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Ty Cobb: A Terrible Beauty
Finally - a fascinating and authoritative biography of perhaps the most controversial player in baseball history, Ty Cobb.
Ty Cobb is baseball royalty, maybe even the greatest player who ever lived. His lifetime batting average is still the highest of all time, and when he retired in 1928, after twenty-one years with the Detroit Tigers and two with the Philadelphia Athletics, he held more than ninety records. But the numbers don't tell half of Cobb's tale. The Georgia Peach was by far the most thrilling player of the era: "Ty Cobb could cause more excitement with a base on balls than Babe Ruth could with a grand slam," one columnist wrote. When the Hall of Fame began in 1936, he was the first player voted in.
But Cobb was also one of the game's most controversial characters. He got in a lot of fights, on and off the field, and was often accused of being overly aggressive. In his day, even his supporters acknowledged that he was a fierce and fiery competitor. Because his philosophy was to "create a mental hazard for the other man,"; he had his enemies, but he was also widely admired. After his death in 1961, however, something strange happened: his reputation morphed into that of a monster - a virulent racist who also hated children and women, and was in turn hated by his peers.
How did this happen? Who is the real Ty Cobb? Setting the record straight, Charles Leerhsen pushed aside the myths, traveled to Georgia and Detroit, and re-traced Cobb's journey, from the shy son of a professor and state senator who was progressive on race for his time, to America's first true sports celebrity. In the process, he tells of a life overflowing with incident and a man who cut his own path through his times - a man we thought we knew but really didn't.
Ty Cobb is baseball royalty, maybe even the greatest player who ever lived. His lifetime batting average is still the highest of all time, and when he retired in 1928, after twenty-one years with the Detroit Tigers and two with the Philadelphia Athletics, he held more than ninety records. But the numbers don't tell half of Cobb's tale. The Georgia Peach was by far the most thrilling player of the era: "Ty Cobb could cause more excitement with a base on balls than Babe Ruth could with a grand slam," one columnist wrote. When the Hall of Fame began in 1936, he was the first player voted in.
But Cobb was also one of the game's most controversial characters. He got in a lot of fights, on and off the field, and was often accused of being overly aggressive. In his day, even his supporters acknowledged that he was a fierce and fiery competitor. Because his philosophy was to "create a mental hazard for the other man,"; he had his enemies, but he was also widely admired. After his death in 1961, however, something strange happened: his reputation morphed into that of a monster - a virulent racist who also hated children and women, and was in turn hated by his peers.
How did this happen? Who is the real Ty Cobb? Setting the record straight, Charles Leerhsen pushed aside the myths, traveled to Georgia and Detroit, and re-traced Cobb's journey, from the shy son of a professor and state senator who was progressive on race for his time, to America's first true sports celebrity. In the process, he tells of a life overflowing with incident and a man who cut his own path through his times - a man we thought we knew but really didn't.
404 pages, Hardcover
First published May 12, 2015
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 374 reviews
May 16, 2021
"When Cobb is on first base and breaks for second, the best thing you can do, really, is to throw to third.", Hall of Fame catcher and manager Ray Schalk
This was a great read and dispelled a lot of the false realities I had about Ty Cobb. This book was not written to slam on the embellishing biographer Al Stump but his lies and fabricated material are exposed. Charles Leerhsen does an excellent job of telling Ty Cobb's story from his outlook on the game, his psychological and gutsy approach to baseball, and his personal life on and off the field. The accusation of the Baker spiking incident in 1909 was later recanted by Home Run Baker, but Ty's reputation was already set as a spiker.
Sometimes called "the winged-footed wonder" for his speed and knack for stealing bases, "Cobb was the roughest, toughest player I ever saw, a terror on the base paths...He was not dirty, though. I never saw him spike a player deliberately. But if you ever got in the way of his flying spikes, brother, you were a dead turkey." pg. 207
Ty Cobb's baseball and athletic ability has stood the test of time. Throughout his career he set 90 Major League Baseball records including batting average (.366), the second highest ranking all-time batter (4,191 hits), and #4 in all-time stolen bases (892). His career was exciting but as all ballpayers, his inevitable decline came after a 23 year career. He transitioned into a manager later in his career and left the game in 1928. I was surprised at how way off-base my thoughts were and how much I didn't know.
The book was well researched, written in a manner that made me want to keep reading, some occasional appropriately injected humor, and not boring by any means. Men like Ty Cobb have been perceived in a negative image and that sells—just read Al Stump's book or watch the 1994 Tommy Lee Jones film where material is flat out made up.
Great book and highly recommended for baseball fans! Thanks!
This was a great read and dispelled a lot of the false realities I had about Ty Cobb. This book was not written to slam on the embellishing biographer Al Stump but his lies and fabricated material are exposed. Charles Leerhsen does an excellent job of telling Ty Cobb's story from his outlook on the game, his psychological and gutsy approach to baseball, and his personal life on and off the field. The accusation of the Baker spiking incident in 1909 was later recanted by Home Run Baker, but Ty's reputation was already set as a spiker.
Cobb has nine styles of slides in his repertoire: the hook, the fade away, the straight-ahead, the short (or "swoop") slide ("which I invented because of my small ankles"), the headfirst (which he never completely abandoned), the Chicago slide (referred to him but never explained), the first base slide, the home plate slide, even one called the cuttlefish slide, so named because he purposely sprayed dirt with his spikes the way that cunning squidlike creature squirts ink. pg. 205
Sometimes called "the winged-footed wonder" for his speed and knack for stealing bases, "Cobb was the roughest, toughest player I ever saw, a terror on the base paths...He was not dirty, though. I never saw him spike a player deliberately. But if you ever got in the way of his flying spikes, brother, you were a dead turkey." pg. 207
Ty Cobb's baseball and athletic ability has stood the test of time. Throughout his career he set 90 Major League Baseball records including batting average (.366), the second highest ranking all-time batter (4,191 hits), and #4 in all-time stolen bases (892). His career was exciting but as all ballpayers, his inevitable decline came after a 23 year career. He transitioned into a manager later in his career and left the game in 1928. I was surprised at how way off-base my thoughts were and how much I didn't know.
The book was well researched, written in a manner that made me want to keep reading, some occasional appropriately injected humor, and not boring by any means. Men like Ty Cobb have been perceived in a negative image and that sells—just read Al Stump's book or watch the 1994 Tommy Lee Jones film where material is flat out made up.
Great book and highly recommended for baseball fans! Thanks!
April 10, 2019
Charles Leerhsen's biography of Detroit Tiger great Ty Cobb won a CASEY Award for being the best baseball book the year that it came out. After reading it, I do not understand why. From the moment this book begins, Leerhsen makes it clear that he is out to disprove and reject earlier biographies of Cobb, two in particular which he repeatedly singles out. Gradually it seemed that he was more interested in engaging in biographical sniping against earlier authors than he was in getting out Cobb's story. The result is that it reads as an over-correction, an almost hagiographic depiction of Cobb.
Leerhsen clearly believes that Cobb has been wrong by history, and he proceeds to bend over backwards at all times in an effort to paint the ornery ballplayer in the brightest shades possible. He repeatedly attacks a previous Cobb biography, written by Al Stump, as unfairly and inaccurately portraying Cobb as a mean Southern racist. I have not read Stump's book, so perhaps Leerhsen has some valid points. But, if you have to go out of your way to continually explain why someone is not something, after awhile don't you begin to think that maybe this guy – at least partially – was what you are saying he was not, after all? Some of his defense of Cobb is specious at best: that people look at where he was born (Georgia) and when (1886) and automatically conclude that he was a racist. Well, that probably is unfair to infer that just from those two facts. Just because someone is from Georgia, and was born in the late 1800s, does not at all make them a racist. At the same time, that doesn't mean the person wasn't a racist either. Those two basic facts are not enough to make a judgment either way. But Leehrsen uses them to say that, since they don't by themselves make Cobb a racist, then he was not a racist. I doubt it was as simple as that.
Leerhsen does written acrobatics throughout the book in a mostly unsuccessful attempt to paint Cobb as an innocent victim in many instances, and a victim of a unfair reputation in others. There is a dispute over whether or not Cobb was considered a “dirty” player during his time. I am not anywhere near an expert on Cobb, or on the deadball era of baseball. However, I have read enough to know that Cobb had just as many detractors as supporters when it came to his style of play. Some guys didn't a problem with his aggressive running of the basepaths, others did. Of course, we know which way Leerhsen goes. Cobb was a great player, but like everyone, a flawed human being. I truly am not sure why Leerhsen feels so compelled to make such an extensive case for him being wronged by history. This is someone (and he is not alone in this when you look at the time period) routinely got into it verbally and physically with fans, with several instances of him charging into the stands and beating people. At a bare minimum, Cobb had some anger management issues. More bluntly, I think he was a hot-headed jerk who was used to being coddled (Leerhsen actually does admit this) by Tigers owner Frank Navin, and would get upset at the smallest slight.
His writing style also bothers me. He continually peppers his narrative with references to people, places, or times that have nothing at all to do with Cobb. As an example, on page 64, he writes about Cobb playing for semipro club in Anniston, AL, “...a team I so wish I could tell you was called the Jennifers, but which in fact was known as the Steelers...”. It took me a moment to figure out what he was talking about: the actress Jennifer Anniston. Why is that line even in here? She doesn't have any relevance to Ty Cobb's life. There are other similar examples in the book – lines that have no business being added to begin with. I question where the editor was when something like this crossed the page.
About the only thing that Leerhsen convinced me of was not to read Stump's biography, and the autobiography that Stump ghostwrote for Cobb as he was dying. I think that Leerhsen struggles to smooth out the many rough edges of Cobb's prickly personality. For me, it is not convincing. I do not doubt that some of the common myths about Cobb are probably just that – things that may only contain a grain of truth. But he embarks on such a massive rehabilitation project of Cobb that, in the end, it feels forced and I ended the book thinking that I got one heavily-slanted version of Cobb's life. Ultimately, that isn't really what I want from a biography.
