War on the Basepaths Read online

  Between 1907 and 1915, Cobb set several modern-day, single-season stolen base records. His 96 thefts in 1915 was a lofty standard, and with “small ball” disappearing in the Lively Era, no one was sure if it would ever be challenged.1 In terms of competitive fire, Cobb was arguably peerless in history. A Boston advocate testified to that fact in one of Grantland Rice’s columns. He told a story of how Cobb was on the receiving end of a “verbal barrage of unusual venom” from fans during a local game. In response, a vengeful Cobb hit a single to right, but instead of slowing up at first, he continued for second. The befuddled fielder threw the ball away, followed by a second throwing error trying to get Cobb at third base. “Cobb never once hesitated,” the observer noted, “but rounded third for home at top speed.” He slid hard, knocking the ball free, then stood up and bowed to the crowd.2 He wanted to show up the local club in return for the abuse, and did so, mixing a colorful array of talent, daring, and showmanship.

  “Cobb was reckless, a wild man on the bases,” George Sisler later said. “He irritated the opposition, and that made them tense and more prone to make mistakes when he was running. He would do things you’d think were crazy, and, more often than not, he’d get away with them. Cobb was in a class by himself as a slider. He was a big man—at least 195 pounds—but could adjust his body and change direction at the last split second to avoid a tag. Many times I saw him slide past the bag and tag it from behind.”3

  Umpire Billy Evans was an exceptional baseball scholar and remarked that Cobb had “nine different slides and a thousand variations of each slide.”4 The maneuvers were perfectly timed, curtailed to the individual play, and Cobb’s great knowledge of rival infielders helped give him an added advantage. This skill wasn’t inborn. Cobb worked endlessly to sharpen his sliding abilities, exerting his body to the point in which his thighs were bloody from open wounds suffered in the gravely dirt.5 There were times he’d ignore the appearance of blood on his pants in the middle of a game, disregarding cuts he’d gotten going into a base, all because he was concentrating on the contest itself. Nothing else mattered, not even his health.

  Harry Tuthill, the Tigers club trainer, explained that Cobb suffered “sliders,” missing layers of skin large enough for a hand palm to fit inside. Relying on liniment, tape, and ice bags, Tuthill did his best to treat Cobb, and said others with similar injuries would’ve quit the game to rest, but not Ty. He “needed only to hear the sound of the starting bell the next day to forget all about himself and repeat his daily performances without a murmur of complaint.”6 Dr. Robert F. Hyland also cared for the injured Cobb, and said that the player’s body was “fairly covered with bruises and abrasions, from his skull down to his toes.”7

  These contusions were a badge of honor, in a way, demonstrating his true grit in the pursuit of baseball glory. While he never held the men on his team to the same standard, he wanted to impress on them the need for intelligence in running the bases. The game, he told them, was not only about long swings for the fence line. The diminished speed of Cobb, who turned thirty-six years old in December 1922, was acknowledged, but where he couldn’t be faulted was at the plate. He was still as sharp as a tack, batting .401 in 1922, tied for second in the majors with Rogers Hornsby.8 In September, he passed Nap Lajoie for second all-time in hits, and Honus Wagner, standing atop of the pack, was less than a full season from being surpassed if Cobb kept up his customary gait.9 Cobb’s stats and longevity threatened other longstanding baseball records as well.

  A sizable controversy arose following the 1922 season regarding Cobb’s batting average, and there was some dispute whether he truly batted over .400. The situation stemmed from a May 15 game on a rainy afternoon in New York, and a hit by Cobb that official scorer John Kieran recorded as an error on Yankees shortstop Everett Scott. Associated Press scorer Frederick Lieb differed from Kieran and awarded Cobb a hit. The American League utilized the AP account rather than Kieran’s, thus, boosting Cobb’s average over .400. However, there was protest from the Baseball Writers’ Association that the AP account was unofficial and should have been superseded by the official scorer’s tabulations. American League President Ban Johnson announced that the official sheet from the game was not signed and rendered “valueless” by errors. Because of those issues, the league deferred to the AP score instead, which he endorsed.

