There is a scene in "Inning Three" where Daniel Okrent says "I think in totality, Cobb is an embarrassment to baseball."
What a ridiculous thing to say. That line has always bothered me coming from someone who is supposedly such a scholar of baseball as Okrent.
You can't help but respect the man's talent, but he wasn't exactly the best ambassador of the game, he left much to be desired.
shareI respect your opinion, but you must respect Okrent's opinion. It is only that: an opinion. Ty Cobb was one of the greatest players of the game, but at the same time was one of the most reprehensible. Okrent was merely stating what he thought; not what everyone else is supposed to think.
sharei agree,ray-- someone can be great at something and still be a jerk as a person.
thats not an opinion;thats a fact.
Couldn't agree with you more. For proof, see Barry Bonds. And yet even though on ability alone, he's probably one of the 3 greatest players in baseball history, I doubt you will get men, including the poster who disagreed with Daniel Okrent's notion of Cobb being an embarrassment, who would say otherwise about BONDS. Irony huh?
shareI believe Cobb was quoted in one of the innings towards the end of the series when he was nearing the end of his life that he regretted not being a nicer person during his existence.
shareDidn't Okrent also say that Cobb was great by virtue of his will as opposed to talent? I laughed at the absurdness of the comment. Someone made those claims. My memory thinks it was Okrent but I may be wrong.
shareCobb and Pete Rose had a lot in common. Their greatest talent was their will to succeed. They had the ability to focus, to drive themselves, to learn, and to accomplish. I personally believe Cobb had more natural talent than Rose. I remember when ABC used to run those 'Superstars' competitions in the 70s. They'd get stars from all sports to compete in an array of events across the spectrum of sports. Athletes weren't allowed to select their own specialties.
They had a home run hitting event, and of course Rose wasn't allowed to choose that one. Thing is, Rose never really hit homers, he was a singles and doubles kind of guy. I read about it in Sports Illustrated how frustrated he was when he saw "skinny little tennis players giving it the half-girlie swing and knocking it over the fence." His determination was his talent.
Cobb, on the other hand, chose to play little ball; hit for average, stole bases, sacrificed by choice. One series he decided to try the power game. He hit like five or six homers, got a boatload of RBIs, made his point and went back to the little game.
One thing about Bonds. When he took steroids, it wasn't illegal in baseball to do it until '05. I think all this anti-Bonds stuff is mostly media people taking their bite for all the crap he gave them over the years. Ernie Banks wrote a beautiful column the day after Bonds passed Aaron. It was positive, focusing on Bonds' great swing and his eye. He took the high road, and I think the rest of us should, too. And no, I'm not a Giants fan.
McGwire juiced, and so did Sosa. Nobody's all over their cases. And just so we understand each other, are we gonna throw Gaylord Perry out of the Hall of Fame because he threw a spitball, a pitch that actually was illegal? Please.
One thing that the documentary does to put such an evil spin on Ty Cobb is that really menacing voice. That voice is actually a little scary. In actuality Ty Cobb's voice sounds nothing like that. He had a kind of high pitched southern drawl that you may expect from a man who grew up in rural Georgia.
If you want to listen to his voice it used on a fascinating youtube clip where you can hear the voices of Cobb, and Cy Young as older men.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ns49XmuNQ4I
I also find it interesting that Burns failed to mention that both Tris Speaker and Rogers Hornsby were card carrying members of the KKK. Even president Coolidge was a member. Cobb was by no means a saint, but the documentary seemed to go too far in making him out to be evil. One of Cobb's closest companions was African American, and he approved the integration of the game, but this was left out. Did everyone like him, clearly no.
jimmyko92, That was an awesome video. Thanks for shareing it with us.
Boston, you are the only only only.
If you are looking for an even better listen and are willing to pay like 20$ then look up Lawrence Ritter's Glory of their Times and buy his audio recordings from the book. If you listen closely to interviews with guys like Sam Crawford, Fred Snodgrass, Rube Bressler and Specs Toporcer, Ken Burns uses stuff they say in the interviews in the documentary and voices it over with someone else.
The interviews were done in the early 1960's and its interesting to hear the actual voices of these players. They must have been digitally remastered because they sound like they were done recently.
My favorite quote from the recordings that Ken Burns used comes from Fred Snodgrass.
It was something like,
"For half a century I have had to live with the fact that I dropped a ball in the World Series, oh your the guy that dropped that fly ball aren't ya. For years I would be introduced to someone and they would start saying something and stop you know, afraid of hurting my feelings.