Grade: F
Leerhsen clearly believes that Cobb has been wrong by history, and he proceeds to bend over backwards at all times in an effort to paint the ornery ballplayer in the brightest shades possible. He repeatedly attacks a previous Cobb biography, written by Al Stump, as unfairly and inaccurately portraying Cobb as a mean Southern racist. I have not read Stump's book, so perhaps Leerhsen has some valid points. But, if you have to go out of your way to continually explain why someone is not something, after awhile don't you begin to think that maybe this guy – at least partially – was what you are saying he was not, after all? Some of his defense of Cobb is specious at best: that people look at where he was born (Georgia) and when (1886) and automatically conclude that he was a racist. Well, that probably is unfair to infer that just from those two facts. Just because someone is from Georgia, and was born in the late 1800s, does not at all make them a racist. At the same time, that doesn't mean the person wasn't a racist either. Those two basic facts are not enough to make a judgment either way. But Leehrsen uses them to say that, since they don't by themselves make Cobb a racist, then he was not a racist. I doubt it was as simple as that.
Leerhsen does written acrobatics throughout the book in a mostly unsuccessful attempt to paint Cobb as an innocent victim in many instances, and a victim of a unfair reputation in others. There is a dispute over whether or not Cobb was considered a “dirty” player during his time. I am not anywhere near an expert on Cobb, or on the deadball era of baseball. However, I have read enough to know that Cobb had just as many detractors as supporters when it came to his style of play. Some guys didn't a problem with his aggressive running of the basepaths, others did. Of course, we know which way Leerhsen goes. Cobb was a great player, but like everyone, a flawed human being. I truly am not sure why Leerhsen feels so compelled to make such an extensive case for him being wronged by history. This is someone (and he is not alone in this when you look at the time period) routinely got into it verbally and physically with fans, with several instances of him charging into the stands and beating people. At a bare minimum, Cobb had some anger management issues. More bluntly, I think he was a hot-headed jerk who was used to being coddled (Leerhsen actually does admit this) by Tigers owner Frank Navin, and would get upset at the smallest slight.
His writing style also bothers me. He continually peppers his narrative with references to people, places, or times that have nothing at all to do with Cobb. As an example, on page 64, he writes about Cobb playing for semipro club in Anniston, AL, “...a team I so wish I could tell you was called the Jennifers, but which in fact was known as the Steelers...”. It took me a moment to figure out what he was talking about: the actress Jennifer Anniston. Why is that line even in here? She doesn't have any relevance to Ty Cobb's life. There are other similar examples in the book – lines that have no business being added to begin with. I question where the editor was when something like this crossed the page.
About the only thing that Leerhsen convinced me of was not to read Stump's biography, and the autobiography that Stump ghostwrote for Cobb as he was dying. I think that Leerhsen struggles to smooth out the many rough edges of Cobb's prickly personality. For me, it is not convincing. I do not doubt that some of the common myths about Cobb are probably just that – things that may only contain a grain of truth. But he embarks on such a massive rehabilitation project of Cobb that, in the end, it feels forced and I ended the book thinking that I got one heavily-slanted version of Cobb's life. Ultimately, that isn't really what I want from a biography.
Grade: F
August 4, 2015
Like many students of baseball history, I had always admired Cobb the player but believed Cobb the person much less admirable. I assumed he was simply a man of his time and place who could not overcome being born in the Deep South during segregation nor perhaps a natural inclination towards misanthropy. Charles Leerhsen’s Ty Cobb: A Terrible Beauty has convinced that nearly everything I “knew” about Cobb was wrong.
Largely thanks to scholarship that emerged only at the very end of Cobb’s life (and interestingly, at odds with evidence from much earlier periods) his reputation is that of a miserable, friendless, racist lout. When his name is invoked today, it’s usually to denounce the hypocrisy of the Hall of Fame’s so-called “character clause” (“if the Hall really cared about character, they’d kick Cobb out”). Yet as Leerhsen notes this flies in the face of the simple fact that Cobb was not only in the very first Hall of Fame class, but received more votes than any other player including Babe Ruth, belying the notion that he was disliked by his contemporaries. African-Americans who personally knew him were quoted as saying they not only liked him, but loved him. So, where did the myth begin and why does it continue? An important part of A Terrible Beauty is helping us to understand how baseball has gotten a vital part of its own story so wrong.
Time and time again, Leerhsen peels back numerous myths and subjects them to painstaking scrutiny. He accepts nothing at face value. His judicious use of evidence leaves us a much better understanding of this complicated man who was the best player of baseball in its purest form. The Cobb that emerges in Leerhsen’s combination of biography, history and literature (for it is brilliantly written as well) is a fascinating contradiction. He was a man who exploited any perceived weakness on the ball field without a second thought. A fielder in what he (and other players of the era) considered his “right of way” on the base paths did so at the risk of significant injury. But the same Cobb would also plead for leniency for a man who had stolen his car and took great pains to answer his fan mail religiously with advice, signing autographs and mailing photos, even courteously thanking the writer for the honor of the request.
Leerhsen’s readers are also treated to a superb description of the era in which Cobb played (a vital aspect of his story given how different the game was prior to 1920 when runs were scarce and home runs almost non-existent). Cobb’s determination first to get on base (lifetime OBP of .433) and move along the base paths until he scored (second only to Ricky Henderson in lifetime runs) was unparalleled. He was a serious student of the game who lacked the natural gifts of a Joe Jackson, but compensated by intellect and intensity. His greatest satisfaction was solving the puzzles of the diamond, and outsmarting opponents.
Cobb was no saint. He got into his share of fights when his Southern sensibilities were aroused, but given what a rough and brutal age it was in general, and the behavior typical of the very blue collar class from which ball players generally emerged, he was not atypical of his generation in this regard. Leehsen’s mastery of the times in which Cobb lived is extraordinarily illuminating as no part of the Cobb myth is spared his careful appraisal. Given how manifestly incorrect our current perception of Ty Cobb is, then, this may be the most important baseball history book to have been published in years.
Largely thanks to scholarship that emerged only at the very end of Cobb’s life (and interestingly, at odds with evidence from much earlier periods) his reputation is that of a miserable, friendless, racist lout. When his name is invoked today, it’s usually to denounce the hypocrisy of the Hall of Fame’s so-called “character clause” (“if the Hall really cared about character, they’d kick Cobb out”). Yet as Leerhsen notes this flies in the face of the simple fact that Cobb was not only in the very first Hall of Fame class, but received more votes than any other player including Babe Ruth, belying the notion that he was disliked by his contemporaries. African-Americans who personally knew him were quoted as saying they not only liked him, but loved him. So, where did the myth begin and why does it continue? An important part of A Terrible Beauty is helping us to understand how baseball has gotten a vital part of its own story so wrong.
Time and time again, Leerhsen peels back numerous myths and subjects them to painstaking scrutiny. He accepts nothing at face value. His judicious use of evidence leaves us a much better understanding of this complicated man who was the best player of baseball in its purest form. The Cobb that emerges in Leerhsen’s combination of biography, history and literature (for it is brilliantly written as well) is a fascinating contradiction. He was a man who exploited any perceived weakness on the ball field without a second thought. A fielder in what he (and other players of the era) considered his “right of way” on the base paths did so at the risk of significant injury. But the same Cobb would also plead for leniency for a man who had stolen his car and took great pains to answer his fan mail religiously with advice, signing autographs and mailing photos, even courteously thanking the writer for the honor of the request.
Leerhsen’s readers are also treated to a superb description of the era in which Cobb played (a vital aspect of his story given how different the game was prior to 1920 when runs were scarce and home runs almost non-existent). Cobb’s determination first to get on base (lifetime OBP of .433) and move along the base paths until he scored (second only to Ricky Henderson in lifetime runs) was unparalleled. He was a serious student of the game who lacked the natural gifts of a Joe Jackson, but compensated by intellect and intensity. His greatest satisfaction was solving the puzzles of the diamond, and outsmarting opponents.
Cobb was no saint. He got into his share of fights when his Southern sensibilities were aroused, but given what a rough and brutal age it was in general, and the behavior typical of the very blue collar class from which ball players generally emerged, he was not atypical of his generation in this regard. Leehsen’s mastery of the times in which Cobb lived is extraordinarily illuminating as no part of the Cobb myth is spared his careful appraisal. Given how manifestly incorrect our current perception of Ty Cobb is, then, this may be the most important baseball history book to have been published in years.
November 20, 2023
Charles Leerhsen destroys the myths about Ty Cobb and presents a fuller picture of a complex man.
To start with: He didn’t sharpen his spikes so he could intimidate and injure other players. He wasn’t universally hated. He wasn’t a maniac or a sociopath. He wasn’t dumb or ignorant. It’s not true that only 3 people wanted to attend his funeral. And charges of his racism are grossly exaggerated.
Leerhsen clearly lays out how these myths developed, and why they are false. It’s an incredibly valuable book that sheds a lot of light. Some people think he went too far in exonerating Cobb, but I think almost everyone would agree that this book adds a ton of insight.
The Real Ty Cobb
So what was he really like? He was a fierce competitor with a short temper. But his competitors did not consider him a dirty player, and many actually liked him. Some disliked him, including some of his own teammates. He was a difficult person to get along with.
He was an innovator. He developed his own unique approach to hitting, that allowed for fewer strikeouts and more bat control – perfect for the style of play of his time. He ran the bases like no one else, always seeking a chance to get an extra base and inventing new ways to slide to evade tags. I was surprised to learn he wasn’t regarded as especially fast, and he didn’t regard himself that way. He attributed his baserunning success to being smart, attentive, and aggressive.
He also had an intellectual side. He read Les Miserables multiple times (I couldn’t make it through that book!) and studied baseball like a science.
Wasn’t he a Racist?
Perhaps the most controversial claim of Leerhsen is that he doesn’t find any evidence of him being a racist. Leerhsen demonstrates that most of the stories about Cobb’s racism are made up, or at least not proven to be accurate. For instance, some of the fights he got into were retold with the adversary falsely changed to being a black man with Cobb making racist remarks during the incident.
In terms of the hard facts of his views on race, Cobb made comments supportive of integration in 1952 and there are lots of anecdotes of him acting kindly towards blacks.
