Information AboutTy Cobb |
PRE-PROFESSIONAL CAREER Tyrus Raymond Cobb was born in Narrows, Georgia , the first of three children. His mother Amanda (Chitwood), who had married William Herschel Cobb when she was twelve, was fifteen when she gave birth to Ty. In 1893 , W.H. Cobb, a teacher by profession, bought a one hundred acre (400,000 m&2) farm in Royston, Georgia to supplement his teaching income. It was on this farm that Ty's father taught him the values of hard work and perseverance. It was also in those fields that Ty grew strong and developed his relationship with his father. When W.H. saw that Ty displayed a knack for farming and its economics, the two grew closer. Cobb once said, "It was the sweetest thing in the world to be fully accepted by my father. All at once, he was willing to hear my ideas, discuss them, and even exchange opinions." W.H. Cobb became a very well respected man in the community, getting elected to the Georgia State Senate. When Ty was not working the farm for his father, he was honing his baseball skills by playing for the Royston Rompers and the semi-pro Royston Reds during his early and mid-teens. W.H. greatly disapproved of Ty playing baseball, fearing that his firstborn would become a drunken womanizer like the stereotypical big league ballplayers of the day. However, when Ty, at seventeen, approached his father to ask for his blessing to try out for the South Atlantic League (Sally League) team in Augusta , W.H. reluctantly acquiesced. He figured that it would be best for his son to get the baseball out of his system and return home to pursue a career as a doctor, lawyer, or military man. PROFESSIONAL CAREER ]] Minor leagues In 1904 , Cobb successfully tried out for the Augusta Tourists , a minor league club in the newly formed South Atlantic League , but was cut two days into the season. Cobb asked his father for permission to try out for a semi-pro team in Anniston, Alabama. In Cobb's account of the conversation he said that his father gave him permission to go, but warned him, "Don't come home a failure." Cobb tried out for the Anniston Steelers of the Tennessee-Alabama League . He easily made the team due to his previous professional experience. Cobb was hoping that his success would be noted in a major paper in Georgia, but to no avail. He took matters into his own hands by sending postcards to Grantland Rice , the sports editor of the Atlanta Journal , under several different aliases. Eventually, Rice wrote a small note in the Journal that a "young fellow named Cobb seems to be showing an unusual lot of talent." W.H. kept this press clipping in his wallet until his death, showing it to all as if it were a baby picture. Cobb continued to tear up the league, and after about three months, he received a telegram from Augusta asking him to return. Con Strouthers , Cobb's previous manager with the Tourists, had been released, and the team missed his aggressive style. His return to Augusta proved unfruitful, as he finished the season hitting a meager .237 in 35 games. Andy Roth , manager of Augusta, wanted Cobb back for 1905 , but Cobb demanded a raise to $125 per month. It was the first of many salary disputes in his career. Despite the fact that he was asking a lot for a teenager with less than a season's experience, Roth consented and he rejoined the team in the spring of 1905. By August 1905 , Cobb, under the tutelage of his new manager, George Leidy , was leading the league in hitting. The Tourists' management sold the left-handed hitting and right-handed fielding Cobb to the American League 's Detroit Tigers for $750. Cobb was given a $50 gold watch as a gift in his final appearance with the Augusta Tourists. Shortly before Cobb's debut in the major leagues, his father was shot to death in a freak accident. On August 8 , 1905 , his father, suspecting his wife of Infidelity , told her that he was going out of town. He returned later that evening to check up on her. He climbed onto the roof outside their bedroom. When Amanda Cobb saw a man in the window, she got a shotgun and fired twice, killing Cobb's father. She was arrested and charged with Voluntary Manslaughter , but was acquitted when she testified that she had mistaken her husband for an intruder. Major leagues The early years after a bitter holdout.]] Three weeks after his mother killed his father, Cobb was playing center field for the Detroit Tigers . On August 30 , 1905 , in his first major league at-bat, Cobb doubled off the New York Highlanders 's Jack Chesbro . The rest of the season didn't go as well. Cobb managed to only bat .240 in 41 games. Cobb showed enough promise as a rookie for the Tigers to give him a lucrative (for the time) $1,500 contract for 1906 . Although rookie hazing was customary, Cobb could not endure it in good humor, and he soon became alienated from his teammates. He later attributed his hostile temperament to this experience: "These old-timers turned me into a snarling wildcat." The following year he became centerfielder for the Tigers and hit .320 in 97 games. He would never hit below that mark again. In spring training in 1907 , Cobb, considered a Racist by many, fought a black groundskeeper over the condition of the Tigers' spring training field in Augusta, Georgia , and ended up choking the man's wife when she intervened. In one regular season game Cobb reached first, stole second, third and home. He would do it again five more times in his career to set the record. Cobb's Tigers were engaged in an incredibly close 4-way race for the American League pennant with the Philadelphia A's , Cleveland Indians and Chicago White Sox . Both the White Sox and Indians ran into trouble late in the season. The final series that year pitted the Tigers against Connie Mack 's Athletics. Cobb belted a ninth inning out of the park home run to send the game into extra innings. In his next at bat (11th inning), Cobb struck a ground rule double, driving in the go-ahead run. However, the A's recovered. When the game was called a tie in the 17th, the Tigers won the pennant anyway. That season, his first as a regular, Cobb hit .350 to win the first of nine consecutive batting titles. He also led the league with 212 hits, 49 steals and 116 RBI. In the 1907 World Series the Tigers faced the Chicago Cubs . Cobb got a triple in Game 4, but the Tigers lost the series 4-0-1. Cobb struggled to hit .200 in the postseason. Cobb was almost traded in 1907 to the Cleveland Indians for Elmer Flick . He was put on the block by his manager, Hughie Jennings , who was exasperated by Cobb's antics. The trade never materialized because Cleveland felt that Cobb was too divisive and that Flick was a better player. In September of 1907 Cobb began a relationship with Coca-Cola that would last his entire life and make him a very rich man. In 1918 Cobb took a loan out against his future baseball earnings to buy his first 1000 shares of Coke stock. By the time he died, he owned 3 bottling plants, in Santa Maria, California , Twin Falls, Idaho and Bend, Oregon and owned over 20,000 shares of stock. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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