Position:
Center Field
Teams:
As a player:
Detroit Tigers (1905-1926)
Philadelphia Athletics (1927-1928)
As a manager:
Detroit Tigers (1921-1926)
Career Statistics:
Batting Average: .366
Home Runs: 117
RBI: 897
Slugging Percentage: .512
On-Base Percentage: .433
Hits: 4,189
Ty Cobb once said, "Sure, I fought. I had to fight all my life just to survive. They were all against me. Tried every dirty trick to cut me down, but I beat the b******s and left them in the ditch." Such was the temperament and surly demeanor of Tyrus Raymond Cobb. Perhaps no player this side of Barry Bonds has alienated and polarized so many baseball fans as has this incredibly talented hitter, ironically nicknamed "The Georgia Peach."
Cobb was born in Narrows, Georgia to Amanda and William Cobb. He initially spent his baseball career as a member of the Royston Rompers, the semi-pro Royston Reds, and the Augusta Tourists of the South Atlantic League. The Tourists released Cobb on the second day of the season. He then joined the Anniston Steelers of the Tennessee-Alabama League. He began a regimen of sending postcard to sports editor Grantland Rice of the Atlanta Journal as a means of self-promotion. Rice soon began to take notice of his accomplishments. After three months, Cobb returned to the Tourists. He ended up hitting .238 in 35 games. In August 1905, the Tourists sold his contract to the Detroit Tigers.
On August 30, 1905 in his first major league at-bat, Cobb hit a double. He ended up batting .240 in 41 games. The following season, he became the Tigers full-time centerfielder and hit .316 in 98 games. He would lead the Tigers to three straight American League penants, though they lost each year in the World Series with Cobb under-performing. Four separate times throughout his career beginning in 1907, Cobb would get on base with a single, then steal second, steal third, and then steal home. At the end of '07, he was batting .350 with 212 hits, 49 steals, and 119 RBI. He became the youngest player to ever win the batting title at age 20 (Al Kaline broke the record in 1955 when he was twelve days younger than Cobb was). Cobb again won the title the following season, batting .324.
In 1909, Cobb came into his own, winning the Triple Crown with a batting average of .377 with 107 RBI and nine homers, all of which were inside-the-park. However, Cobb faltered once again in the World Series, as his uninspired performance allowed the Pittsburgh Pirates to win the championship.
By the end of the 1910 season, Cobb had a .004 lead on Nap Lajoie for the American League batting title. Cobb ended up benching himself for the final game so as not to lower his batting average. Lajoie, on the other hand, got eight hits during his team's doubleheader. Six of these hits were bunt singles, and they later came under scrutiny, so Cobb was awarded with the higher average of the two. It was discovered, however, that one of the games Cobb had played was counted twice, but the decision to award Cobb with the title stood.
Cobb had an amazing year in 1911, though he was still trailing Cleveland Naps outfielder Shoeless Joe Jackson by .009 points. Though the two were friendly with one another, Cobb engaged in intense mind games when his Tigers played against Jackson's Naps at the end of the season. Cobb felt that these mind games caused Jackson's average to fall to .408 while Cobb finished with .420. In addition to his sky-high batting average, Cobb also finished 1911 with 127 RBI, 83 stole bases, 47 doubles, 24 triples, and a .621 slugging percentage. He ended up winning the American League MVP that year.
In 1915, Cobb set a new record for stolen bases in a season with 96, a record which stood until broken by Maury Wills in 1962. His streak of five batting titles ended the following year when he came in second behind Tris Speaker. In 1918, Cobb enlisted in the Chemical Corps of the United States Army. He served 67 days in France before being honorably discharged and sent back home.
In 1921, Cobb signed a contract to take over managerial duties of the Detroit Tigers from Hughie Jennings. He was not incredibly successful in this capacity, though he often blamed Tigers owner Frank Navin for not allowing him to acquire any major talent.