But it’s also a fact that several of Cobb’s fights were with someone who was black. Leerhsen makes a persuasive case that these incidents didn’t have a racial element, and that Cobb would have reacted similarly to a white person in the same situation.
it’s not unreasonable to suppose that there was a racial element there, where he acted with hostility because he saw a black person that didn’t act with servility. This is the position Joe Posnanski takes in his marvelous book The Baseball 100. Posnanski generally lauds Leerhsen’s work but finds his treatment of Cobb’s racism unpersuasive. Posnanski also notes that his supportive comments about integration come in 1952, when the train was already on the tracks and it was clear there was no going back.
Ultimately I think I’d side with Leerhsen. It just seems too speculative to try to guess what was in Cobb’s heart. All you can really go on is how he acted. And he seemed like an equal opportunity asshole.
… Such an Asshole
There are so many stories of him flying off the handle for what seem like minor incidents. He brought a gun to a grocery store to confront a butcher who wouldn’t exchange spoiled meat. He erupted at and assaulted a man asking him not to walk over freshly laid asphalt. He fought a groundskeeper because he jokingly called him “Carrie” (after Carrie Nation, since Cobb had scolded the groundskeeper for drinking). There are many more such stories.
Even if you exonerate Cobb from the charge of racism, the frequently violent behavior is disturbing. Often this would be with people at a physical disadvantage to him, so it was really just bullying and assault.
I think Leerhsen would think of Cobb as more of a man of his times. One of my favorite parts of the book was when he describes how violent society was in the early 1900’s. Fights were extremely common. There were “black eye repair establishments” where you could pay ten cents to have makeup put over your bruises and black eyes, as it was incredibly common to get in fights. But I think even taking into account the times, Cobb was a particularly violent person.
Final Notes
I got too carried away with a couple pet topics that I don’t have time to talk about other highlights. Read this book if you would be interested in learning about: the tragic story of his mom shooting his Dad, the ruthless hazing Cobb endured as a rookie, examples of remarkable things he did on the field to take over a game, the crazy and scandalous 1910 Batting Title race, and his interactions with Babe Ruth. The book was a lot of fun.
To start with: He didn’t sharpen his spikes so he could intimidate and injure other players. He wasn’t universally hated. He wasn’t a maniac or a sociopath. He wasn’t dumb or ignorant. It’s not true that only 3 people wanted to attend his funeral. And charges of his racism are grossly exaggerated.
Leerhsen clearly lays out how these myths developed, and why they are false. It’s an incredibly valuable book that sheds a lot of light. Some people think he went too far in exonerating Cobb, but I think almost everyone would agree that this book adds a ton of insight.
The Real Ty Cobb
So what was he really like? He was a fierce competitor with a short temper. But his competitors did not consider him a dirty player, and many actually liked him. Some disliked him, including some of his own teammates. He was a difficult person to get along with.
He was an innovator. He developed his own unique approach to hitting, that allowed for fewer strikeouts and more bat control – perfect for the style of play of his time. He ran the bases like no one else, always seeking a chance to get an extra base and inventing new ways to slide to evade tags. I was surprised to learn he wasn’t regarded as especially fast, and he didn’t regard himself that way. He attributed his baserunning success to being smart, attentive, and aggressive.
He also had an intellectual side. He read Les Miserables multiple times (I couldn’t make it through that book!) and studied baseball like a science.
Wasn’t he a Racist?
Perhaps the most controversial claim of Leerhsen is that he doesn’t find any evidence of him being a racist. Leerhsen demonstrates that most of the stories about Cobb’s racism are made up, or at least not proven to be accurate. For instance, some of the fights he got into were retold with the adversary falsely changed to being a black man with Cobb making racist remarks during the incident.
In terms of the hard facts of his views on race, Cobb made comments supportive of integration in 1952 and there are lots of anecdotes of him acting kindly towards blacks.
But it’s also a fact that several of Cobb’s fights were with someone who was black. Leerhsen makes a persuasive case that these incidents didn’t have a racial element, and that Cobb would have reacted similarly to a white person in the same situation.
it’s not unreasonable to suppose that there was a racial element there, where he acted with hostility because he saw a black person that didn’t act with servility. This is the position Joe Posnanski takes in his marvelous book The Baseball 100. Posnanski generally lauds Leerhsen’s work but finds his treatment of Cobb’s racism unpersuasive. Posnanski also notes that his supportive comments about integration come in 1952, when the train was already on the tracks and it was clear there was no going back.
Ultimately I think I’d side with Leerhsen. It just seems too speculative to try to guess what was in Cobb’s heart. All you can really go on is how he acted. And he seemed like an equal opportunity asshole.
… Such an Asshole
There are so many stories of him flying off the handle for what seem like minor incidents. He brought a gun to a grocery store to confront a butcher who wouldn’t exchange spoiled meat. He erupted at and assaulted a man asking him not to walk over freshly laid asphalt. He fought a groundskeeper because he jokingly called him “Carrie” (after Carrie Nation, since Cobb had scolded the groundskeeper for drinking). There are many more such stories.
Even if you exonerate Cobb from the charge of racism, the frequently violent behavior is disturbing. Often this would be with people at a physical disadvantage to him, so it was really just bullying and assault.
I think Leerhsen would think of Cobb as more of a man of his times. One of my favorite parts of the book was when he describes how violent society was in the early 1900’s. Fights were extremely common. There were “black eye repair establishments” where you could pay ten cents to have makeup put over your bruises and black eyes, as it was incredibly common to get in fights. But I think even taking into account the times, Cobb was a particularly violent person.
Final Notes
I got too carried away with a couple pet topics that I don’t have time to talk about other highlights. Read this book if you would be interested in learning about: the tragic story of his mom shooting his Dad, the ruthless hazing Cobb endured as a rookie, examples of remarkable things he did on the field to take over a game, the crazy and scandalous 1910 Batting Title race, and his interactions with Babe Ruth. The book was a lot of fun.
June 24, 2017
A fantastic sports read about one of the two or three greatest baseball players of all time. This book on Ty Cobb sets the record straight about the man and ballplayer. It dispels the awful myths that have been around since the Al Stump book back in 1961 and which were further solidified in the publics mind after the fine performance by Tommy Lee Jones in the movie Cobb. Unfortunately neither the book nor the movie got it right and there are so many inaccuracies that it shameful.
Here Charles Leerhsen used extensive research to write a true story of Ty Cobb, a story that does have violent acts by Cobb - but which points out the status of the game of Baseball at the time when many players attacked heckling fans, and umpires. It is a totally amazing researched effort by the author and anyone who reads this will certainly view Ty Cobb in a much different light.
Please, please, please, will some major studio please make the true movie about Ty Cobb based on the real man!
Here Charles Leerhsen used extensive research to write a true story of Ty Cobb, a story that does have violent acts by Cobb - but which points out the status of the game of Baseball at the time when many players attacked heckling fans, and umpires. It is a totally amazing researched effort by the author and anyone who reads this will certainly view Ty Cobb in a much different light.
Please, please, please, will some major studio please make the true movie about Ty Cobb based on the real man!
March 5, 2022
2021-10-20 Finished this a couple weeks ago. Really neat book.
I highlighted many parts and made lots of notes. Soon as I have time to sort through them and my thoughts, I'll be back to write my review. But in the mean-time, I highly recommend it. Especially if you care about:
- Baseball
- great historical figures and accuracy/truth
- racism and racists
2021-09-25 Read reviews of this book when it came out a few years ago and knew I wanted to read the full book, but did not have time. Finally got it and started it yesterday. VERY good. Debunks the dreadful myths/slanders about Ty Cobb, probably the greatest baseball player of all time. Very realistic & reasonable so far. Does not cover up Cobb's negative traits/actions - note the subtitle of the book itself.
I'm really liking the author's perspective, reasonableness, attention to detail, writing style and just overall a good read and hugely needed antidote to all the lies, myths, sloppiness, etc. about Cobb.
More to come, since I am only about 10% into it so far.
I highlighted many parts and made lots of notes. Soon as I have time to sort through them and my thoughts, I'll be back to write my review. But in the mean-time, I highly recommend it. Especially if you care about:
- Baseball
- great historical figures and accuracy/truth
- racism and racists
2021-09-25 Read reviews of this book when it came out a few years ago and knew I wanted to read the full book, but did not have time. Finally got it and started it yesterday. VERY good. Debunks the dreadful myths/slanders about Ty Cobb, probably the greatest baseball player of all time. Very realistic & reasonable so far. Does not cover up Cobb's negative traits/actions - note the subtitle of the book itself.
I'm really liking the author's perspective, reasonableness, attention to detail, writing style and just overall a good read and hugely needed antidote to all the lies, myths, sloppiness, etc. about Cobb.
More to come, since I am only about 10% into it so far.
December 31, 2018
Ty Cobb A Terrible Beauty, written by Charles Leerhsen and published in 2015, is a colorful and well balanced biography. There is a heavy emphasis on setting the record straight on Cobb’s life. Several scandalous and tabloid quality books have been written about him with many incidents that were largely made up. There was an attempt to enhance a narrative that Cobb was psychotic, a racist, a womanizer and a man who liked to hurt people. In the view of Leerhsen, who spends dozens of pages addressing the myths, the movie ‘Cobb’ starring Tommie Lee Jones and the bio ‘My Life in Baseball’ by Al Stump were largely made up and intentionally portrayed Cobb in the worst light possible.
Ty Cobb was one of the greatest who played baseball. He was one of only five players inducted into the inaugural Hall of Fame class of 1939. He received more votes than anyone including Babe Ruth, proof that he wielded an enormous amount of respect from players and writers. More than one hundred years later, he still holds many MLB hitting records including the highest career batting average.
But in addition to the interesting statistical minutiae of Ty Cobb’s career, this book is also about the enigma of the man. The irrefutable competitive nature of the man, his willingness to pummel fans who incessantly harangued him, his impatience with family and teammates who did not measure up, his excessive focus on money, his father’s tragedy and the tragedies of his two sons all make for a very interesting American biography.
So this book excels in many areas.
1. The author does an impeccable job researching Cobb in a balanced manner. In some cases like the mystery surrounding his father’s gruesome death we will never know with certainty what happened and this the author acknowledges.