The documentary makes it sound a lot more heartbreaking than when Fred himself said it.
I think that Okrent is partly right. Cobb was incredibly talented but he was also a violent man, a bigot, somebody in dire need of anger-management, and his kids wanted nothing to do with him.
Remember the line from the movie Field Of Dreams?
"Ty Cobb even wanted to play but none of us could stand him when he played so we told him to stick it!"
You're right about him having more of a tenor voice. I saw him in Angels in the Outfield (the real one with Douglas, not the crap remake). He's on for just a few seconds. They're interviewing baseball players and fans to ask what they think about the manager who says he talks to angels. Cobb smiles pleasantly enough and says "All I can say is the game of baseball certainly has changed!"
Let's just say that God doesn't believe in me.
cobb is a great man.
🎄Season's Greetings!🎄
Tris Speaker belonged to the KKK during its 1920's phase,when they eased up on the rascist banter to try to become more of a political force.Thousands of people joined during this time.BTW,Tris Speaker was one of the very first people to encourage Lary Doby,the first black player in the American League,working with him tirelessly.Doby even thanked him in his Hall Of Fame speech.
"1)There is a God,and 2)Im not him."
So...a ballplayer is only truly gifted in athletics if he can hit a homerun? The homerun is the most overrated statistic in American sports. Batting average and RBIs are far more important than having a player who does nothing but swing for the fences.
Cobb and Rose were talented ballplayers. Period.
Actually, average is one of the most overrated stats. Slugging percentage, OBP, and the combination of the two, OPS, are much more important. As for RBIs, you can only bat in runs if there is someone on base (It helps to bat 3-6 to have good RBI numbers) Having said this, Cobb is one of the best ballplayers ever, no question. He was the first one in the Hall of Fame. However he was psychotic- seriously psychotic. And homers are the best of the triple crown stats. (See http://www.nationalreview.com/weekend/play-ball/pb-lewis033101.shtml for explanations) So you obviously have no idea what you are talking about, except when you said "Cobb and Rose were talented ballplayers. Period."
share===McGwire juiced, and so did Sosa. Nobody's all over their cases.===
Ummm, have you seen McGwire's vote totals for the HOF balloting? He's not getting in unless the Veteran's Committee puts him in. Before 2003, he was considered a lock. Wait until Sosa becomes eligible in a few years, same thing will happen.
Cobb didn't approve the integration of the game. The documentary references the exact opposite, talking about him being a bitter old man that went around drinking and hating the newer trends in the game (like integration). And if you don't want to believe that, the fact that he went INTO THE STANDS to beat up a handicapped person who called him a "half-n****r" shows that he wouldn't be too happy seeing blacks play his game.
There's more to life than being really, really, really, ridiculously good-looking.
In actuality Ty Cobb was not opposed to integration, and was in fact in favor of it. There is no doubt that Ty Cobb was racist, but I doubt you would find many whites who grew up in the post Civil war era in rural Georgia that did not hold the same views.
By the time Jackie Robinson integrated the game Cobb came out in favor of it in an interview for the associated press. His quote was,
"Certainly it is O.K. for them to play. I see no reason in the world why we shouldn't compete with colored athletes as long as they conduct themselves with politeness and gentility."
Obviously you can still read some racism in that quote, but he even came out against segregation to the author of his autobiography Al Stump calling it, "A lousy rule."
I have read books on Cobb that say after he retired and before his last 10 years where he was sick, and turned to alcohol to deal with the pain, he was always willing to help out young ballplayers, was a very likable guy. Even he and Babe Ruth played a series of golf matches together and developed a friendship. I believe he really felt that in order to succeed he needed to build up such a hatred that unfortunately the lines became blurred and he could not turn that hatred off when he left the field. He could be a horrible racist, but he also had a decent side to him.
Home runs aren't overrated. But I don't think it's so much the home run itself, but the threat of the home run. Nothing changes a defense or how a pitcher approaches a hitter more than power.
And like the commercial says; chicks dig the long ball. lol
This will be the high point of my day; it's all downhill from here.
I disagree, the only reason why they're not on their cases is that the are hiding from the media. Whn was the last time you heard from McQuire since his embarassing and pathetic press conference in 2005.
I haven't heard much from Bonds and things have been quite lately. However, Sosa's back in the news again.
