War on the Basepaths Read online

  Tris Speaker and Connie Mack coached their players not to irritate Cobb during a ballgame, convinced that Ty’s skills were wholly improved when he was heated. In fact, Tris wanted to keep the Detroit outfielder laughing, and plied him with humor in an attempt to throw him off his game.9 Seeing that Cobb was accused of having very little or no sense of humor, it probably took some work on Speaker’s part. But nevertheless, the understanding of Ty’s basic psychological programming was studied by the intellects of the game, just as Cobb did to his opponents. Knowing how to avoid getting under the Georgian’s skin was precious information.

  The old-time dime novelists would’ve been proud how baseball writers romanticized the notion of “Cobb the Terrible,” a spike-wielding demon of the diamond. Stories about his so-called flying-steel added much to his long-term reputation, and most of it was critical. The central argument involved the claim that he purposefully slid into bases with his spikes pointed upwards at opponents with the intent of hurting them. In 1915, Frank P. Sibley of the Boston Daily Globe disagreed that his actions were deliberate, but stated, “It is part of his creed, apparently, that if he is entitled to the baseline, he will take no precautions to save the man in his way.”10 That meant the defender was supposed to respect the runner’s rights and protect his own well-being at the same time because Cobb surely wasn’t going to do it.

  “Ty Cobb is not such a villainous villain as he is painted,” infielder Bobby Wallace explained. “The base runner has the right of way and Cobb only demands that his rights be respected. If you get in the baseline you are in danger of being cut down for Cobb comes in determined to make the bag. If the baseman takes his proper position, Cobb will never cut him.”11 Jimmy Dykes added, “You know, I played a lot of games against Ty and I was never cut once. As for the charges that he deliberately spiked his opponents, its hogwash.”12 Moreover, two men who feuded with Cobb, teammates Sam Crawford and Davy Jones, also denied the charges in a report to the UPI (United Press International) in 1962. Their statement read: “Cobb never spiked anyone deliberately in his life. He did only what was expected of him as a player and when he was running the bases, he rightly felt the path belonged to him.”13

  “I would not willingly harm any player except in retaliation or to protect myself,” Cobb once said, and all of the rampant accusations grated on his conscience.14 It got to the stage that he began doing research and maintaining a special log listing the American League players who had spiked more individuals than he had. In 1911, there were ten players who’d committed the act more than him, he revealed to columnist Bozeman Bulger.15 Notably, the most famous spiking incident of Cobb’s life, the Frank “Home Run” Baker episode in 1909, was routinely brought up by history buffs whenever the opportunity presented itself. For Baker, though, it was water under the bridge. He said, in 1955, that the entire affair “received far too much publicity.” Additionally, he not only rated Cobb the greatest player of all-time, but stated that Ty was one of his “best friends in the baseball world.”16

  All of the rotten tales about Cobb went a step further by insisting that he sharpened his spikes to achieve better results in slashing rivals on the basepaths. Davy Jones again stepped up to defend Cobb despite their turbulent history. “Cobb never filed his spikes,” he said. “Poor Ty, because of his aggressiveness, always got the blame for anything that looked like rough play.” Jones told a story from around the time of the Baker incident, revealing that Tigers’ players did use files on their spikes in an effort to frighten their rival Athletics. He said that Cobb wasn’t willing to join them, “but because he was sitting on the bench and because everybody seemed anxious to pin something on him, he was made the brunt of the charge of spike-filing.”17

  Surprisingly, Cobb came clean in 1952. He admitted in Life magazine that there were two instances in his career that he actually did try spiking someone, and Harry Bemis and Dutch Leonard were the intended victims. He said that he was provoked to do so in both cases.18 A few months later, Cobb told the California Grid Club in Sacramento that he partook in filing his spikes with teammates at least once. “It was a gag, partly,” he said. “It happened in New York and we figured it might intimidate some of the younger players on the opposing team. It didn’t bother the old-timers, but I believe it may have put a little fear in the hearts of the rookies.”19 The tactic was not a common practice, and Cobb, in 1910, even proposed that league umpires check the shoes of players before games to ensure they were well within the rules. He didn’t mind because he had nothing to hide.20

