[No one has] the combined power and eye of Ruth. [66], Going into the final days of the 1910 season, Cobb had a .004 lead on Nap Lajoie for the American League batting title. "[163], Sam Crawford and Ty Cobb were teammates for parts of thirteen seasons. A total of 226 ballots were cast by members of the Baseball Writers Association of America, with 170 votes needed for election. Ty's final season in professional baseball was in 1927. Spending most of his career in the outfield, Cobb helped the Tigers win three American League pennants from 1907-09 and served as player-manager of the Tigers from 1921-1926. 4. [72] The situation climaxed when Lucker allegedly called Cobb a "half-nigger. Along with the three long balls, Cobb hit a double and two singles, finishing the day 6 for 6. Also achieved by Ty Cobb (1909-1911), Eddie Collins (1912-1914), Ted Williams (1940-1942), and Mickey Mantle (1956-1958) The assault was only stopped when catcher Charles "Boss" Schmidt knocked Cobb out. "Sure, I know you, Ty" replied Jackson, "but I wasn't sure you wanted to know me. Mathewson and Walter Johnson were some of his closest friends. [72] Though extremely rare in the 21st century, attacking fans was not so unusual an activity in the early years of baseball. Cobb was the only player in history with 10-plus homers and a save in the same season until the Orioles Stevie Wilkerson pulled off the feat in 2019. [93][95] With McGraw vowing revenge, Cobb skipped the rest of the exhibition series against the Giants, heading to Cincinnati to train with the Reds, who were managed by Cobb's friend Christy Mathewson. Retrieved March 1, 2007. Somehow it seems like if he were alive, he would still manage to hit .300. from the Medical College of South Carolina and practiced obstetrics and gynecology in Dublin, Georgia, until his death at 42 on September 9, 1952, from a brain tumor, his father remained distant. In the seventh inning, he tied the game with a two-run double. Cobb sat out the final two games to preserve his average. Upon his retirement he held career records for games played (3,035), at bats (11,434), runs (2,246), hits (4,189), total bases (5,854), and batting average (.366). [92] That year, he also won his ninth consecutive batting title, hitting .369. Despite not being known as a slugger, he led the AL in slugging percentage eight times in his 11 seasons from 1907 to 1917.[39]. Ty Cobb was born on Saturday, December 18, 1886, in Narrows, Georgia. The greatness of Ty Cobb was something that had to be seen, and to see him was to remember him forever, said fellow Hall of Famer George Sisler. "Official" in that sense of the word means merely "from the office[182]" of Major League Baseball, the corporation. This, too, was a fraud, as researchers later found Cobbs hits had, indeed, been properly accounted for. [95], In 1917, Cobb hit in 35 consecutive games, still the only player with two 35-game hitting streaks (including his 40-game streak in 1911). [117][118] Cobb ranks 14th on the all-time list for errors committed by an outfielder. Cobb spent 22 seasons with the Detroit Tigers, the last six as the team's player-manager, and finished his career with the Philadelphia Athletics. But I never tried anything foolish when a game was at stake, only when we were far ahead or far behind. Although he performed poorly in the postseason, he won the Triple Crown by hitting .377 with 107 RBI and nine home runs, all inside the park, thus becoming the only player of the modern era to lead his league in home runs in a season without hitting a ball over the fence. (Voted by BBWAA on 222/226 ballots) The Dallas Police Department had to help stop the brawl, and Cobb was thrown out of the game. Ruth and Wagner were checked on 215, or 95.1%. Where what happened yesterday is being preserved today. Leonard claimed proof existed in letters written to him by Cobb and Wood. 7. "[45], Cobb was initiated into Freemasonry in 1907, earning the 32nd degree in 1912. Crawford was an established star when Cobb arrived, and Cobb eagerly sought his advice. [5] A second secret meeting among the AL directors led to the unpublicized resignations of Cobb and Speaker; however, rumors of the scandal led Judge Landis to hold additional hearings[5] in which Leonard subsequently refused to participate. from the SABR BioProject. Barry Bonds holds the most hitting records with ten, most notably the career home run and single-season home run records. [3][4][5][6] His combined total of 4,065 runs scored and runs batted in (after adjusting for home runs) is still the highest ever produced by any major league player. [165], The studentteacher relationship gradually changed to one of jealous rivals. Two months later, his autobiography, "My Life in Baseball," was released by Doubleday. The save was not an official stat until 1969. All logos are the trademark & property of their owners and not Sports Reference LLC. Total Zone Rating and initial framework for Wins above Replacement calculations provided by Sean Smith. He won nine consecutive AL batting titles from 1907 to 1915 and three more in his career. Inside the Baseball Hall of Fame. "[99][unreliable source?]