2. The author is on a mission to seek the truth so the book spends many cycles on dispelling myths but this book is by no means a paean to Ty Cobb. There are many regrettable incidents perpetrated by Cobb that are documented in this biography.
3. The author, who is a journalism professor, often exhibits writing that is colorful and interesting. There is no academic feel to this book and it is written for the masses.
There are two areas where I felt that this biography could have been better.
1. There is a lot of informal writing and interjections in this book that are not typical of most biographies or at least characteristic of the best biographers.
2. The organization of the book could have been better. The author struggled to insert the family situations, which were sparse, into the year by year seasonal baseball narrative. For example there was little follow up on his mother’s imprisonment and her case pending the murder investigation around his father’s death. This lack of chronological follow up would be caught by a strong editor or editing team.
Not a typical biography but very glad that I read it for the reasons mentioned above.
Four stars.
Ty Cobb was one of the greatest who played baseball. He was one of only five players inducted into the inaugural Hall of Fame class of 1939. He received more votes than anyone including Babe Ruth, proof that he wielded an enormous amount of respect from players and writers. More than one hundred years later, he still holds many MLB hitting records including the highest career batting average.
But in addition to the interesting statistical minutiae of Ty Cobb’s career, this book is also about the enigma of the man. The irrefutable competitive nature of the man, his willingness to pummel fans who incessantly harangued him, his impatience with family and teammates who did not measure up, his excessive focus on money, his father’s tragedy and the tragedies of his two sons all make for a very interesting American biography.
So this book excels in many areas.
1. The author does an impeccable job researching Cobb in a balanced manner. In some cases like the mystery surrounding his father’s gruesome death we will never know with certainty what happened and this the author acknowledges.
2. The author is on a mission to seek the truth so the book spends many cycles on dispelling myths but this book is by no means a paean to Ty Cobb. There are many regrettable incidents perpetrated by Cobb that are documented in this biography.
3. The author, who is a journalism professor, often exhibits writing that is colorful and interesting. There is no academic feel to this book and it is written for the masses.
There are two areas where I felt that this biography could have been better.
1. There is a lot of informal writing and interjections in this book that are not typical of most biographies or at least characteristic of the best biographers.
2. The organization of the book could have been better. The author struggled to insert the family situations, which were sparse, into the year by year seasonal baseball narrative. For example there was little follow up on his mother’s imprisonment and her case pending the murder investigation around his father’s death. This lack of chronological follow up would be caught by a strong editor or editing team.
Not a typical biography but very glad that I read it for the reasons mentioned above.
Four stars.
May 31, 2015
Baseball is a game that relies on, leans on, its apocrypha to tell the history of the game and its players, which is curious when one thinks about it, because baseball is also inextricably tied to statistics and record-keeping. Damn near everything I had ever been told about Ty Cobb; that he was a violent, racist, dyspeptic, spike-sharpening, drug addicted criminal, is blown away by the work and research Charles Leerhsen did in writing this book.
I'm a deep fan, not just of the game of baseball, but also of its history, and the opportunity to read the revelations in Ty Cobb: A Terrible Beauty, felt like a gift to me. Leerhsen has a lilting prose style that charms and engages the reader, even as he disputes and dispels case after case in which Cobb has been erroneously slandered or miscast in history and other accounts of his life. This is a must read for true fans of the game.
I'm a deep fan, not just of the game of baseball, but also of its history, and the opportunity to read the revelations in Ty Cobb: A Terrible Beauty, felt like a gift to me. Leerhsen has a lilting prose style that charms and engages the reader, even as he disputes and dispels case after case in which Cobb has been erroneously slandered or miscast in history and other accounts of his life. This is a must read for true fans of the game.
December 1, 2015
First, the good parts: Leerhsen in "A Terrible Beauty" does an incredible job tearing apart what anyone who follows baseball has thought they've known about Ty Cobb. It's been repeated so often, no one has even thought for decades to question that Cobb was a violent racist, one of the worst human beings to be so good at the game of baseball -- a single-man case study in why the Hall of Fame's character clause should not be taken seriously in modern-day debates over whether to induct known and suspected PED users. Forget it, Leerhsen persuasively argues: Cobb was indeed violent, even more violent than many peers in a decidedly more violent time, but not to a degree that should earn him the scorn of modern fans. Contrary to popular belief, there is no evidence Cobb ever killed anyone, that he sharpened his spikes to slice open opposing fielders on the basepaths or, most impostant, that he was a racist. Perhaps Leerhsen's most valuable contribution is showing that Cobb's interactions with African Americans were overwhelmingly positive (not unanimously so, which is how the reputation of racism was formed) -- remarkably so given his heritage as a small-town Georgian born in the 1880s. Leerhsen doesn't just tear down the received tradition, he shows how that tradition grew in the first place, and he places Cobb in the fascinating context of early-20th-century baseball. Anyone who likes baseball will enjoy this biography.
But I enjoyed it in spite of, rather than because of, the writing. Leerhsen interjects himself too often into the narrative, especially when he throws in pop-culture analogies and one-liners that are already growing stale and will be all but indecipherable 10 years from now. His meandering style detracts from the story he tells; at one point, he has to tall the readers, "This is not a digression because ...". Let's all agree that if you need to write that sentence, you need to rewrite your chapter.
I also was frustrated constantly by Leerhsen's aversion to using all of the tools at his disposal to truly describe Cobb's greatness. His reliance exclusively on batting average to tell the tale of Cobb's offensive exploits statistically gives short shrift to a player who led the league in on-base percentage seven times and in 1915 reached base an astounding 49 percent of the time (Leerhsen recycles the old, inaccurate chestnut that "even the best players make an out two-thirds of the time," which has never been true, and was especially untrue of Cobb, who reached base more than 43 percent of the time in his career). And OPS? Forget about it. Never mind that Cobb posted an OPS double the league average when account for ballpark effects over an incredible nine-year span. For all Leerhsen's talk about Cobb mastering the art of bunting, slapping the base hit and running the bases, he never mentions that Cobb led the league in slugging percentage eight times, or that he retired as the all-time MLB leader in extra-base hits. Leerhsen does a good job of describing why and how Cobb changed baseball with his scrappy and highly intelligent style of play, but he barely takes any time to quantify the results. In a sport that has always been viewed by its fans through the prism of numbers -- and which continues to expand its statistical vocabulary, Leerham is stuck with Cobb in the 1910s rather than bringing Cobb's greatness into the 2010s, where it still ranks among the best -- second in all-time Wins Above Replacement to Babe Ruth, and closer to Ruth than third-place Barry Bonds is to Cobb. For all that, Leerhsen does manage several times to cite Cobb's RBI total, which is essentially meaningless as a measure of individual greatness, requiring as it does players to be on base in order to drive them in.
As a result of the distracting prose and the inexcusable statistical illiteracy, I can only give "A Terrible Beauty" three stars, despite the five-star work it performs in rehabilitating the unjustly slandered Ty Cobb. I liked it, but it could have been so much better.
But I enjoyed it in spite of, rather than because of, the writing. Leerhsen interjects himself too often into the narrative, especially when he throws in pop-culture analogies and one-liners that are already growing stale and will be all but indecipherable 10 years from now. His meandering style detracts from the story he tells; at one point, he has to tall the readers, "This is not a digression because ...". Let's all agree that if you need to write that sentence, you need to rewrite your chapter.
I also was frustrated constantly by Leerhsen's aversion to using all of the tools at his disposal to truly describe Cobb's greatness. His reliance exclusively on batting average to tell the tale of Cobb's offensive exploits statistically gives short shrift to a player who led the league in on-base percentage seven times and in 1915 reached base an astounding 49 percent of the time (Leerhsen recycles the old, inaccurate chestnut that "even the best players make an out two-thirds of the time," which has never been true, and was especially untrue of Cobb, who reached base more than 43 percent of the time in his career). And OPS? Forget about it. Never mind that Cobb posted an OPS double the league average when account for ballpark effects over an incredible nine-year span. For all Leerhsen's talk about Cobb mastering the art of bunting, slapping the base hit and running the bases, he never mentions that Cobb led the league in slugging percentage eight times, or that he retired as the all-time MLB leader in extra-base hits. Leerhsen does a good job of describing why and how Cobb changed baseball with his scrappy and highly intelligent style of play, but he barely takes any time to quantify the results. In a sport that has always been viewed by its fans through the prism of numbers -- and which continues to expand its statistical vocabulary, Leerham is stuck with Cobb in the 1910s rather than bringing Cobb's greatness into the 2010s, where it still ranks among the best -- second in all-time Wins Above Replacement to Babe Ruth, and closer to Ruth than third-place Barry Bonds is to Cobb. For all that, Leerhsen does manage several times to cite Cobb's RBI total, which is essentially meaningless as a measure of individual greatness, requiring as it does players to be on base in order to drive them in.
As a result of the distracting prose and the inexcusable statistical illiteracy, I can only give "A Terrible Beauty" three stars, despite the five-star work it performs in rehabilitating the unjustly slandered Ty Cobb. I liked it, but it could have been so much better.
June 27, 2015
Ty Cobb will always be my all-time favorite baseball player. There will never be another one like him. This book takes all the myths, all the stories and all the nonsense you've heard about Cobb and tries to set the record straight. He wasn't a racist or a spikes sharpening maniac who set out to hurt anyone who didn't look like or act like him. He did, however, expect ballplayers to keep their head in the game and train hard and play harder. He had no patience for incompetence and expected everyone to give all they had in every endeavor.
February 21, 2022
My impressions of Cobb were largely the result of that awful Tommy Lee Jones movie about Cobb, where Cobb was portrayed as baseball’s Ebenezer Scrooge of the Jim Crow south. The movie was written by Al Stump, played by the affable comedian Robert Wuhl. That was stacking the deck. It wasn’t until I read Cobb’s 1914 book Busting 'em and Other Big League Stories that I started to have doubts about the conventional wisdom. Charles Leerhsen is here to confirm those doubts with a thoughtfully researched and fair biography that glosses over none of Cobb’s faults while calling out the distortions that have become legend. The book is a service to the history of baseball, but it’s also a well written and entertaining biography. Leerhsen has written what I believe to be the definitive portrait of Cobb. It would be noble deed for Ron Shelton to make this book into a movie too.