  St. Louis Browns physician Dr. Robert F. Hyland, in an article for The Sporting News, made a statement about a highly overlooked factor in Cobb’s dashing style. “One often hears about Cobb being a reckless base-runner, who insisted on the right of way and didn’t care whom he cut down,” Hyland explained. “Well, I can testify that Ty never saved himself, and he took plenty of spikes without crying. From his hips down, his legs were a succession of spike wounds and ‘strawberries.’”21 And Cobb bore the scars to prove it. He pulled up his pant legs during an Oakland event in 1951 and displayed so many blemishes that it appeared like “a map of the Mississippi River basin with the Missouri, Ohio, Tennessee, and contributory streams flowing through,” Jack McDonald of the San Francisco Call-Bulletin wrote. Cobb added, “I didn’t spend half my life spiking people as some think. I spent some of my time getting spiked.”22

  The press did Cobb few favors and rarely gave him the benefit of the doubt. For that reason, he felt the stories about him were always magnified, and whenever another player did something similar, they received a much softer blow. Occasionally, journalists just made up lies. At the 1947 World Series in New York, Grantland Rice introduced him to perennial batting champion Ted Williams of the Boston Red Sox. Williams asked Cobb a baseball-related question and the latter offered words of guidance. A reporter later claimed that Williams was irritated by the response and gestured angrily as he walked away. The yarn infuriated Cobb. He said it was all nonsense and Williams agreed. “Cobb is correct,” he said. “It never happened. I never even thought of such a thing. His advice was sound and I appreciated it.”23

  When discussing Ty Cobb in modern times, it is impossible to avoid the question of whether Cobb was racist against African Americans. Supporters of Cobb have tried to rebuke the charges by listing his black friends, citing his post-1950 avocation of blacks in the majors, and the fact that he had colored housekeepers and other employees around him his entire life. These details, while important, cannot explain away the question in any shape or form. Of Southern heritage and with a pro-Confederate belief system, Cobb was undoubtedly influenced by his surroundings growing up. His father, though liberal, didn’t altogether sway his son toward free thinking in racial subject matter. In 1908, after a couple years in the “North,” Cobb was still holding onto his Southern philosophies. He told the Detroit Free Press, “Course being from Georgia, I think different about Negroes from what they do up here.”24

  From all accounts, his mindset didn’t evolve much in the years that followed, at least as far as baseball was concerned. Appearing in an exhibition at Putnam, Connecticut, on October 8, 1916, Cobb performed at first base for the New Haven Colonials. He was already a bit antsy after a dispute over money with promoters before the game, but managed to get through five innings. After that, he unceremoniously left the contest when Putnam inserted black pitching sensation “Cannonball” Dick Redding on the mound.25 Columnist Otto Floto of the Denver Post wrote, “One can’t blame Cobb, however, for his action. He comes from the South, where such things are not possible, and he has only lived up to the tradition of his section of the country.”26 Alfred J. Roy of the Chicago Defender remarked on Cobb skipping out on a 1923 series between the Tigers and American Giants, stating, “Ty Cobb, Georgia Peach, would not play of course, but the rest of the players were glad to mix with their darker brothers.”27

  It must be clarified that Al Stump and other sportswriters did not initiate the campaign
to vilify Cobb as a racist in the last fifty years. Pundits were openly questioning his prejudices in the 1920s, mostly in African American newspapers. Al Monroe in the Chicago Defender, W. Rollo Wilson and Wendell Smith in the Pittsburgh Courier, and Orrin C. Evans of the Philadelphia Tribune were amongst those to remark about his apparent racist views. In 1949, Lucius Harper called Cobb “a rabid race-baiter with very pronounced prejudices against Negroes.”28 These perceptions were not invented out of thin air, but based on a track record of events, including several notable physical altercations between Cobb and African Americans during his lifetime. That aside, Cobb wasn’t consumed with an all-encompassing hatred for all people of color. There was a middle ground for friendship, compassion, and respect.

