First published 2016
Charles Leerhsen tackles the most polarizing figure in baseball history. The author traveled to Georgia and Detroit to investigate how Ty Cobb transformed from a shy professor's son into America's first sports celebrity, then posthumously into a reviled monster. Cobb retired in 1928 with over ninety records and the highest lifetime batting average ever recorded. He spent twenty-one years with Detroit and two with Philadelphia, becoming the first player inducted into the Hall of Fame. Yet decades after his 1961 death, his reputation shifted dramatically from fierce competitor to racist villain. Leerhsen pushes past these myths to examine the real man. He traces Cobb's journey from small-town Georgia, where his father served as professor and state senator with progressive racial views, through his explosive major league career. The biography reveals how Cobb's philosophy to "create a mental hazard for the other man" made him both widely admired and deeply hated. Leerhsen uncovers a life filled with incident and a complex figure who carved his own path through changing times.
Genres: biography, historical-fiction, 20th-century, american, baseball
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: complex-protagonist, redemption-arc
Setting: Georgia, Detroit
Period: 1920s
MP3 CD · Brilliance Audio