Q: Was Ty Cobb hated by the rest of baseball as depicted in Field of Dreams?
A: No. He was hazed as a young player and his success led to jealousy. His fights on the field rarely carried over to his personal dealings. People like Home Run Baker and Connie Mack said awful things about him at times and then both became close friends with Cobb later. He resented Ruth’s attention as a long ball hitter and yet they often golfed together in retirement. When Shoeless Joe Jackson was persona non grata in baseball, Cobb would be quick to remind everyone that he was maybe the greatest hitter of his day. He even helped Joe DiMaggio negotiate his first contract with the New York Yankees.
Q: But Cobb was a violent psychopath, right?
A: Cobb had a hair-trigger temper, and he went into the stands twice to fight hecklers. He also fought players in the field of play and people that showed disrespect outside of the ballpark. Other ballplayers did this too. There is little evidence that he sought out violence.
Q: What about Cobb sharpening his spikes to hurt opposing players?
A: That’s a myth never substantiated in contemporary accounts and denied by other players in the league.
Q: Alright, but Cobb was still an unreconstructed segregationist southerner.
A: That is largely the work of Al Stump who took stories of Cobb fighting white men and changed their race to give the wrong impression. Cobb is on record throughout the 1950s welcoming Jackie Robinson and integration of baseball.
Q: Then if all of that is true why did the myths stick?
A: Because the myths were exciting, and Al Stump made more money with Cobb as a heel rather than a mostly complex yet overall boring man outside of his play on the field.
Q: When will the pope acknowledge Cobb’s saintliness?
A; Leerhesen doesn’t make Cobb out to be anything but a typical hardscrabble player in hardscrabble times. He was someone like a David Wells or Lenny Dykstra when those kinds of players were common rather than throwbacks. The difference is that Cobb was a gentleman off the field, something that very few players of his time were.
Q: Then why should I read the book if Cobb was boring and you ruined the mystery?
A: Because Cobb isn't boring in Charles Leerhsen's portrayal. He's actually much more complex than the cartoon image painted by Stump. And Leerhsen is writer of greater talent than you find in most sports biographies.
Q: Was Ty Cobb hated by the rest of baseball as depicted in Field of Dreams?
A: No. He was hazed as a young player and his success led to jealousy. His fights on the field rarely carried over to his personal dealings. People like Home Run Baker and Connie Mack said awful things about him at times and then both became close friends with Cobb later. He resented Ruth’s attention as a long ball hitter and yet they often golfed together in retirement. When Shoeless Joe Jackson was persona non grata in baseball, Cobb would be quick to remind everyone that he was maybe the greatest hitter of his day. He even helped Joe DiMaggio negotiate his first contract with the New York Yankees.
Q: But Cobb was a violent psychopath, right?
A: Cobb had a hair-trigger temper, and he went into the stands twice to fight hecklers. He also fought players in the field of play and people that showed disrespect outside of the ballpark. Other ballplayers did this too. There is little evidence that he sought out violence.
Q: What about Cobb sharpening his spikes to hurt opposing players?
A: That’s a myth never substantiated in contemporary accounts and denied by other players in the league.
Q: Alright, but Cobb was still an unreconstructed segregationist southerner.
A: That is largely the work of Al Stump who took stories of Cobb fighting white men and changed their race to give the wrong impression. Cobb is on record throughout the 1950s welcoming Jackie Robinson and integration of baseball.
Q: Then if all of that is true why did the myths stick?
A: Because the myths were exciting, and Al Stump made more money with Cobb as a heel rather than a mostly complex yet overall boring man outside of his play on the field.
Q: When will the pope acknowledge Cobb’s saintliness?
A; Leerhesen doesn’t make Cobb out to be anything but a typical hardscrabble player in hardscrabble times. He was someone like a David Wells or Lenny Dykstra when those kinds of players were common rather than throwbacks. The difference is that Cobb was a gentleman off the field, something that very few players of his time were.
Q: Then why should I read the book if Cobb was boring and you ruined the mystery?
A: Because Cobb isn't boring in Charles Leerhsen's portrayal. He's actually much more complex than the cartoon image painted by Stump. And Leerhsen is writer of greater talent than you find in most sports biographies.
November 20, 2015
Poignant, thoroughly researched biography of a very misunderstood and ridiculously talented baseball player. This book also gives a fascinating glimpse into the deadball era, where fistfights among players and fans, players and umpires, players and players were commonplace...where players walked off the field in the middle of a game if they didn't agree with the call, where hazing the newbies was potentially deadly (both physically and emotionally). And as a fan of the Detroit Tigers, the birth and growth of the team and its players was very interesting. I'd say this is required reading for any fan of Ty Cobb, the Tigers, or baseball in general.
July 15, 2015
Baseball great Ty Cobb never needed much help on the baseball field. This name from a century ago is all over the record book, as he is one of the great hitters and base stealers in history.
What he needed was someone who knew something about public relations and marketing. Somewhere along the way, it became accepted that Cobb was a racist madman who skirted the edge of the rules while compiling such an incredible record.
Author Charles Leerhsen investigated the facts extensively for his new book, "Ty Cobb - A Terrible Beauty." It turns out that Leerhsen is just about as much of a game-changer as Cobb was in his time.
Cobb was raised in Royston, Georgia. His father was William Herschel Cobb, an educator and politician who seems to be an intelligent, rational man and who tried to make sure his family followed the same paths. You can guess his reaction when Cobb announced that he wanted to try his hand at playing baseball for a living. But Ty did it anyway, and stayed with it even though early in his career he heard that news that his mother had shot and killed his father, believing that he was an intruder lurking outside the house.
Cobb always said that the incident drove him for his baseball career, and he did play a certain amount of fire at all times. There were fights and feuds along the way, but these weren't uncommon. In fact, Leerhsen does some of his best work in describing what baseball was like in the first two decades of the 20th century - a time that was not for the faint of heart. Educated players were a rarity at that point, and gambling and hazing surrounded the game. As for baseball itself, it was the so-called "dead ball era," when runs were hard to find. Cobb was a perfect fit for that time, ripping line drives to all fields. Then when he was on base, he drove fielders to distraction as he presented a constant threat to catch the opposition by surprise. But the author couldn't find any evidence that Cobb was a dirty player, the sort who filed his spikes before a game in order to inflict more damage to opponents. Put it this way - it's easy to understand why he was such an attraction.
By the time the 1920s arrived, Babe Ruth had turned baseball into a slugging contest. Cobb was player/manager of the Tigers for a few years, was involved in a vague betting scandal that also affected Hall of Famer Tris Speaker, and ended his career in Philadelphia. His place in history was assured, to the point where he received more votes for the initial Hall of Fame class than Ruth - which pleased Cobb throughout his life.
It's easy to stereotype someone coming out of rural Georgia in the early 1900s as a racist, and Cobb picked up that reputation along the way. Yet there are no signs of that here. Cobb defended Jackie Robinson's right to be a big leaguer, and apparently had good relations with blacks from childhood on. He was fierce when it came to defending himself and opinions, a smart man who didn't suffer fools easily. The picture Leehsen paints of Cobb is more complete and nuanced, and more interesting than we could have imagined.
The only minor complaint that could be made here is that the book qualifies as "revisionist history" and the author isn't subtle about pointing that out. There are a couple of relatively famous books about Cobb that have been printed in the past, and Leehsen found them after investigation to be full of inaccuracies. He points them out with a certain amount of, well, glee. That can be a little uncomfortable to read. But it's probably necessary, since the point of the book is to change minds.
And "Ty Cobb - A Terrible Beauty" does exactly that. Our perception of one of the top 20 baseball players in history, and that might be too liberal an estimate, moves a bit with publication of this book. That makes it more than just another biography; it's almost a public service.
What he needed was someone who knew something about public relations and marketing. Somewhere along the way, it became accepted that Cobb was a racist madman who skirted the edge of the rules while compiling such an incredible record.
Author Charles Leerhsen investigated the facts extensively for his new book, "Ty Cobb - A Terrible Beauty." It turns out that Leerhsen is just about as much of a game-changer as Cobb was in his time.
Cobb was raised in Royston, Georgia. His father was William Herschel Cobb, an educator and politician who seems to be an intelligent, rational man and who tried to make sure his family followed the same paths. You can guess his reaction when Cobb announced that he wanted to try his hand at playing baseball for a living. But Ty did it anyway, and stayed with it even though early in his career he heard that news that his mother had shot and killed his father, believing that he was an intruder lurking outside the house.
Cobb always said that the incident drove him for his baseball career, and he did play a certain amount of fire at all times. There were fights and feuds along the way, but these weren't uncommon. In fact, Leerhsen does some of his best work in describing what baseball was like in the first two decades of the 20th century - a time that was not for the faint of heart. Educated players were a rarity at that point, and gambling and hazing surrounded the game. As for baseball itself, it was the so-called "dead ball era," when runs were hard to find. Cobb was a perfect fit for that time, ripping line drives to all fields. Then when he was on base, he drove fielders to distraction as he presented a constant threat to catch the opposition by surprise. But the author couldn't find any evidence that Cobb was a dirty player, the sort who filed his spikes before a game in order to inflict more damage to opponents. Put it this way - it's easy to understand why he was such an attraction.
By the time the 1920s arrived, Babe Ruth had turned baseball into a slugging contest. Cobb was player/manager of the Tigers for a few years, was involved in a vague betting scandal that also affected Hall of Famer Tris Speaker, and ended his career in Philadelphia. His place in history was assured, to the point where he received more votes for the initial Hall of Fame class than Ruth - which pleased Cobb throughout his life.
It's easy to stereotype someone coming out of rural Georgia in the early 1900s as a racist, and Cobb picked up that reputation along the way. Yet there are no signs of that here. Cobb defended Jackie Robinson's right to be a big leaguer, and apparently had good relations with blacks from childhood on. He was fierce when it came to defending himself and opinions, a smart man who didn't suffer fools easily. The picture Leehsen paints of Cobb is more complete and nuanced, and more interesting than we could have imagined.