  Finishing the year in third place was a big boon for baseball in Detroit and for Cobb’s reputation. “Ty Cobb has shown that he is a real manager, a real leader,” Chicago writer Hugh Fullerton declared. “He has ideas which a lot of managers lack. [The Tigers] are antagonistic in temperament and style.” During the season, Cobb was completely lost in the moment of the daily grind, reacting positively and negatively to the happenings on the field. His emotions were overly sensitive to the smallest details of the game, and fits of anger could be touched off by trivial matters that only he recognized as important. Other times, he wasn’t able to control his elation. Harry Heilmann’s game-winning single in the 1921 season opener was a perfect example. Cobb rushed onto the diamond in a fury of happiness and celebrated with the hero on the way back to the dugout.10 In May 1922, Bobby Veach made a nearly impossible catch—perhaps the greatest of his career—and Cobb was so overjoyed by his feat that he jogged over and hugged him.11

  However, with Cobb, it always seemed as if an outburst was only a breath away. He was easily aggravated, and it didn’t matter if it was the opposition or his own team’s poor play which provoked him, the result was the same. Even if he consciously recognized that his verbal onslaughts were hurting the morale of his players, he often couldn’t stop himself from losing his cool. His loud voice and aggressiveness wasn’t interpreted as sound leadership, and certainly worked against the team. As could be imagined, the stronger personalities were most offended by his raucous demeanor, but patient players—those understanding of Cobb’s high-strung nature—allowed him to do his thing without any grudges, and benefitted from the wealth of his baseball wisdom.

  One aspect that bothered Cobb a great deal was any semblance of indifference from his men in the dugout. He wanted to look down the bench and see players rooting, yelling, and pulling for each other in a unified effort. The display of passion also helped to disrupt the mindset of opponents, which in the psychological game was essential. Versatile infielder Fred Haney, standing but 5’6”, was more animated than two or three of his contemporaries put together, and Cobb loved his intensity. First baseman Lu Blue was scrappy, clashing with rivals on the field on occasion, and Harry Heilmann did the same. He wanted his players to be as edgy as he was, running at full speed from base to base, sliding hard, and doing whatever was necessary to advance the cause of the club.12 He realized that a lineup of clones was impossible, but guys at least trying to fit the Cobb mold pleased the manager to no end.

  “I would rather have a team of ball players who possessed 50 per cent ability and 50 per cent fight than a whole flock who had 90 per cent ability and only 10 per cent fighting instincts,” Cobb explained in 1922.13 Additionally, he wanted his men more angry and aggressive than happy and passive. In the case of Bobby Veach, his easygoing attitude annoyed Cobb immensely and Ty worked to dismantle his usually sunny disposition in an effort to get better production from him. He ordered Heilmann to ride Veach from the batter’s box when the latter was at the plate, calling him “yellow” and other names all to get him mad.14 The scheme was unscrupulous, but indicative of Cobb’s yearning to have a team of warriors. The last thing he wanted to see was Veach at bat, smiling to the enemy, and being his naturally friendly self.

  Frustrations, as can be imagined, came easy to Cobb. During a game at Boston, he stepped up to the plate and gave a hit-and-run sign to Ira Flagstead at first. Flagstead didn’t acknowledge the signal and Cobb gave it two more times, hoping to convey the instruction. Finally, with no choice, he walked down the baseline and asked his player if he knew what to do. Flagstead said he didn’t, leaving Cobb confounded by their lack of congruit
y.15 “Some differences” between Cobb and third baseman Bobby Jones after a play were attributed to Jones being benched in the first game of a doubleheader with Cleveland on July 4, 1922, according to the Detroit Free Press, and one could only wonder what was said behind the scenes.16 Nine days later, Howard Ehmke was pitching far below his standard at Philadelphia, and Cobb decided not to yank him for a reliever. He wanted Ehmke to take his medicine, purposely leaving him in to get pounded for eight earned runs and 13 hits in a 9–4 defeat.17

  Veteran pitcher George “Hooks” Dauss got the same treatment. But sometimes Cobb couldn’t stand to leave his hurler in for a second longer. At Boston on July 18, 1922, Dauss gave up three runs and four hits in just over an inning’s work, and after being pulled, Cobb fined him $25 for his awful performance.18 Monetary punishments were promised by Cobb prior to the 1922 season, and he seemed to believe it was a just form of discipline. Yet it did nothing to endear him to his athletes.

