Who Was Ty Cobb? – Part 5

Who Was Ty Cobb? The History We Know That’s Wrong

The following is adapted from a speech delivered at Hillsdale College on March 7, 2016, during a program on “Sports and Character” sponsored by the College’s Center for Constructive Alternatives.

What of the stories about him sharpening his spikes and injuring opposing players? Cobb believed strongly that the runner had the right of way in what he called “my little patch,” in front of the bag. The opposing players who were asked to comment on him respected his ability and consistency, and agreed with his “little patch” theory. “It was no fun putting the ball on Cobb when he came slashing into the plate,” said Wally Schang, who caught for almost every American League Club. “But he never cut me up. He was too pretty a slider to hurt anyone who put the ball on him right.” Infielder Germany Schaefer, a teammate of Cobb, called him “a game square fellow who never cut a man with his spikes intentionally in his life, and anyone who gets by with his spikes knows it.” And if Cobb could dish out the punishment, he could also take it. Catcher Steve O’Neill of the Cleveland Naps once favored Cobb with the greatest compliment a catcher can give: “He came home on a base hit and I was blocking the plate. I got him in the kidneys and knocked him out. When he came to he didn’t say a word. He just got up and limped out to his position.”

There is a famous photograph that is often used to indict Cobb. It shows Cobb and St. Louis Browns catcher Paul Krichell in 1912. Cobb appears to be flying foot-first into Krichell’s crotch while the catcher squints in pained anticipation. But there is a 1950s interview with Krichell, then a scout for the Yankees, and by his own testimony, Cobb was aiming his foot at the ball in Krichell’s glove, and succeeded in knocking it to the backstop. Here is Krichell’s account: “The ball hit the grandstand on the fly. I was mad and stunned. Cobb was mad and shaken. In a way it was really my fault. I was standing in front of the plate, instead of on the side, where I could tag Ty as he slid in. But out of that mix-up I learned one thing: never stand directly in front of the plate when Cobb was roaring for home.”

To the extent that the myth of Ty Cobb is connected to his aggressive style of play, it has seeds in his playing career. People in those days were fascinated by spikes—an adult fan in the early days of baseball had almost certainly not played the game, and thought of spikes as exotic. The legend of “the man who sharpened his spikes” had been around since at least the 1880s, and had been attributed to many, including John McGraw. And some sportswriters—understanding that sports is less about scores than about storylines, and that without antagonists stories fall flat—were willing to fan the flame and depict the aggressive, unpredictable Cobb as a dirty player. Many of the quotes I found from opposing players defending Cobb’s style were in response to charges that he was a spiker. To a man, they said he wasn’t. And in 1910, Cobb wrote to the American League president asking that players be forced to dull their spikes so that he might be free of the dirty-player charge.

In that sense Cobb was always controversial. But how did he come to be portrayed as a monster? After he retired in 1928, he stayed out of Major League Baseball, and the game changed to a slugger’s sport. It became the game of Ted Williams, Joe DiMaggio, and Mickey Mantle, and Cobb faded from memory. By the late 1950s, when Cobb went on the TV quiz show I’ve Got a Secret, the panelists not only didn’t guess his “secret”—“I have the highest batting average of all time”—they couldn’t identify him by sight. Cobb didn’t like that, and he disliked even more being remembered as a dirty player. As he grew older and less healthy he became obsessed with setting the record straight, and he started to shop around an autobiography. Doubleday & Co. agreed to publish it and assigned a ghostwriter, Cobb being too ill to write it himself. For this job they picked a man who was known for quantity over quality, a hard-drinking hack newspaperman named Al Stump.

This is Part Five of a multi-part series. Keep watch for the next installment!