[35][36][37][38][39], On August 8, 1905, Cobb's mother fatally shot his father with a pistol that his father had purchased for her. "Official" in that sense of the word means merely "from the office[182]" of Major League Baseball, the corporation. Cobb could have gone 0-fer in 2,541 at-bats -- the equivalent of more than four full seasons -- and still hit .300 on the nose, with no rounding up required. [ Answer] We present them here for purely educational purposes. SUMMARY Career WAR 151.5 AB 11440 H 4189 HR 117 BA .366 R 2245 RBI 1944 SB 897 OBP .433 SLG And during a game on May 15, 1912, the relentless heckling of a fan named Claude Lueker prompted Cobb to head into the stands and attack him. Crawford was an established star when Cobb arrived, and Cobb eagerly sought his advice. I worked out all the angles I could think of, to keep them guessing and hurrying. Our reasoning for presenting offensive logos. The couple had three sons and two daughters: Tyrus Raymond Jr, Shirley Marion, Herschel Roswell, James Howell, and Beverly. Writing in The Journal of American Culture, Hunter M. Hampton says that Leerhsen "succeeds in debunking the myth of Cobb that Stump created, but he spawned a new myth by conflating Stump's shortcomings to depict Cobb as an egalitarian. View Player Info from the B-R Bullpen. Barry Bonds holds the most hitting records with ten, most notably the career home run and single-season home run records. A. In 1909, Ty Cobb led the American League in home runs, RBIs, and batting average, capturing a Triple Crown, the second instance in league history. ROY BROWNELL II is an attorney. Any Tyruses today can thank Cobb for giving the name its initial exposure. Ty Cobb was born on Saturday, December 18, 1886, in Narrows, Georgia. On August 30, 1905, in his first major league at bat, he doubled off Jack Chesbro of the New York Highlanders. If we were five or six runs ahead, I'd try some wild play, such as going from first to home on a single. They played beside each other in right and center field, and Crawford followed Cobb in the batting order year after year. Cobbs mother was arrested on the charge of manslaughter and indicted by a grand jury. [77], The league suspended him, and his teammates, though not fond of Cobb, went on strike to protest the suspension, and the lack of protection of players from abusive fans, before the May 18 game in Philadelphia. During his 24-year career, he established records in virtually every area of the offensive game. from the SABR BioProject. [27] He played his first years in organized baseball for the Royston Rompers, the semi-pro Royston Reds, and the Augusta Tourists of the South Atlantic League, who released him after only two days. Newspaper people wrote in protest of Lajoies fraudulent title, and AL president Ban Johnson discovered (wink wink) that Cobb had not properly been credited with two hits in a September doubleheader. Lucker, described by baseball historian Frank Russo as "a Tammany Hall lackey and two-bit punk," often berated Cobb when Detroit visited New York. 15. Year Team League; 1936: Detroit Tigers: AL: League Rankings. Rookie Status: To be clear, this story is apocryphal. Become a Stathead & surf this site ad-free. "[141], He was taken to Emory University Hospital for the last time in June 1961 after falling into a diabetic coma. [132] Even so, he was known to help out young players. Cobb is said to have stolen second, third and home on consecutive pitches. Ty Cobb - Society for American Baseball Research [159], Stories of Cobb's racial intolerance during his playing days were embellished and falsified by his biographers Al Stump and Charles Alexander.