"One thing about Bonds. When he took steroids, it wasn't illegal in baseball to do it until '05. I think all this anti-Bonds stuff is mostly media people taking their bite for all the crap he gave them over the years."
Actually, steroids have been banned by MLB since 1991; they just didn't do any serious testing until 2005, so Bonds, McGuire, Sosa, etc. were NOT following the rules. And, as another poster pointed out, none of these guys is getting into Cooperstown any time soon.
And anyone who believes that someone could hit .367 and win twelve batting titles over a 23-year career without a huge amount of God-given athletic talent is crazy. Of course he also had a psychotic amount of drive and baseball brains, as do most great hitters (Tony Gwynn gets some of the same "determination-over-natural-talent" stuff from people who forget how great of a point guard he was at San Diego State).
Ray Liotta, playing Shoeless Joe Jackson in Field of Dreams (yeah, we know, Joe was a lefty & Ray's a righty), said it correctly. All the other players of his era hated the guy so they wouldn't let him come and play at Linsella's field of dreams. Unfortunately, we see it all the time today. A great talent with an oversized "in-the-toilet" personality.
shareI wholeheartedly agree with Okrent about Cobb. As he said, he was a great player and set unbreakable records, but at some point, it's just not worth it.
And in the words of Dan Gutman, author of Baseball Babylon, "If Ty Cobb were playing today, he wouldn't be." Someone with that level of rage and racism needs to be in therapy, not sports.
When blacks complain about racism, many people see it as they are not taking responsibility for their own actions- i.e., maybe you need to point the finger at yourself and your actions before pointing it at someone else. All the same, the memory and legacy of Mr. Cobb needs to embrace his anger, his bigotry and his attacks on others who got in his way.
I agree with Okrent in his statement he makes perfect sense. He does not deny at all and no one who thinks themselves to be baseball savvy, can ever deny the talent and iconic numbers that Cobb put up.
What Okrent is saying is "when is enough, enough?"
Cobb has numbers that any ball player would kill for but he did things that in this day and age would have him banned for life. He stabbed a man, he beat up a disabled fan who had no hands, he spiked his opponents, the list goes on and on. As one other person put it, even Cobb himself at the end of his life lamented if he could do it all over again, he woulda had more friends and been a nicer person.
No doubt his anger drove him to be as successful as he was but plenty of other people with that winners and be first mentality have been successful without Cobb's rage.
It's comparable today to Steroids, while not as ghastly as stabbing a man or beating a fan with no hands, the point is parallel to what Okrent said of Cobb, "when is it just not worth it?"
Take Barry Bonds, he put up amazing numbers and people were in awe. He broke records left and right, he broke the all time record, the single season record, put up numbers that reminded you of Ruth but was it worth it? Sure it's not the same but both men were black marks on the sport. I guess a better example would be the 98 chase which brought back the fans after the strike of 94, was that magical chase worth it all in the end? Many will argue that it was not, while it peaked peoples interests again in the sport, in the long run it was largely responsible for the current cloud over the sport.
He beat up a handicapped fan during a game. If this happened today the player would get death threats and be banned for life, arrested, and charged. He beat up a groundskeeper because he was black and when the man's wife tried to intervene he beat her up. How is that NOT an embarrassment to baseball?
Rule #76: No excuses. Play like a champion.
Some baseball star personalities:
1) Cobb was often a jerk and roundly detested, yet a rich man (via shrewd investments) he provided financial support for Mickey Cochrane and certain other broke ex-players in their later years.
2) According to GLORY OF THEIR TIMES (published in the early 1960's), many opposing players really liked Babe Ruth and remembered him very fondly. Of course, he was a carouser, a philanderer, and a pain to his managers.
3) Joe DiMaggio, easy on his managers and considered classy. Some players found him standoffish, but that may have been more his shyness. But as an ex-player he was considered egotistical, jealous of his younger brother Dominic's business success, and he demanded to be introduced as the "Greatest living ex-ballplayer" even though Mays and Mantle were both a bit superior.
4) Ted Williams, called Teddy Tantrum by some, sparred verbally with fans and writers, and the latter denied him the MVP award in 1941 (batted .406), 1942 (won the triple crown), and perhaps after the war due to his antics. Not unlike Albert Belle, denied the 1995 MVP.
5) Now for some supposedly all-around good guys. Christy Mathewson, Stan Musial, Walter Johnson, Hank Aaron, Ernie Banks, Jim Thome and Willie Mays.