On August 9, 1921, Cobb collected his 3,000th hit. He still remains the youngest player to ever reach this milestone, at 34 years old.
As the 1920's emerged, it became clear that a new style of baseball was rearing its head. Babe Ruth was hitting monster shots out of the park, and Cobb was not impressed. Prior to Ruth's rise to prominence, baseball was in what was called the "deadball" era. Players focused more on getting hits and then stealing bases than trying to swing for the fences. Cobb was openly hostile towards Ruth, feeling that he was a threat to his beloved style of play. So to show Ruth than any good hitter could do what he did, Cobb decided to play Ruth's game. On May 5, 1925, Cobb went 6-for-6 with two singles, a double, and three home runs. His 16 total bases set a new American League record. The following day, he collected three more hits, two of which were homers. By the time the series ended, Cobb had gone 12-for-19 with 29 total bases. He then promptly returned to his old style of play.
At the end of the season, Cobb was once more battling another player, this time his own teammate Harry Heilmann, for the batting title. Heilmann ended up besting Cobb .393 to .389.
In November 1926, Cobb ended his career, though it was soon revealed that he and Tris Speaker had both been coerced into retirement when information came to light that the two of them had placed bets on baseball games. They both denied any wrongdoing, and the charges were eventually dropped when their accuser, former pitcher Dutch Leonard, failed to show up at the hearing. Cobb returned to baseball and signed with the Philadelphia Athletics in 1927. He returned for the 1928 season, but his skills had diminished with age. On September 3, 1928, Cobb got his last hit in the major leagues, hitting a double against the Washington Senators. He then announced his retirement. He finished his career with 23 consecutive seasons batting .300 or better. His final career batting was .366, a record which still stands.
Cobb retired a very rich man due to careful money management, as well as his investment in the Coca Cola Company. At the time of his death, he owned 20,000 shares of stock as well as three bottling plants. He also served as a celebrity spokesman. He was named to the Major League Baseball Hall of Fame in 1936, though by this time he was beginning to smoke and drink heavily. As his health began to suffer, he started rethinking the way he had lived his life. He donated considerable amounts of his fortune to his hometown so that it could build a modern hospital, which was named Cobb Memorial Hospital. In 1959, he was diagnosed with prostate cancer, diabetes, high blood pressure, and Bright's Disease. He checked himself into Emory Hospital on June 17, 1961, carrying a bag containing $1 million in negotiable bonds. He died a month later on July 16, 1961.
Ty Cobb is a difficult player to assess. As I stated in the introduction, he played in a different era, one that favored finesse over power, so it's hard to say how good a player he truly was. However, I find that the fact that he could, indeed, hit home runs when he desired, shows that he was an incredibly smart, disciplined player who did what he needed to do to get on base.
His surly demeanor also turns a lot of people off to him because he was, without a doubt, an overly-aggressive, sometimes dirty, player. Cobb was incapable of enduring the typical rookie hazing he received from his teammates during his first year in the league. This ended up alienating many of his peers.
He was also a notorious racist, which wasn't extremely unusual at that time. However, he took it to lengths most others didn't dare approach. He once got into a fight with a black groundskeeper because he didn't approve of the condition of the Tigers's spring training field. When the groundskeeper's wife intervened, he choked her. He also once climbed into the stands to fight a heckler, who, it turned out, had only one hand (and the other was missing three fingers). He slapped a black elevator operator because he was being "uppity." When a black night watchman stepped in, Cobb stabbed him. Most notoriously, though, was Cobb's habit of sharpening his spikes before a game to...I don't know...disembowel the catcher, I guess.
Ty Cobb cannot really be defended. He did some terrible things to undeserving people. Judged based on character alone, he wouldn't crack the top 1,000 of anyone's greatest baseball players list. But there is no denying the prowess he possessed for the game of baseball, and although his achievements can't overshadow the egregious things he did off the diamond, his talent for the game is without question.
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