. This is positively my last statement in this matter." The Book: Playing the Percentages in Baseball, Salaries may not be complete (especially pre-1985) and may not include some earned bonuses. Cobb sets long-standing record of 96 stolen bases in single season: 1915: Becomes highest paid player in baseball: 1916 . (Age 41-268d) [156] This accusation was common for many decades before the movie was released. Writing in The Journal of American Culture, Hunter M. Hampton says that Leerhsen "succeeds in debunking the myth of Cobb that Stump created, but he spawned a new myth by conflating Stump's shortcomings to depict Cobb as an egalitarian. From very early on, his father had a great influence on his life and encouraged him to join organized baseball teams like the Royston Rumpers, Royston Reds, Augusta Tourists and the Anniston Steelers. Full-year historical Major League statistics provided by Pete Palmer and Gary Gillette of Hidden Game Sports. Some are still standing. The scuffle left Herzog's face bloodied and his eyes nearly shut. 4,192 was a single, giving the Cincinnati Reds'. I often tried plays that looked recklessly daring, maybe even silly. Any Tyruses today can thank Cobb for giving the name its initial exposure. Cobb retired a wealthy and successful man. That doesnt necessarily mean he wasnt a racist, but the truth about Cobb has long been difficult to pin down. Some defensive statistics Copyright Sports Info Solutions, 2010-2023. The only year Cobb did not bat .300 was his rookie year in 1905, when he played just 45 games and went 36-for-151 (.238) while still mourning the loss of his father and acclimating to the big leagues. "[58], Despite great success on the field, Cobb was no stranger to controversy off it. One author points to another. Ty Cobb? He was fined $50.[91]. The two met an hour later in Cobb's room, where the Tiger outfielder had prepared for the fight by moving furniture out of the way and pouring water on the floor. But Baseball-Almanac.com and other sources credit Cobb with 54 steals of home -- 21 more than his next-closest competitor, NL leader Max Carey (33). "The Georgia Peach" redirects here. When Cobb, who is said to have had nine different variations of his slide, retired, his 892 stolen bases overall were a 20th century record. The jury was out less than 90 minutes, which included their lunch, after the month-long trial. But anyway, as the story goes, in the year before his death, Cobb was asked by a reporter how he would fare in the modern game. Wesley Fricks August 2, 2008. 12. Thirty years ago on Tuesday, Pete Rose became the all-time hit king. The Georgia Peach is a nickname for Ty Cobb. They played beside each other in right and center field, and Crawford followed Cobb in the batting order year after year. The historian Steven Elliott Tripp has explored the public's reaction to Cobb as a pioneer sports celebrity and "a player fans loved to hate. [27] He played his first years in organized baseball for the Royston Rompers, the semi-pro Royston Reds, and the Augusta Tourists of the South Atlantic League, who released him after only two days. Cobb sat out the final two games of the season in order to preserve his slim lead. According to sportswriter Grantland Rice, he and Cobb were returning from the Masters golf tournament in the late 1940s and stopped at a Greenville, South Carolina, liquor store. This article on Cobb's final months, written in 1961 . He would go on to hit 2-3 with two singles and a run scored, as well as batting .418. ", "Hall of Fame Voting: Baseball Writers Elections 1936", "Legends as an Expression of Baseball Memory", "Numbers Are Cast in Bronze, but Are Not Set in Stone", "How Many Hits Did Ty Cobb Make in His Major League Career? The reporter was aghast. Question, Comment, Feedback, or Correction? After spending time in the South Atlantic League and with some semipro teams, Cobb joined the Detroit Tigers in 1905. Thats about $112 million in todays dollars. The retirement of two great players at the same time sparked some interest, and it turned out that the two were coerced into retirement because of allegations of game-fixing brought about by Dutch Leonard, a former pitcher managed by Cobb. The Detroit star didnt think it took a lot of talent to hit home runs and was convinced that his way of playing the game was vastly superior. Was it worth risking his career to perpetrate such a big lie? Salsinger, like Keener, had his reputation as a journalist to think about. Cobbs Tigers teams reached (and lost) the World Series three consecutive seasons from 1907-09, but finished far from first for most of the 1910s. And he did it with only nine homers. A lot of them don't."[133]. The game then was Cobbs game, and he left it clutching the career records for games played (3,305), at-bats (11,429, 11,434 or 11,440, depending on the source), runs (2,246), hits (4,189 or 4,191, depending on the source), total bases (5,854) and batting average (.367 or .366, depending on the source). In the 2nd inning of the May 5 game against the Browns, Tyrus Raymond smashed a pitch from Bullet Joe Bush for a long home run to right field. At the end of 1925, Cobb was again embroiled in a batting title race, this time with one of his teammates and players, Harry Heilmann. (AP). Cobb retaliated by spiking Herzog during the second game, prompting a bench-clearing brawl in which Cobb ground Herzog's face in the dirt. View Player Info from the B-R Bullpen. He lives in Washington, D.C., with his wife Sandy. At the end of the 