  Moving players down from their regular spots in the daily lineup was considered a demotion in some regards, and Cobb used the move regularly to incite reaction and break slumps. And if that didn’t work, he’d bench the troubled player for a few days to give him time to clear his head. Cobb was a big believer in one-on-one training with players struggling at the plate, trying to meticulously dissect the batter’s flaws. He felt there was typically a mechanical explanation, and since he knew their techniques front and back, he could step in and correct whatever was wrong.19 This kind of specialized coaching and outside perspective were personally helpful to Cobb when he experienced slumps throughout his career, and for that reason, he was in favor of the system as manager.

  As much of an egotist people might have thought Cobb was, he wasn’t above removing himself from a game for a pinch hitter when a better opportunity arose to help the team. On May 5, 1922, he went 0-for-3 against lefty Bill Bayne of the St. Louis Browns and, essentially ineffective with a batting average of only .250, called for Bob Fothergill to replace him. Unfortunately, the best Fothergill could muster was a long fly out.20 Interestingly, the tactic was reflective of one of Cobb’s most noteworthy strategies. He was fanatical about using right-handed batters against left-handed pitchers, which was generally considered a more effective approach, and Fothergill, as a righty, had improved chances considering the odds. Cobb was absorbed by the odds, and the same methodology applied to his pitching staff. He wanted right-handed pitchers against right-handed batters and lefties versus lefties, utilizing the basic blueprint for baseball generalship.

  That was the central reason why he withheld naming his starting pitcher until the last possible minute.21 He didn’t want to give his rivals advance knowledge of whether he was sending in a righty or lefty, and allow them time to rearrange their batting order to gain an upper hand. Cobb was tricky, at times warming up a pitcher in front of the dugout, indicative of his starter, and then another underneath the grandstand, away from prying eyes, who’d ultimately head to the mound. On other occasions, he’d have a slew of pitchers warming up on the field, creating confusion for his opposition and sportswriters. He favored the heavy use of pinch hitters too, and it wasn’t uncommon for more than a dozen players to head into a Tigers game on any given day. Cobb’s Cleveland adversary Tris Speaker managed in a similar way and games between the two teams were always strategically executed.

  The condition of his pitchers was a considerable anxiety for Cobb. He put a lot of time into supervising their actions or inactions, and Howard Ehmke’s failure to meet expectations remained a thorn in his side. On October 30, 1922, Cobb decided to rid himself of the hassle once and for all. He organized a trade with the Boston Red Sox and sent Ehmke and three others (Carl Holling, Danny Clark, and Babe Herman), plus $25,000, for pitcher Rip Collins and infielder Del Pratt.22 Collins, a twenty-six-year-old right-hander from Texas, went 14–11 in 1922 and was considered a star in the making. His counterpart in the deal, Pratt, offered the kind of experience Cobb wanted at second base. In the majors since 1912, he had played for three American League clubs and was a dependable fielder with surprising consistency at the plate. Detroit was paying a sizable toll in the deal, but to strengthen the pitching rotation and infield appeared to be well worth the cost.

  Cobb’s desire for high-spirited personalities on his club was never more apparent than when he picked up Ray Francis from the Washington Senators in a trade for Chick Gagnon on November 24, 1922.23 Francis, an erratic left-hander, had demonstrated his inner-fight to Cobb a few months earlier when they clashed on the field after Ty had nearly been hit by a pitch. Sent to the dirt, Cobb jumped to his feet and approached the mound, but Francis didn’t flinch. They were separated before anything else transpired, and additional words were exchanged after the game. Cobb was impressed by the twenty-nine-year-old’s fortitude, and told a journalist, “That’s the spirit that makes winning pitchers. I could use that fellow on my club.”24

  The Tigers returned to Augusta for spring training in 1923, and Cobb again arranged for housing in private mansions instead of a downtown hotel. From the start, he was taxed by big responsibilities: surveying the recruits and assessing the health of his veterans. To deal with volume of athletes in camp, he split up the youngsters and old-timers, asking the rookies to report at 10:30 a.m. for batting practice and his mainstays an hour later.25 Filling the instrumental role of coach was former Pittsburgh and Cleveland catcher Fred Carisch, having replaced Dan Howley, and trainer Jimmy Duggan did the best he could mending sore limbs.26 On Cobb’s laundry list of areas to improve, base-running was pivotal, and many hours were consumed by drills. Working with young pitchers was critical as well, while also trying to solve the troublesome quandaries of underperformers like Bert Cole.