The only minor complaint that could be made here is that the book qualifies as "revisionist history" and the author isn't subtle about pointing that out. There are a couple of relatively famous books about Cobb that have been printed in the past, and Leehsen found them after investigation to be full of inaccuracies. He points them out with a certain amount of, well, glee. That can be a little uncomfortable to read. But it's probably necessary, since the point of the book is to change minds.
And "Ty Cobb - A Terrible Beauty" does exactly that. Our perception of one of the top 20 baseball players in history, and that might be too liberal an estimate, moves a bit with publication of this book. That makes it more than just another biography; it's almost a public service.
August 3, 2015
If what Leerhsen writes in this book is true, it may be a very important book. To quote baseball netizen Andy Morsund, "It ... corrects many of the myths about Cobb that were perpetrated by Al Stump and the Tommy Lee Jones movie, and partly reinforced by Charles Alexander's bio, and not just about Cobb's racial attitudes." The book has a great screenplay,but the cinematography is subpar.
Ty Cobb: A Terrible Beauty is written in a sometimes irritating style where Leerhsen occasionally breaks the fourth wall and includes many flavors of slang from modern terms like "frenemy" to the sportwriterese of 100 years ago. As a spice, this is okay; but, it isn't okay if the author uses this as a main ingredient. It can be hard to lose yourself in a book like this because the writing reminds you that you are reading a book. Thus, it seems to drag on a little too long.
3 stars, but it has some 4 star aspects and some 2 star aspects. A Terrible Beauty also made me ask myself, "If what we 'know' about Cobb isn't true, are there other things that we know, which aren't true either?"
Ty Cobb: A Terrible Beauty is written in a sometimes irritating style where Leerhsen occasionally breaks the fourth wall and includes many flavors of slang from modern terms like "frenemy" to the sportwriterese of 100 years ago. As a spice, this is okay; but, it isn't okay if the author uses this as a main ingredient. It can be hard to lose yourself in a book like this because the writing reminds you that you are reading a book. Thus, it seems to drag on a little too long.
3 stars, but it has some 4 star aspects and some 2 star aspects. A Terrible Beauty also made me ask myself, "If what we 'know' about Cobb isn't true, are there other things that we know, which aren't true either?"
July 23, 2015
Very enlightening on a few facts about Ty that i did not know. This book shows another side to the man and the legend he was. I also enjoyed the pictures that were added in the book. I think anyone that is a Tigers fan would love this book. Or anyone interested in the history of baseball. It was well put together and gave you alot of facts.
January 22, 2016
What a great book. So glad I read this blew the horrible rumors from al stumps book away. He was a real person with warts. It was no where near as bad as people believe. He is still the best ball player I have ever heard about what he did was amazing
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
August 1, 2018
This book is in a style for those that enjoy the combined history, storyteller, and fact checker approach. The dead ball era of this history was simply an amazing read and the author Charles Leerhsen brought this era to life within these pages. The many reported upon stories of games that ended in ties because it was too dark to see the ball put a smile thought on my face as I passed through the pages. Ty Cobb certainly studied, continuously reviewed, and ultimately knew the mechanics of baseball in order to win as the competitor he was. Home runs are fun but even today seeing a team stick to the basics of getting on base, catchers ill-timed approach of throws to 2nd from the plate in the hopes of catching a runner stealing the bag, or watching a bunt force an infielder in such a contorted manner to throw the ball to 1st to only miss is where real excitement occurs. Ty Cobb did all of this and at times would slide into 1st base or force his bunt to allow him to block the view of the ball as he headed into 1st base – hilarious! Cobb was elected to the Hall of Fame by the BBWAA with 222 votes, Babe Ruth and Honus Wagoner tied with 215, Christy Mathewson with 205, and Walter Johnson received 189. Also inducted were Connie Mack and Cy Young. When one looks at the first induction ceremony held in 1939 in Cooperstown, Connie Mack is sitting between the Babe and Cy Young – Cobb was late and didn’t’ make the photo op; Connie stated that “Cobb likely thought this was Spring Training.” Cobb was normally late to every Spring Training Camp but to his credit he had his own work out regimen that incorporated hunting and fishing in the off-season. Fun stuff? According to Cobb, the most thrilling game of his career was on 27 September 1907 against Connie Mack’s Philadelphia Athletics; Leerhsen simply put this game to pen and overall history in a fascinating page-turner style work. Not referenced in this book but known to military historians is that Ty Cobb was the favorite baseball player to General Douglas MacArthur and General George S. Patton - they both probably believed in the work ethic he managed on and the community work he did off the field even before he retired from baseball.
This book successfully dispels the many myths that surround Ty Cobb. It is likely that baseball intellectuals may take exception of some of the statistics that are not included in this book or persons may simply refuse to believe that myths likely make Ty Cobb a drabber person and player – in other words, a player most people with the exception that he (along with others in MLB) had a different level of notoriety. In the end – Ty Cobb simply loved baseball and loved to win – Roger Hornsby was once quoted as saying “You’ve Got To Cheat To Win In Baseball." To set the record straight, Hornsby was not talking of PEDS nor of tossing games through rooms filled cigar smoke or alleyway deals made with bets in the dark. “Cheating” in this sense met the “edge” – the “edge” of getting away with a minor infraction and possibly a little bit of anger or name calling. The American South was still reeling from consequences of the outcome of the Civil War by the time Cobb began his baseball career in 1905. The same time his Mother accidentally killed Cobb’s Father the Civil War was over for merely 40 years. Today, we are further away from the Fall of Saigon that any American had been in 1905 from Appomattox. The fact that Ty Cobb was a Southerner played to some level of acceptable bigotry that would later surface its ugly head in the years following his exit from the game.
Authors Charles Alexander and Al Stump took liberties with the Cobb story they each published independently of the other; however, I am only familiar with the Stump biography of Cobb published in 1994. The research by Leerhsen presented a corrected record and that as these corrections to the previous embellished stories have become simply too many to write about in one book review. To name but a few for example, there are three different stories of how Cobb was able to purchase his first baseball mitt. Al Stump as ghost writer for Ty Cobb: My Life in Baseball states one version and then in his 1994 biography of Cobb changed the story and didn’t provide documented evidence where he discovered the variance. This is only the beginning. The home that Cobb grew up in was a single story family home, not two and the neighbors next door to the W.H. Cobb family were working the oldest profession in the world. The local constabulary had been called out on many occasions and reports still exist to this record. No wonder Mrs. Amanda Chitwell Cobb (Ty’s Mother) had a gun kept by her bed, the details are many. Sensationalism sells however, always had – always will and we can thank human nature and greed for the published accounts of infidelity. TV Guide as well as The Saturday Evening Post fired Al Stump before he begun work on the ghostwriting work for Ty Cobb’s autobiography; they both had fact checking departments that did not like the work Stump was submitting for publication. The final autobiography given to Cobb while he was near death contained so many errors throughout that he demanded changes immediately, Al Stump was playing for time. Later, some of these changes had to be dictated by Cobb due to his inability to work the effort alone. Trash sells, truth without melodrama is not going to earn much. Again, Al Stump was buying for time.
Movies, another arena entirely where the myth of Cobb the racist is perpetuated by Al Stump and his book; easy pickings of course when the target is a Southern born American. Inside the research conducted by Leerhsen we discover that Cobb’s mother side of the family had a strong sense of abolition on moral and religious foundations – odd that Stump never mentions this anywhere. President Lincoln and General Robert E. Lee. What comes first to your mind? In Field of Dreams Shoeless Joe Jackson is quoted as saying …Ty Cobb wanted to play…but none of us liked that son of a bitch while we were alive, so we told him to stick it! That scene caused laughter in the movie theatre where I watched it play on the screen. Nothing could be further from the truth, Cobb had a deep admiration for Shoeless Joe – Shoeless Joe was a quality man and a man who did not acknowledge Cobb when he arrived into his liquor store in the mid to late 1930’s – when Cobb asked Shoeless Joe “Don’t you remember me?” Shoeless Joe reply was “I do, but I feared you would be too embarrassed to speak to me.” Shoeless Joe Jackson never made assumptions even though he was illiterate, he never made any illegal baseball wager either. Ken Burns only perpetuated the Cobb myth in his Baseball Series for PBS. What Burns did for the Civil War he dropped the ball (no pun intended) in this category on Cobb. In modern times, most people think of Cobb as a “racist”; one author even called him an “avowed racist” – I have no idea what that means other than some emotional twinge of words important to that author. The term “racialist” was wording a century ago and was rarely penned. In 1952, Ty Cobb was supportive of the integration of baseball and in his own words in reflection during the interview he commented in support of Jackie Robinson and his talents.
Ty Cobb was not a perfect person, he was a great player that confronted jealousy, hazing, name calling and everything else – many players fought fans in the stands in the dead ball era and later and Ty Cobb was no different than the other big names of the day. I speculate that this corrected record will one day be the foundation to prevent Ty Cobb’s name and memory from being removed from the BBHOF. It’s only a matter of time in this day and age before safe space seekers go looking to remove the legacy earned long ago. This author has corrected the record and preserved the legacy.
This book successfully dispels the many myths that surround Ty Cobb. It is likely that baseball intellectuals may take exception of some of the statistics that are not included in this book or persons may simply refuse to believe that myths likely make Ty Cobb a drabber person and player – in other words, a player most people with the exception that he (along with others in MLB) had a different level of notoriety. In the end – Ty Cobb simply loved baseball and loved to win – Roger Hornsby was once quoted as saying “You’ve Got To Cheat To Win In Baseball." To set the record straight, Hornsby was not talking of PEDS nor of tossing games through rooms filled cigar smoke or alleyway deals made with bets in the dark. “Cheating” in this sense met the “edge” – the “edge” of getting away with a minor infraction and possibly a little bit of anger or name calling. The American South was still reeling from consequences of the outcome of the Civil War by the time Cobb began his baseball career in 1905. The same time his Mother accidentally killed Cobb’s Father the Civil War was over for merely 40 years. Today, we are further away from the Fall of Saigon that any American had been in 1905 from Appomattox. The fact that Ty Cobb was a Southerner played to some level of acceptable bigotry that would later surface its ugly head in the years following his exit from the game.
