Erik Visits an American Grave, Part 1,764

This is the grave of Ty Cobb.

Born in 1886 in Narrows, Georgia, Cobb grew up in very rural and poor Georgia, but he wasn’t so bad off himself. In fact, his dad was a state senator for a time. He grew up mostly in the town of Royston. His father was highly skeptical of the boy’s passion for baseball; after all, what were the chances he would make and for southern fathers who had pulled themselves up a bit in the world, seeing your boy go after a dream was kind of not what you were down with. But he allowed the baseball so long as Cobb was good.

Well, Cobb was good at baseball. He tried out for several teams and was actually released by the Augusta Tourists of the South Atlantic League after only two days (was Augusta some kind of tourist destination back then???). But he did catch on with the Anniston Steelers in the Tennessee-Alabama League. Cobb was not shy about himself. He started sending anonymous notes about a good player on his team to the sportswriter Grantland Rice. That good player? Himself. Rice took some note of these and mentioned Cobb in one of his columns. He was indeed good. He eventually went back to the Tourists, who sold his rights to the Detroit Tigers for $750 in 1905. At that exact same time, his mother shot his father dead. His father thought she was having an affair, so he hid outside the window; she saw a silhouette and thought it was an intruder and opened fire. Ol’ Ty didn’t fall from the tree.

Cobb refused to let the family tragedy get in the way of his career, though he clearly sided with his father and dedicated his career to him. Two months after the killing, he made his major league debut. He was 18 years old in 1905. He didn’t do much in his 151 at bats that year but he certainly held his own. In 1906, he was a half-time player and his .316/355/394 at age 19. Then in 1907, he started to go off and became TY COBB. At age 20, he led the AL in batting average (.350), slugging (.468), hits (212), RBIs (119), and stolen bases (53). Oh, OK. And that would turn out to be an average season for the greatest hitter the game had ever seen to that point.

Basically, from 1907 to 1925, Ty Cobb was freaking awesome every single year. It’s completely ridiculous to look at his work. He led the league in hits 9 times. He led the league in batting average 11 times, every single year but one from 1907 to 1919. The year he didn’t, in 1916, he only hit .370. In 1922, now 35 years old, he hit .401 but didn’t even lead the league! He led the league in steals six times, topping out at 96 steals in 1915. He led the league in caught stealing with 38 that year too. People didn’t worry too much about stolen base percentage back then if you had any real chance to steal at all. He led the league in runs five times. He led the league in doubles four times and triples three times. He even led the league in homers in 1909, with all of 9. As the game changed and more power developed, that was not an area where Cobb was going to adapt and he topped out at 12, twice. In terms of Baseball Reference’s WAR stat, he led the league in that stat 5 times. That topped out with an absurd 11.3 in 1917, a year where he hit .383/444/570, with 225 hits, 44 doubles, 24 triples, and 55 steals. Is that all? He also had a 10.7 WAR year in 1911, 10.5 in 1910, and over 8 in 4 additional years. What is there even to say here? Cobb was actually still a completely functional player in his last year. That was 1928. He was 41 years old and now playing for the Philadelphia Athletics, as he had the previous year too. That year, he hit .323/389/431 and still had a 2 WAR. Had he wanted to, he might have been a functional player for three or four more years. Cobb had also managed the Tigers from 1921-26, winning the pennant the first year.

The question about Cobb of course has never been his astonishing talent, but rather his character. To no small extent, he has become the target for problems throughout the game at this time, especially racism. Was Cobb a racist? Yes. Were the large majority of major league players racist? Cap Anson deserves far more opprobrium as Cobb for keeping the game white, yet Anson gets far less. Plus, after the arrival of Jackie Robinson, Cobb openly supported his playing and often complemented Black players. Did Cobb gamble on the game? Probably. Was Cobb a dirty player? Sure. In recent years, some have attempted to resurrect Cobb’s reputation as totally not racist at all, but c’mon now. He also fought with his own teammates. Sam Crawford simply wouldn’t speak to him, though they played great together. Cobb was a hard man to like.

The other thing about Cobb is that he became super rich. He was a smart business operator. He traveled in Europe, engaged in rich people past times like polo, invested heavily in Coca-Cola at just the right time. He bought a big mansion near San Francisco and lived there much of the year. He was still a violent man–when he sent his son to Princeton, the kid did poorly and Cobb traveled to New Jersey and beat him with a leather whip. In one of the weird stories of the old baseball era, in the late 40s, Cobb and Grantland Rice were at the Masters. They were buddies and were driving back from Augusta. They stopped at a liquor store in Greenville, South Carolina for some libations. Working the counter was Shoeless Joe Jackson, shocking Cobb nearly to death.

Late in life, Cobb went very big into donating his riches and also into setting his controversial record straight. He participated in a biography published in 1956. In 1959, he started writing his own autobiography, but by this time, was sick with many aliments. He died in 1961 of pneumonia, at the age of 74. At the time of his death, he was worth $11 million, which is over $120 million today. Unlike many ball players, he had done just fine.

Ty Cobb is buried in Rose Hill Cemetery, Royston, Georgia.

According to Baseball Reference’s WAR stat, Cobb is the second best center fielder of all time (despite his notoriously terrible defense). If you would like this series to visit other center fielders, you can donate to cover the required expenses here. Willie Mays is the greatest of all time, but his burial details are presently unknown. Tris Speaker, ranked third, is in Hubbard, Texas. I’ve covered Mickey Mantle (4th) and Joe DiMaggio (7th). Mike Trout (5th) and Ken Griffey, Jr. (6th) are still alive. Duke Snider, ranked 8th, is in Fallbrook, California. Previous posts in this series are archived here and here.

In conclusion, don’t buy presents for your family. Fund the grave series.