  On paper, Detroit looked like a pennant contender, and Cobb liked his chances a whole lot better with his rotation strengthened and Pratt sealing up the infield. He told a reporter in early March, “At this time I can see no reason why the Tigers shouldn’t finish right up near the top and if Rip Collins and Ray Francis live up to expectations a part of the World’s Series may be played at Navin Field next fall.”27 Further confidence was gained by the exciting play of twenty-one-year-old rookie outfielder Henry “Heinie” Manush. In 1922, Manush batted .376 for Omaha of the Western League and, along with Bob Fothergill, provided Detroit with excellent backup for Cobb, Harry Heilmann, and Bobby Veach. His arrival did away with the need for Ira Flagstead, and he was dealt away shortly after the season opened in April.

  Past ordeals were seemingly forgotten and another infamous Walter Hapgood tour was scheduled because of Cobb’s friendship with manager George Stallings of the Rochester Tribe. This time was no better, and the Detroit News described the conditions of the jaunt through Georgia and Alabama as “horrible.”28 On the lighter side of things, Cobb was given a huge reception from admirers—including hundreds of people from his hometown of Royston—during the exhibition opener at Athens, Georgia, on March 26. Royston’s mayor Linton Johnson declared a half-holiday for his town to allow citizens to make the 30-odd mile jump to Athens to see their hero play. The Tigers were still shaking off their winter rust and lost 5–3 in 10 innings, and Cobb went 1-for-5.29 In conjunction with an appearance in Griffin, Georgia, Cobb lectured intrigued students at a local high school, advocating clean living and sportsmanship in baseball.30

  While Cobb was working his team into championship condition, negativity surrounded them in the form of bad weather, injuries, and illnesses. Of the cast of pitchers, only three or four were deemed to be in form, and the others were questionable to say the least. Cobb was almost hospitalized after being struck by the follow through of Sylvester Johnson’s bat while hitting flies to the outfield in Augusta on April 4. Nailed above his right knee, he went down in a heap and turned pale with pain. Those on the field ran to his aid and immediately figured the worst. But Ty regained his composure and necessitated nothing more than a few bags of ice in the clubhouse.31

  Augustans highly anticipated a ma
tchup between Detroit and the St. Louis Cardinals on April 7, 1923, pitting Cobb against superstar Rogers Hornsby, and an estimated 5,000 packed Warren Park to see the thrilling battle. Hugh Kinchley of the Augusta Chronicle called the first six innings of the contest the “biggest kind of big league baseball,” and fans were enjoying a first-class effort. With two outs in the bottom of the sixth and no score, Cobb attempted to steal second and was called out by umpire Cy Pfirman. According to Kinchley, Cobb reacted by throwing dirt into the air, and a St. Louis player told the official what the manager had done. Pfirman then ejected Cobb from the game.32 Harry “Steamboat” Johnson, the home plate umpire, disagreed with that version. He wrote in his 1935 book, Standing the Gaff, that Cobb tossed the dirt into Pfirman’s face, not into the air.33 If true, Cobb’s actions certainly didn’t reflect the kind of good sportsmanship he preached in Griffin days earlier.

  Upon being ordered from the field, Cobb went out to centerfield, completely ignoring the ruling, and was ready to play the seventh inning. But Pfirman and Johnson stuck to their guns, gave him five minutes to retreat, and when he didn’t move a muscle in the direction of the clubhouse, they forfeited the game to St. Louis, 9–0. The result was unsatisfactory to the large throng, and patrons ran onto the field in disgust. In his summation of events, Kinchley, of course, favored Cobb, but had to acknowledge the manager’s stubbornness, which ultimately robbed the thousands in attendance of an entertaining finish to the game.34