Authors Charles Alexander and Al Stump took liberties with the Cobb story they each published independently of the other; however, I am only familiar with the Stump biography of Cobb published in 1994. The research by Leerhsen presented a corrected record and that as these corrections to the previous embellished stories have become simply too many to write about in one book review. To name but a few for example, there are three different stories of how Cobb was able to purchase his first baseball mitt. Al Stump as ghost writer for Ty Cobb: My Life in Baseball states one version and then in his 1994 biography of Cobb changed the story and didn’t provide documented evidence where he discovered the variance. This is only the beginning. The home that Cobb grew up in was a single story family home, not two and the neighbors next door to the W.H. Cobb family were working the oldest profession in the world. The local constabulary had been called out on many occasions and reports still exist to this record. No wonder Mrs. Amanda Chitwell Cobb (Ty’s Mother) had a gun kept by her bed, the details are many. Sensationalism sells however, always had – always will and we can thank human nature and greed for the published accounts of infidelity. TV Guide as well as The Saturday Evening Post fired Al Stump before he begun work on the ghostwriting work for Ty Cobb’s autobiography; they both had fact checking departments that did not like the work Stump was submitting for publication. The final autobiography given to Cobb while he was near death contained so many errors throughout that he demanded changes immediately, Al Stump was playing for time. Later, some of these changes had to be dictated by Cobb due to his inability to work the effort alone. Trash sells, truth without melodrama is not going to earn much. Again, Al Stump was buying for time.
Movies, another arena entirely where the myth of Cobb the racist is perpetuated by Al Stump and his book; easy pickings of course when the target is a Southern born American. Inside the research conducted by Leerhsen we discover that Cobb’s mother side of the family had a strong sense of abolition on moral and religious foundations – odd that Stump never mentions this anywhere. President Lincoln and General Robert E. Lee. What comes first to your mind? In Field of Dreams Shoeless Joe Jackson is quoted as saying …Ty Cobb wanted to play…but none of us liked that son of a bitch while we were alive, so we told him to stick it! That scene caused laughter in the movie theatre where I watched it play on the screen. Nothing could be further from the truth, Cobb had a deep admiration for Shoeless Joe – Shoeless Joe was a quality man and a man who did not acknowledge Cobb when he arrived into his liquor store in the mid to late 1930’s – when Cobb asked Shoeless Joe “Don’t you remember me?” Shoeless Joe reply was “I do, but I feared you would be too embarrassed to speak to me.” Shoeless Joe Jackson never made assumptions even though he was illiterate, he never made any illegal baseball wager either. Ken Burns only perpetuated the Cobb myth in his Baseball Series for PBS. What Burns did for the Civil War he dropped the ball (no pun intended) in this category on Cobb. In modern times, most people think of Cobb as a “racist”; one author even called him an “avowed racist” – I have no idea what that means other than some emotional twinge of words important to that author. The term “racialist” was wording a century ago and was rarely penned. In 1952, Ty Cobb was supportive of the integration of baseball and in his own words in reflection during the interview he commented in support of Jackie Robinson and his talents.
Ty Cobb was not a perfect person, he was a great player that confronted jealousy, hazing, name calling and everything else – many players fought fans in the stands in the dead ball era and later and Ty Cobb was no different than the other big names of the day. I speculate that this corrected record will one day be the foundation to prevent Ty Cobb’s name and memory from being removed from the BBHOF. It’s only a matter of time in this day and age before safe space seekers go looking to remove the legacy earned long ago. This author has corrected the record and preserved the legacy.
August 26, 2016
I learned of this book after seeing an article (and subsequent YouTube video) on author Charles Leerhsen and his strong case that Ty Cobb was (and has been all these years) branded as someone he is not. I found the information really interesting as I had (along with most others) thought of Cobb as a dirty player, racist and with a vapid mean streak. After all, that's how he had been portrayed in numerous books, a biopic and even in Ken Burns' iconic documentary series Baseball. But that's all I ever really knew of Ty Cobb.
I immediately hunted down the book at the local library and was excited to jump in. I don't normally read books on players from an era almost a century passed, but the topic and expectation had me intrigued.
While I was not disappointed, I didn't feel it was a complete "debunking". Rather, it was Leerhsen's detailed and cross-referenced take on a player who has (in his eyes) been wrongfully portrayed all of these years.
There were times in the book that I could see that Cobb was likely not guilty of the heinous charges placed upon him, but there were also times when the author took simple liberties in assuming what was likely to have occurred. Unfortunately, without hard evidence....there is no real true way to safely say one way or the other what really happened. It left a bit of an odd taste in my mouth.
I enjoyed that I learned a great deal about one of the greatest baseball players ever to play the game, I liked that the tone of the book was not to build up this "monster of a man" that many had previously, I appreciated that Cobb was shown as a hard to peg individual with a unique view on life and the game and I appreciated the efforts of Leerhsen in the meticulous research he did for this book. Cobb is definitely no saint....but I don't think many in that era of baseball were.
The other small beef I had with this title was that author Charles Leerhsen's style of writing was a little more refined than I liked. It sometimes didn't flow well. And, in simply a presentation manner, there were way too many overuses of the comma (like I did earlier in this sentence). Like....a lot. Tough to get a flow going at times.
This book would be enjoyed by anyone who is a fan of baseball and especially the deadball era. I'm glad I gave it a go.
I immediately hunted down the book at the local library and was excited to jump in. I don't normally read books on players from an era almost a century passed, but the topic and expectation had me intrigued.
While I was not disappointed, I didn't feel it was a complete "debunking". Rather, it was Leerhsen's detailed and cross-referenced take on a player who has (in his eyes) been wrongfully portrayed all of these years.
There were times in the book that I could see that Cobb was likely not guilty of the heinous charges placed upon him, but there were also times when the author took simple liberties in assuming what was likely to have occurred. Unfortunately, without hard evidence....there is no real true way to safely say one way or the other what really happened. It left a bit of an odd taste in my mouth.
I enjoyed that I learned a great deal about one of the greatest baseball players ever to play the game, I liked that the tone of the book was not to build up this "monster of a man" that many had previously, I appreciated that Cobb was shown as a hard to peg individual with a unique view on life and the game and I appreciated the efforts of Leerhsen in the meticulous research he did for this book. Cobb is definitely no saint....but I don't think many in that era of baseball were.
The other small beef I had with this title was that author Charles Leerhsen's style of writing was a little more refined than I liked. It sometimes didn't flow well. And, in simply a presentation manner, there were way too many overuses of the comma (like I did earlier in this sentence). Like....a lot. Tough to get a flow going at times.
This book would be enjoyed by anyone who is a fan of baseball and especially the deadball era. I'm glad I gave it a go.
August 5, 2015
When a friend discovered I was reading this book, he said "I really hope the Ty Cobb book just says 'He was a gigantic racist asshole' and leaves the rest of the pages blank." I didn't want it to say this, however, because I had discovered the book through an interview the author Charles Leerhsen had with Keith Olbermann on ESPN. In the interview, Leerhsen indicated that he had gone into the project thinking that was what he would find, only to find that most of the things that we know and believe about Cobb are made up, the fictions of a "reporter" named Al Stump. Although only one chapter is devoted to Stump (the epilogue) if we think of Cobb as the villain of baseball thanks to Stump, Stump must certainly be the villain of Cobb's biography. For Leerhsen, Cobb is a victim of being a superstar in the silent film and Vaudeville era, where movie cameras were too unwieldy to catch Cobb on film and there were no radio broadcasts of his games, much less television, the Internet, Twitter and Facebook, so researching his life is a difficult proposition. But Leerhsen goes the extra mile and thoroughly researches what he writes here, taking every opportunity to show disdain for Stump and for those who believe in Stump's "caricature" of Ty Cobb, which Leerhsen states has a life of its own, but that that Ty Cobb never existed.
In the end, Leerhsen doesn't disprove that Cobb was a racist or an asshole. Ultimately, those are decisions he leaves up to the reader, given the research Leerhsen has done. But it does reveal Cobb to be a complicated human being, with emphasis on the humanity.
In the end, Leerhsen doesn't disprove that Cobb was a racist or an asshole. Ultimately, those are decisions he leaves up to the reader, given the research Leerhsen has done. But it does reveal Cobb to be a complicated human being, with emphasis on the humanity.
July 31, 2015
Excellent sports biography. This book is a fantastic example of its genre. The writing is spry and witty when appropriate, the sources are specific, well researched and accurate and the writer obviously passionately cares about his subject.
I've been fascinated by Baseball and its stars since early childhood. I've read a lot of rather blah ghostwritten biographies/autobiographies as a result. I'd read a book about Cobb at some point in my childhood, so I had some idea of just what a fantastic player Cobb was before I ever picked this up. Leerhsen takes that understanding and appreciation to a whole new level. I finished the book entertained, more knowledgeable and converted to Leerhsen's view of Cobb: a difficult but ultimately humane and understandable man who isn't the monster so many other sources make him out to be. I was both happy and sad at the end. Happy to have read a thoroughly enjoyable book about a fascinating person who happened to be one of the greatest baseball players ever to pick up a bat or glove. Sad that there is nowhere I can go even to see old footage of Cobb playing. MAN that must have been a sight.
I've been fascinated by Baseball and its stars since early childhood. I've read a lot of rather blah ghostwritten biographies/autobiographies as a result. I'd read a book about Cobb at some point in my childhood, so I had some idea of just what a fantastic player Cobb was before I ever picked this up. Leerhsen takes that understanding and appreciation to a whole new level. I finished the book entertained, more knowledgeable and converted to Leerhsen's view of Cobb: a difficult but ultimately humane and understandable man who isn't the monster so many other sources make him out to be. I was both happy and sad at the end. Happy to have read a thoroughly enjoyable book about a fascinating person who happened to be one of the greatest baseball players ever to pick up a bat or glove. Sad that there is nowhere I can go even to see old footage of Cobb playing. MAN that must have been a sight.
October 14, 2015
If you are a sports fan, especially a baseball fan, then this is an interesting read. It was great to listen to during the post season as the KC Royals battled the Houston Astros. I love baseball so I really enjoyed this book.
