Ty Cobb: 1886-1961
Tyrus Raymond Cobb: legendary Detroit Tigers outfielder, Hall of Famer, .367 career batting average, 11 batting titles, 4,189 career hits, 2,245 career runs, 3,035 games played, 892 stolen bases. Additional information: competitive to the point of insanity, unforgiving in the extreme, virulently racist, died astronomically rich but virtually friendless.
Why he's loved: He was probably the greatest baseball player of the dead-ball era. His competitive fire was utterly unparalleled, which is illustrated by this quote: "I always went into a bag full-speed, feet first. I had sharp spikes on my shoes. If the baseman stood where he had no business to be and got hurt, that was his fault." This drive led him to become, statistically, easily the best player of his time. On the first ballot for the Baseball Hall of Fame, he received 222 of a possible 226 votes.
Although his style was that of a hit-and-run batter (the dominant style of the time), in 1925, feeling threatened by Babe Ruth's fame and popularity, he announced that he was going to swing for the fences. In the next two games, Cobb went 9-for-9, with 5 home runs, a double and three singles. He then reverted to his previous style, after proving that he could hit home runs at will, but simply chose not to.
Charles M. Conlon's legendary 1909 photo of Ty Cobb stealing 3rd base
Why he's hated: Simply, he was a pretty despicable racist. At Tigers spring training in 1907, Bungy, the African-American groundskeeper, gave him a friendly slap on the back. Cobb reacted angrily at the thought of a black man being so familiar. When the man's wife intervened, he choked her.
Barely a year later, Cobb was fined $75 for assault and battery on an African-American laborer named Fred E. Collins, who was laying asphalt opposite the Hotel Pontchartrain in Detroit. Cobb had leapt to avoid a speeding car, and landed in Collins' hot asphalt. He punched him on the chin in response.
In 1909, Cobb pulled a knife on black nightwatchman George Stanfield at the Euclid Hotel in Cleveland. The fine was $100.
In November 1910, the Tigers visited Cuba, and Cobb refused to play against the black Cuban players until he was paid a $1000 bonus. He then said that "I decided to break my own rule for a few games."
In 1914, Cobb was fined $50 for pistol-whipping a butcher's African-American assistant in an argument over the freshness of $0.20-worth of fish.
In 1919, once again at the Hotel Pontchartrain in Detroit (they let him come back again?), Cobb called chambermaid Ada Morris "a nigger". She "sassed him" in return, so Cobb kicked her in the stomach and pushed her down a flight of stairs. She sued him for $10,000, but Cobb quietly settled out of court.
Certainly a Hall-of-Fame bastard.
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