I like that there is a picture, a bio, career highlights and career stats including World Series stats. I don't like that there are not year-by-year stats and some demographic information about the players who all played long before my time.
#15 - Ty Cobb
Cobb was called the most feared player in the game. A .367 career average, highest in history, will do that. Add stolen bases, RBIs and even homers and that makes him dominant.
He used a split-hand grip. I wonder if kids read about that in the early 1970s and then tried it out.
He led the league in hitting for 12 of 13 years at one point in his career. In the "off" year he hit .371. Baseball-reference.com now credits him with hitting .370 in 1916. Tris Speaker hit .386 to stop Cobb's streak. Cobb won 12 batting titles and he led the league in numerous other categories.
Cobb hit .401 later in his career without winning a batting title. George Sisler hit .420 in 1922 to deny Cobb another title.
He managed the Tigers for six years without taking them to the World Series. His last post-season game was in 1909 and he retired in 1928.
Not on the card but included on the regular 1972 cards -
Position - Outfield
Height - 6-1
Weight - 175
Hobby - being disliked?
Not on the card - when the first Hall of Fame class was voted in, Cobb had more votes than the other five elected - Babe Ruth, Honus Wagner, Christy Mathewson and Walter Johnson.
My grandfather caught one of his 5 1927 home runs at a game at Shibe park - he took it home and played with it with his friends until it was later lost. He told me he didn't realize how important it was...
ReplyDeleteJust watched "Cobb" with Tommy Lee Jones again. Some say it is an inaccurate picture of the man. Cobb's mother killed his father with two shotgun blasts. Possibly intentionally murdered him. It's clear this tragedy followed him the rest of his life. How much of Cobb's racist psychotic behavior was due to mental illness or simply an extreme product of his times and upbringing, or exaggerated stories, I don't know? I have "Ty Cobb - A Terrible Beauty" on my audio book list - some say the best biography.
I can confirm that the book was excellent, and the author doesn't seem to have a politically correct or conservative ax to grind. He is a good researcher; I read another book by him on the famous horse (whom I had never heard of before), Dan Patch. You're in for many surprises from this well-researched book, and it provides an interesting glimpse into the dead ball era, too. Some tough customers playing back then...
DeleteThanks for letting me know. I'll need to get that book, maybe even the audio one since I spend way too much time in traffic.
DeleteThat's great about the HR and sadly that was probably common then. I left out some of the Cobb stuff because I hear different stories about him.
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