July 24, 2015
A well researched book that debunks many of the negative myths about one of the greatest players of all time. Full review is posted here:
http://sportsbookguy.blogspot.com/201...
http://sportsbookguy.blogspot.com/201...
July 6, 2015
Best book that I have read this year. Finally the record has been set straight. May Cobb finally rest in peace.
July 7, 2015
Outstanding! A must read for all baseball fans. So much of what we knew about Ty Cobb is wrong after all. Incredible read!
June 8, 2015
Very good read, particularly on the early year's of his baseball career.
August 2, 2015
Well researched & eye opening in destroying many of the myths regarding the great Ty Cobb. Highly recommend to any true baseball fan.
December 19, 2022
Excellent story of the life of a flawed but amazing man
August 24, 2015
This new, well researched, biography of Ty Cobb acknowledges today's consensus that Ty Cobb was a great baseball player but horrible person; in "Field of Dreams" the Shoeless Joe Jackson character says that Cobb wasn't invited because no one could stand him, in Ken Burns' epic tv documentary, Cobb is described that way, those conclusions are consistent with the biographies written after his death along with the disturbing conclusion that Cobb was much more racist than others of his time
However, the author, Charles Leerhsen, describes in his research that as he read the biographies that formed the bedrock of these opinions he noticed that many of the "facts" of these stories were simply wrong so Leerhsen extensively researched original sources from the time Cobb was alive and found a completely different Cobb
For example, Cobb was not unpopular with other players, during the spiking controversies the opposing players in those plays actually came to Cobb's
defense. Leerhsen not only quotes them but also studies each controversy and concludes that while Cobb was certainly an aggressive base runner he never deliberately spiked any opposing player and that was also his reputation among baseball players at the time. Leerhsen also describes how the wrong conclusion seeped into popular culture. Leerhsen also documents Cobb's friendships with opposing players before and after his retirement, though Cobb and Babe Ruth did have a testy relationship while they were both players which may partially explain some of the generalization about all players
Leerhsen also studies the incidents that gave rise to Cobb's reputation as racist, in going back to the original sources and the later recounting of them he saw that in many of the confrontations there was no evidence of the race of the other person, the later stories admitted that they simply assumed the other person was Black. Leerhsen also describes Cobb's relationships with Blacks at the time that many other ball players of the
time did not have and contrasted the lack of any comments by Cobb to the public and other players that were similar to race baiting comments from Rogers Hornsby and Tris Speaker. He also contrasts Cobb's later comments supporting Jackie Robinson with comments from other players of the time
Leerhsen does not try to portray Cobb as a saint, Cobb certainly had his personal demons but this well researched biography certainly corrects modern day myths about him
There is also some great baseball writing about Cobb as a player and the evolution of baseball during the time Cobb played. The only drawback to the book was the author's sometimes annoying writing style that distracted from the story. For example, when describing Cobb's early career and how it changed the game he writes:
" is to get a sense that Cobb was playing a richer and saltier version of baseball than his opponents--imagine regular versus Canadian bacon, truly
an unfair fight."
There were many writing detours similar to the "Canadian Bacon" detour throughout the book that took away from the exhaustive research and love of baseball but still, this was a great book
However, the author, Charles Leerhsen, describes in his research that as he read the biographies that formed the bedrock of these opinions he noticed that many of the "facts" of these stories were simply wrong so Leerhsen extensively researched original sources from the time Cobb was alive and found a completely different Cobb
For example, Cobb was not unpopular with other players, during the spiking controversies the opposing players in those plays actually came to Cobb's
defense. Leerhsen not only quotes them but also studies each controversy and concludes that while Cobb was certainly an aggressive base runner he never deliberately spiked any opposing player and that was also his reputation among baseball players at the time. Leerhsen also describes how the wrong conclusion seeped into popular culture. Leerhsen also documents Cobb's friendships with opposing players before and after his retirement, though Cobb and Babe Ruth did have a testy relationship while they were both players which may partially explain some of the generalization about all players
Leerhsen also studies the incidents that gave rise to Cobb's reputation as racist, in going back to the original sources and the later recounting of them he saw that in many of the confrontations there was no evidence of the race of the other person, the later stories admitted that they simply assumed the other person was Black. Leerhsen also describes Cobb's relationships with Blacks at the time that many other ball players of the
time did not have and contrasted the lack of any comments by Cobb to the public and other players that were similar to race baiting comments from Rogers Hornsby and Tris Speaker. He also contrasts Cobb's later comments supporting Jackie Robinson with comments from other players of the time
Leerhsen does not try to portray Cobb as a saint, Cobb certainly had his personal demons but this well researched biography certainly corrects modern day myths about him
There is also some great baseball writing about Cobb as a player and the evolution of baseball during the time Cobb played. The only drawback to the book was the author's sometimes annoying writing style that distracted from the story. For example, when describing Cobb's early career and how it changed the game he writes:
" is to get a sense that Cobb was playing a richer and saltier version of baseball than his opponents--imagine regular versus Canadian bacon, truly
an unfair fight."
There were many writing detours similar to the "Canadian Bacon" detour throughout the book that took away from the exhaustive research and love of baseball but still, this was a great book
June 15, 2015
I have some issues with the book but it still gets 5 stars. In my opinion Mr. Leerhsen tends to minimize and euphemistically characterize the actions and behavior of Cobb. For example, most of Cobb's fistfights with ball players,or fans, or strangers are chalked up to the natural rowdiness of the game or the culture of a new century. The allegation that opposing and even teammates hated him is dismissed as exaggeration, based on jealousy, or simply not true. (players voted to strike when Cobb was suspended or they protected him from unruly fans). The obvious counter-point is that he was their meal ticket to three pennants. Hall of famer Sam Crawford( a teammate for many years) still had the same misgivings about Cobb as late as 1961 when he was interviewed by Lawrence Ritter in The Glory of their Times. When it comes to Cobb's racial animus, Leerhsen acts as a skillful lawyer emphasizing certain facts and quotes, drawing inferences, where other conclusions are equally plausible, to conclude that Cobb suffered from a bad rap. Yet he fails to meet the story told by sportswriter Fred Lieb, and later retold in a book(No Cheering in the press Box) by Jerome Holtzman( a former MLB official baseball historian). Lieb quotes Cobb as having refused to share a cabin with Babe Ruth. The quote was, "I've never bedded down with a n##### and
I'm not going to start now." This was when they were down at
Dover Hall, a hunting lodge near Brunswick, Georgia. A lot of baseball
men would go down there in the off-season.' (Ruth was said to have been black because of his tanned looking face and other facial stereotypical traits). This quote and story by an official baseball historian is never mentioned. No doubt the author would suggest, as Rob Neyer has, that Lieb was prone to exaggeration if he had mentioned it. On another subject, the killing of W.H. Cobb by his wife, Leerhsen fails to convince me that the killing was unintentional rather than murder despite her ultimate acquittal. The evidence that Leerhsen presents is too speculative and I'm convinced it was a crime of passion-but that is inconsequential to the real substance of the book.
But he did convince me that Cobb did not intentionally file down his spikes or deliberately use them as weapons in his intimidation arsenal. And I thoroughly enjoyed the last chapters especially the myth of Cobb's funeral. While this book has changed my perception of Cobb, it still left me with the impression that Cobb was not a likeable guy. He was a man with a hair-trigger temper who could alienate anyone who tried to get close to him. As his granddaughter said, "he was a very complicated person... he was a man who needed a tremendous amount of love-but who
nevertheless pushed everyone away". Still, this is a fascinating man to understand, and the author has shed new light on a baseball immortal that all readers of the game should relish for their library.
And for the most part, the author's quest is to denounce Al Stump's version of Cobb as chicanery. To that end, Leerhsen is successful
I'm not going to start now." This was when they were down at
Dover Hall, a hunting lodge near Brunswick, Georgia. A lot of baseball
men would go down there in the off-season.' (Ruth was said to have been black because of his tanned looking face and other facial stereotypical traits). This quote and story by an official baseball historian is never mentioned. No doubt the author would suggest, as Rob Neyer has, that Lieb was prone to exaggeration if he had mentioned it. On another subject, the killing of W.H. Cobb by his wife, Leerhsen fails to convince me that the killing was unintentional rather than murder despite her ultimate acquittal. The evidence that Leerhsen presents is too speculative and I'm convinced it was a crime of passion-but that is inconsequential to the real substance of the book.
But he did convince me that Cobb did not intentionally file down his spikes or deliberately use them as weapons in his intimidation arsenal. And I thoroughly enjoyed the last chapters especially the myth of Cobb's funeral. While this book has changed my perception of Cobb, it still left me with the impression that Cobb was not a likeable guy. He was a man with a hair-trigger temper who could alienate anyone who tried to get close to him. As his granddaughter said, "he was a very complicated person... he was a man who needed a tremendous amount of love-but who
nevertheless pushed everyone away". Still, this is a fascinating man to understand, and the author has shed new light on a baseball immortal that all readers of the game should relish for their library.
And for the most part, the author's quest is to denounce Al Stump's version of Cobb as chicanery. To that end, Leerhsen is successful
January 7, 2016
A well written book, very nice style, but most importantly it corrected (or tried to) a terrible wrong done to Mr Cobb by Al Stump. Mr Stump's attempts at writing give a black eye to anyone who takes this field seriously. This author (Charles Leerhsen) does a great job of being fair in his treatment of Cobb and also attacking the poor efforts of Mr. Stump. It's a crime that Al Stump's article about Ty Cobb is considered a great piece of journalism.
As for this book, one of the reasons I like it so much is that it helps us understand the South of another generation. We paint them as racists when viewed by our current perspectives, but were they? Much like Harper Lee's latest work, it gives me pause to try to better understand what it would have been like to live in those times and treat others as equals.
It's also a bit scary as I enter the back end of my life to think how a man's entire existence can be summed up in a word or two based on one man's interpretation of his life.
As for this book, one of the reasons I like it so much is that it helps us understand the South of another generation. We paint them as racists when viewed by our current perspectives, but were they? Much like Harper Lee's latest work, it gives me pause to try to better understand what it would have been like to live in those times and treat others as equals.
It's also a bit scary as I enter the back end of my life to think how a man's entire existence can be summed up in a word or two based on one man's interpretation of his life.
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