was in uniform, fully committed to serving the war effort.1 Although he lived in Georgia, Cobb joined Company C, 39th Infantry Regiment in his native North Carolina. 2 However, for reasons unknown, Cobb’s obligations to the military lasted only fifty-six days, and he returned to Sarah, who was now pregnant with their first child.

  Prior to getting married, John Cobb had resided in the Ivy Log area of Union County, Georgia, in the homestead created by his parents, William and Charlotte. But after the 1861 death of his mother, and his father’s hasty second marriage in 1862, John had a hankering to plant roots near his birthplace in the far westernmost region of North Carolina.3 The area of Notla Township in Cherokee County was about ten miles north and it offered a beautiful landscape up against the Blue Ridge Mountains.4 That’s where the newlyweds settled, and on February 23, 1863, Sarah de
livered a baby boy named William Herschel. Over the next seventeen years, five other children were born to the Cobbs, including daughters Mary Jane and Nora, and sons John, Schuyler, and James.

  As the sole provider, John labored long hours on the family farm and was well known in the community for his wisdom and fairness. For that reason, he often was called upon by neighbors to mediate quarrels. People respected and trusted his word as final.5 Cobb stressed hard work to his children, but he wanted them to get an education before anything else in life. He sent William Herschel to Hayesville in adjoining Clay County to learn from Professor John O. Hicks at the renowned Hicksville Academy.6 An astute student, William gravitated to scholarship from a young age, thriving in mathematics, history, and language. Through his studies, he gained a wealth of confidence and became an exceptional speaker and debater.

  In 1880, seventeen-year-old William was engaged as a farm employee in Notla, but he had far greater aspirations.7 According to one source, William initially traveled to Georgia to work as a book agent. 8 Within the next couple years, he sought labor and teaching opportunities, and received advice from family still living in Ivy Log. He was spirited and outgoing, and was willing to relocate for better job prospects. Around 60 miles to the southeast of Ivy Log, he met Caleb C. Chitwood, an influential landowner in the Columbia District of Banks County. Like Cobb’s father, Chitwood was a veteran, but the latter was active in the conflict for a sustained period of time and highly distinguished as a captain. In fact, he was briefly held as a prisoner of war after the Battle of Vicksburg in Mississippi, in July 1863.9 Also, similar to Cobb’s father, he was a prominent member of the community and took a liking to William almost immediately.