Tyrus Raymond Cobb

On December 18, 1886 Tyrus Raymond Cobb was born into the famliy of W. H. Cobb and his fifteen year old wife Amanda Chitwood. Ty grew up in the southern town of Royston, Georgia. Ty’s father W. H. Cobb was a schoolteacher and a college graduate at a time when there were few. W. H. raised Ty on a 100 acre farm where he taught Ty the values of hard work and preservance. Ty’s mother Amanda Chitwood was only twelve when she married W.H.. She had Ty at the age of fifteen and lived to see her son get elected into the Baseball Hall of Fame.(http.//wso.williams.edu/~jkossutn/cobb/dad.htm)

Ty grew up as any normal southern boy did in the late 19th century. Ty was different in that he was highly compeitive and easliy tempered. In one example, while in fifth grade he beat up a fat boy for mispelling a word in a spelling contestand costing his team the game. He was driven to win at everything .(Ty Cobb 13-15)

Ty first started out playing for the Royston Reds his hometown team and then made the jump to the Sally League which was a semi-pro league. Ty’s father was against this afraid that Ty would become a drunk like most of the ballplayers of that era. In one conversion Ty asked for his father’s blessing in going into baseball and his response was “And I want tell you one thing--don’t come home a failure.”(hhtp.//wso.williams.edu/~jkossutn/cobb/minors.htm)

Cobb got called up by the Detriot Tigers in 1905 the same year as his father’s death. Cobb played like baseball like a runaway fright train. Cobb’s baserunning ablites were surpassed by none. He would stop at nothing to win, he was the first to run into a catcher at home and did hook slides which caused great outrage. In one game Cobb did a hook slide and caused a the third basemen a cut on his arm. Connie Mack the Philadelphia manger at the time called him “the dirtest player ever.” After that game Cobb recieved many death threats from Philadelphia fans because of the incident. In reaction to his baserunning Cobb said, “Baseball is not unlike war.” (http.//wso.williams.edu/~jkossutn/cobb/running.htm)

Ty was very hard to get along with and had frequenty fights with his teamates and fans. After becoming a major for detriot, he was hated by his players for pushing them to far. He was a known racist and had many incidents of slapping or hitting blacks.