  Growing up, he was influenced by several African Americans. A black acquaintance taught him how to swim and, working on his father’s plantation, he labored alongside people of all types of backgrounds. He expressed sincere empathy after a home run ball he hit at Mobile in 1915 struck a black child, rushing to his aid, and generously doled out baseballs to Philadelphia youngsters in 1928.29 Alexander Rivers, a mascot for the Tigers in 1917 and credited with aiding Cobb during his 35-game hit streak, became Ty’s personal assistant for a number of years.30 Charles M. Ridley, a tailor in Augusta, was also a close friend, and Cobb reportedly helped put singer Arthur Lee Simpkins through college.31 Later in life, Cobb supported the eradication of the color barrier in the majors and publicly praised Jackie Robinson, Roy Campanella, Willie Mays, and Hank Aaron.

  Cobb clearly acknowledged skin color, and had expectations from African Americans to respect and adhere to a subservient doctrine he accepted as normal. He didn’t automatically hate on first sight, but presumed all blacks would conform to the tenets he grew up on. He gave respect where he felt it was deserved, but the moment anyone talked back to him, regardless of their color, he was fuming with wrath. The several moments of physicality against African Americans during his life cannot plausibly be explained other than conceding that he let his madness rage out of hand. They weren’t targeted events, but played out in impulsive fashion, leaving behind an embarrassing stigma that haunts his legacy to this day. But his standing in history was further hurt by misleading and irresponsible information, particularly the notion put forth by Fred Lieb, that Cobb might have been a member of the Ku Klux Klan.32

  Turning to baseball itself, Cobb left behind ninety records when he retired in 1928. He set high marks for batting average (.367), hits (4,191), runs (2,246), games played (3,035), times at-bat (11,429), stolen bases (892), and years leading league in batting (12). The inevitable thing about marks in baseball was that no matter how exceptional, they were liable to fall over time. Cobb was asked if he was concerned or upset about that, and he replied, “Truthfully, no. The important thing to me is that I played as hard as I could to be the best man on the field. If somebody comes along later and does the same thing better, I know at least that I gave him something to shoot at.”33

  The sports world was electrified in 1985 as Pete Rose chased Cobb’s all-time hit record. Finally, on September 11, 1985, “Charlie Hustle” scored hit number 4,192 and stood alone at the top of the pyramid. Ty’s single-season stolen base record of 96 was broken by Maury Wills in 1962, and a number of his other records have since fallen. His lifetime batting average of .367 seems untouchable. To put it into perspective, Rogers Hornsby finished his career with .358, Ted Williams .344, and Babe Ruth .342. Some of the greatest hitters of the last thirty years, Tony Gwynn (.338), Wade Boggs (.328), and Rod Carew (.328) had stellar careers (yet not anywhere close to Cobb), while current stars Miguel Cabrera (.320 through the 2014 season) and Albert Pujols (.317 through the 2014 season) sit around 50 points lower than the “Georgia Peach.” Achieving anything close to .367 is next to impossible nowadays, especially for a career lasting over two decades.

  Interestingly, Cobb’s batting average has been affected by the diligent research of baseball statisticians. In 1981, it was revealed in The Sporting News that a discrepancy in his records reduced his overall average a point to .366. Additionally, the new findings gave Napoleon Lajoie the 1910 American League batting championship with a .383 to Cobb’s .382. The information was embraced to a certain degree, but Major League Baseball leaders opposed any sanctioned decree altering the record books.34 To this day, his official batting average remains .367, although some prominent sources acknowledge the .366 figure.35 By the way, while on the topic of stats, Ty’s numbers have been crunched in almost every way possible. Using advanced metrics, statisticians have tabulated his WAR (wins above replacement), “an encompassing metric” that considers multiple elements.36 Cobb ended up with a 151, fourth amongst hitters in MLB history after Babe Ruth, Barry Bonds, and Willie Mays.37

  Of all the outsiders to have an actual effect on the legacy of Ty Cobb, no one was more effective than Al Stump. He was the ghostwriter of Cobb’s 1961 autobiography, he penned Cobb: A Biography (1994), and was depicted by Robert Wuhl in the film version Cobb, starring Tommy Lee Jones. His link to the ballplayer was so important that when Stump passed away in 1995, the New York Times prominently highlighted the information, denoting that he was the “chronicler of Ty Cobb’s life.”38 His projects garnered widespread attention, but as historians and fact-checkers analyzed material in the study of the Hall of Famer’s life, certain inaccuracies came to light. In fact, many things pointed to a specific attempt to foster an unseemly perception about the Georgian, in line with the dime novelist-like sportswriters of yore.

