"THERE IS ONLY ONE COBB, AND I SHALL ALWAYS CHERISH THE FACT THAT IT HAS BEEN MY PRIVILEGE TO HAVE PLAYED 20 YEARS ALONG WITH HIM, AND TO HAVE HIS FEATS AND DEEDS AS AN IDEAL TO ASPIRE TO EMULATE."
- EDDIE COLLINS, PHILADELPHIA ATHLETICS
Official MLB Stats
- .367 Batting Average
- 12 AL Batting Titles
- 4,191 Base Hits
- 892 Stolen Bases
- 2,245 Runs Scored
- 1909 Triple Crown
- 3,033 Games
- 11,429 At Bats
- First Player Voted Into the Baseball Hall of Fame, 1936
TY COBB’S COMPLEX PERSONALITY EARNED HIM THE REPUTATION AS BASEBALL’S FIERCEST COMPETITOR, AND HIS COMPETITIVE ZEAL CARRIED OVER TO HIS LIFE OUTSIDE OF BASEBALL, MAKING HIM A MULTIMILLIONAIRE. BUT FEW KNOW THE STORY OF HOW COBB USED HIS WEALTH TO ESTABLISH THE COBB MEMORIAL HOSPITAL IN ROYSTON, GEORGIA, WHICH WAS CONSIDERED THE CROWN JEWEL OF AN INTEGRATED RURAL HEALTHCARE SYSTEM FOR SIXTY YEARS AND SERVED THOUSANDS OF PATIENTS ANNUALLY THROUGHOUT NORTHEAST GEORGIA.
LEARN MORE ABOUT TY COBB
"TY COBB: A TERRIBLE BEAUTY" BY CHARLES LEERHSEN
Ty Cobb is baseball royalty, maybe even the greatest player ever. His lifetime batting average is still the highest in history, and when he retired in 1928, after twenty-one years with the Detroit Tigers and two with the Philadelphia Athletics, he held more than ninety records. But the numbers don’t tell half of Cobb’s tale. The Georgia Peach was by far the most thrilling player of the era: When the Hall of Fame began in 1936, he was the first player voted in.
But Cobb was also one of the game’s most controversial characters. He got in a lot of fights, on and off the field, and was often accused of being overly aggressive. Even his supporters acknowledged that he was a fierce competitor, but he was also widely admired. After his death in 1961, however, his reputation morphed into that of a virulent racist who also hated children and women, and was in turn hated by his peers.
How did this happen? Who is the real Ty Cobb? Setting the record straight, Charles Leerhsen pushed aside the myths, traveled to Georgia and Detroit, and re-traced Cobb’s journey from the shy son of a professor and state senator who was progressive on race for his time to America’s first true sports celebrity. The result is a “noble [and] convincing” (The New York Times Book Review) biography that is “groundbreaking, thorough, and compelling…The most complete, well-researched, and thorough treatment that has ever been written” (The Tampa Tribune).
"THE GEORGIA PEACH: STUMPED BY THE STORYTELLER" BY WILLIAM R. COBB
Author William R. “Ron” Cobb presents the amazing results of his historical research into the myths about Ty Cobb. Ron’s investigation began as an attempt to disprove an unbelievable story about a mythical Ty Cobb shotgun. Ty Cobb’s biographer, Al Stump, had fantasized that it was the weapon that took the life of Ty Cobb’s father in a tragic 1905 accident at the Cobb family home in Royston, Georgia. But long buried court records and newspaper accounts revealed the truth about this fabricated relic. At every turn in his four-year research project, Ron ran headlong into Al Stump’s lies, thefts and forgeries. Al Stump created literally hundreds of forged Ty Cobb documents, personal artifacts and baseball memorabilia after Cobb’s death in 1961. He used this massive deception to build his own writing career and to enrich himself in the illegal trade of forged baseball memorabilia. The pinnacle of all this deceit was his forgery of two purported Ty Cobb diaries, one of which found its way into the hallowed Baseball Hall of Fame Museum, only to be proven fraudulent by an official FBI investigation in 2009. This book presents all the findings of Ron’s research, and provides indisputable proof that the lies, thefts and forgeries of Al Stump created the most negative elements of the myths that still haunt the memory of the great Ty Cobb.