1910 season, Cobb was in a tight race for the batting title with Clevelands Nap Lajoie. [159] Five years after Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier, Cobb publicly supported blacks and whites playing baseball together, adding: "Certainly it is okay for them to play. When Jackson persisted, Cobb snapped angrily back at him, making him wonder what he could have done to enrage Cobb. Mathewson was checked on 205 ballots, or 90.7%, and Johnson was checked on 189, or 83.6%. In 1915, Cobb set the single-season record for stolen bases with 96, which stood until Dodger Maury Wills broke it in 1962. . Back when the ball was bogged down by spit and tobacco juice, Ty Cobb smacked it to the gaps, ran like hell and dictated terms to the rest of the league. . Not for the love of it, the excitement of it, the thrill of it." (the meaning of which is unknown) and go in for a hug. He had led them to a respectable 79-75 record that year while hitting .339/.408/.511 in part-time play. Cobb was known for his aggressive base running style and his ability to hit to all fields. Because the Tigers lead was so large, thats not a save by current standards, but Cobb is credited with the save because the Baseball Encylopedia (and, by extension, Retrosheet and Baseball-Reference) use the 1969 criteria, which required only that the reliever enter a game with a lead and record the final out without having relinquished that lead. "[168], When asked about the feud, Cobb attributed it to envy. Cobb blamed his lackluster managerial record (479 wins against 444 losses) on Navin, who was arguably even more frugal than he was, passing up several quality players Cobb wanted to add to the team. [16][22][23], Cobb was born in 1886 in Narrows, Georgia, a small, unincorporated rural community of farmers. Awards. But Cobb did retroactively meet the Baseball Encylopedias statistical requirements of a save in his second of two career pitching appearances. The Tigers had also finished third in 1922, but 16 games behind the Yankees. [97], Also in 1917, Cobb starred in the motion picture Somewhere in Georgia for a sum of $25,000 plus expenses (equivalent to approximately $529,000 today[98]). All images are property the copyright holder and are displayed here for informational purposes only. One could easily see Cobb making such a boast and then having the talent (along with a little bit of luck) to pull it off. "[76] According to Russo, the crowd cheered Cobb on in the fight. Whether or not Cobb actually "called" his power outburst has been debated over the years but what actually happened at Sportsman's Park on those two days is a matter of record. Even without gaudy homerun totals, Cobb was the very definition of a great baseball player. Those five legends made up the first class voted into the Hall on Jan. 29, 1936. Later it was rumored that the opposing manager had instructed his third baseman to play extra deep to allow Lajoie to win the batting race over the generally disliked Cobb. Cobb ignored Jackson when Jackson tried to say anything to him. [16], In September 1907, Cobb began a relationship with The Coca-Cola Company that lasted the remainder of his life. us, Died: Cobb is said to have stolen second, third and home on consecutive pitches. In 2010, an article by William R. "Ron" Cobb (no relation) in the peer-reviewed The National Pastime (the official publication of the Society for American Baseball Research) accused Stump of extensive forgeries of Cobb-related documents and diaries. May 22, 2021. vs. NYY 1 AB, 0 H, 0 HR, 0 RBI, 0 SB. The fight lasted for thirty minutes, over the course of which Cobb knocked down Herzog about six times while Herzog only knocked Cobb down once. [126][127] The elder Cobb subsequently traveled to the Princeton campus and beat his son with a whip to ensure against future academic failure. [5] Speaker denied any wrongdoing.[5]. Cobb wasnt just a success on the field but in the commodities market. On November 3rd, the club announced that he was stepping down as manager, soon followed by Cleveland's player-manager, and fellow legend, Tris Speaker. Could Ty Cobb have been a big-time home run hitter had he decided to? Cobb's association with the Tigers came to a crashing end at the end of the 1926 season. Cobb announced to his wife, Amanda, that he was headed to the family farm and would not be back that night. Induction ceremony in Cooperstown held in 1939. Cobb did not get another opportunity to play on a pennant-winning team. We have tools and resources that can help you use sports data. He never got to see me play but I knew he was watching me, and I never let him down. After joining the Steelers for a monthly salary of $50,[31] Cobb promoted himself by sending several postcards written about his talents under different aliases to Grantland Rice, the Atlanta Journal sports editor. Join our linker program. He was (probably) not the monster hes often depicted to be. If we were five or six runs ahead, I'd try some wild play, such as going from first to home on a single. Cobb was hazed as a rookie while trying to process his grief and tend to family matters. 