  Later, things were exposed to be even far more insidious than that. Beginning with his 1961 True—The Man’s Magazine article, Stump had attempted to reframe the Cobb legacy, using his inside-track to Ty himself as his gateway to storytelling. Because he worked closely with Cobb on his autobiography, he was privy to firsthand accounts that no one else possessed or could possibly substantiate. It was a license to develop a stunning portrait of the legend, and Stump went all out. The most explosive allegation of the True piece was the claim that Cobb had admitted to killing a man after being assaulted in 1912. The incident, which happened in Detroit and was related in Chapter 10, was undeniably violent, but absolutely no evidence corroborated the statement.

  Doug Roberts, a baseball historian, conducted an exhaustive investigation in the mid-1990s, working to either prove or invalidate the story, challenging the subject from all sides. After studying Detroit Medical Examiner’s records, newspapers, and other available sources, he determined that “Ty Cobb Did Not Commit Murder,” and wrote a laudable article under that headline in the 1996 publication of The National Pastime.39 If Cobb did tell Stump that he killed a man, it was pure exaggeration, a fable shared during the hazy, booze-infested last days of a terminal cancer patient. Instead of acknowledging the possibility that the statement was hyperbole, the writer took the comment as truth, and delivered it to the public without any kind of asterisk, footnote, or follow-up explanation. Similar to Lieb’s comment that Cobb could have been affiliated with the KKK, the entire thing was riddled with irresponsibility.

  In 2010, William R. Cobb (no relation to Ty) presented a separate dissection of Stump in his article, “The Georgia Peach: Stumped by the Storyteller,” featured in the 2010 edition of The National Pastime. He too called attention to unverifiable statements in the True magazine story, and questioned the validity of a shotgun Stump said was used in the murder of Ty’s father by his mother in 1905. In his thorough evaluation of the facts, Cobb outlined a number of instances in which memorabilia Stump tried to sell was proven forged, including numerous letters and signed baseballs. There was a Cobb diary as well and, after FBI analysis, was deemed a fake.40 Altogether, the negligence of Stump as an investigative researcher, plus his attempt to saturate the baseball market with fraudulent Cobb merchandise, left an unmistakable tarnish on his reputation akin to the blemishes his work caused Cobb.

  There were other items in the True article that could’ve been better explained, had there been any
attempt. Stump professed that Cobb used stamps sent in by people requesting autographs for his own postage needs and burned the letters, indicative of a callous and tightfisted man.41 But this wasn’t true. Cobb cared about his fans, but realized decades earlier that it was impossible to respond to everyone. “I have the feeling that I am always neglecting someone,” he told Baseball Magazine with regret in 1916.42 Following Cobb’s death, readers to The Sporting News sent in stories of their personal correspondence with the ballplayer, refuting the allegation that he was completely heartless toward enthusiasts. As for the stamps themselves, Cobb wanted to send over whatever he had in surplus to his granddaughter Shirley McLaren, who was collecting them. He also asked his friend Joe Hauck to do likewise, “particularly any foreign ones,” as requested in an undated letter found in the Hauck Collection at Berkeley, California.43

  An overly paranoid sensibility was reflected in the “high-voltage wires” Cobb used to protect his property at Atherton, and Stump quoted Ty as saying that “detectives” had broken in looking for documents to use against him in a divorce action. If that wasn’t reason enough, his home had been robbed at least one other time, in 1947, and thieves made off with a number of valuable belongings.44 Bearing in mind that he was away from the residence for long periods of time, it only made sense to safeguard it in the best way possible. Lastly, Stump said Cobb was “suffering from megalomania, or acute self-worship.”45 On the contrary, as Cobb didn’t show the least bit of conceitedness when asked by journalists to convey his all-time all-star team, and over and over through the years, left himself off the list. John Kieran of the Boston Herald stated that it was “sheer modesty.”46 Cobb named Eddie Collins the best player of all-time, while designating “Shoeless” Joe Jackson as the greatest hitter.