1/11/2021 at 12:14 PM 1/11/2021 at 12:14 PM Tigers' best hitting performances in a game. [130] His 98.2% stood as the record until Tom Seaver received 98.8% of the vote in 1992. That was in 1926, in Cobbs final season with the Tigers. [61] In the offseason between 1907 and 1908, Cobb negotiated with Clemson Agricultural College of South Carolina, offering to coach baseball there "for $250 a month, provided that he did not sign with Detroit that season." He played in more than 3,000 games in that span, recording 4,189 hits with a staggering .366 batting average, 117 home runs, and 1,944 RBI; he also stole 897 bases. The Athletics had us beaten, with Rube Waddell pitching. But St. Louis Browns manager Jack OConnor, who reportedly hated Cobb, gave Lajoie a path to beat him by having his rookie third baseman Red Corriden play on the back edge of the infield. 15. He could have gone 0-for-his-last-2,541 and still had a .300 career average. [35][36][37][38][39], On August 8, 1905, Cobb's mother fatally shot his father with a pistol that his father had purchased for her. Yeah, the game was a little different back then. ][129], In February 1936, when the first Baseball Hall of Fame election results were announced, Cobb had been named on 222 of 226 ballots, outdistancing Babe Ruth, Honus Wagner, Christy Mathewson, and Walter Johnson, the only others to earn the necessary 75% of votes to be elected that first year. [5] Shortly thereafter, Tris Speaker also retired as player-manager of the Cleveland Indians. Cobb had spent the previous year defending himself on several occasions from assaults by Schmidt, with Schmidt often coming out of nowhere to blindside Cobb. All these years after his death, as his personal legacy continues to be batted back and forth, Cobb remains an utterly fascinating figure. He was also a celebrity spokesman for the product. )[178] According to former Baseball Commissioner Bowie Kuhn, Major League Baseball continues and will continue to report the incorrect value on the basis of it being grandfathered in ("The passage of 70 years, in our judgment, constitutes a certain statute of limitation as to recognizing any changes. Ruth hit two homers, a triple, and two singles during the series, compared to Cobb's two hits of a double and a single. All told, Cobb went 479-444 (.519) and is credited with helping the development of Tigers hitters, most notably future Hall of Famer Harry Heilmann. [174] Retrosheet gives Cobb the same number of hits in five more at-bats (11,439),[175] and Baseball Reference and the Baseball Hall of Fame add one more at-bat (11,440). Early life and career Tyrus Raymond Cobb was born on December 18, 1886, in Narrows, Georgia, to William Herschel . [ Answer] At the time in which Babe Ruth played, some of baseball's modern awards did not exist. "I let this go for a while because I wanted to satisfy myself that Cobb has as much guts as I thought in the very beginning," Jennings recalled. Hank Aaron's Greatness, by the Numbers - The Ringer Or absurd, depending on your point of view. "(Ty) Cobb lived off the field as though he wished to live forever. [101] He served approximately 67 days overseas before receiving an honorable discharge and returning to the United States. He accomplished the feat four times during his career, still an MLB record as of 2022. Crawford denied intentionally trying to deprive Cobb of stolen bases, insisting that Cobb had "dreamed that up. That day, he went 6 for 6, with two singles, a double and three homers. [73] He also asked for the police to intervene, but they refused. Do you know who was the first player to lead the junior circuit in all three of those baseball statistics during the same season? That guy was superhuman, amazing," said Hall of Fame manager Casey Stengel. Tons of people (including plenty of sportswriters) hated Cobb at the time and spinning glowing, untrue pieces about a major pain-in-the-butt was not part of the eras zeitgeist. When he retired in 1928, he had set some 90 records. [46][47], In 1911, Cobb moved to Detroit's architecturally significant and now historically protected Woodbridge neighborhood, from which he would walk with his dogs to the ballpark prior to games. Self-guided tour or VIP experience. (AP), Tris Speaker, Babe Ruth and Ty Cobb at a fundraising exhibition game in Cleveland in 1941. The following year, 1906, Cobb became the Tigers' full-time center fielder and hit .316 in 98 games, setting a record for the highest batting average (minimum 310 plate appearances) for a 19-year-old (later bested by Mel Ott's .322 average in 124 games for the 1928 New York Giants). Do you have a sports website? [170], Cobb has the highest batting average in major league history, .366. He later served as the Director of Baseballs Hall-of-Fame from 1952 to 1963 and might be considered a reliable source. If you believe all the stories that circulate about Cobb, he was a racist lunatic who sharpened his cleats to intentionally wound opposing players and even killed a man hours before a game. The single his first time up gave him nine consecutive hits over three games, while his five homers in two games tied the record set by Cap Anson of the old Chicago NL team in 1884. The exact count is a matter of dispute. While Ty Cobb did never win a title, he did win the MVP and the Triple Crown. [60] In 1908, Cobb attacked a black laborer in Detroit who complained when Cobb stepped into freshly poured asphalt; Cobb was found guilty of battery, but the sentence was suspended.
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