Word: cobb
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Perhaps to prove himself to a ghost, perhaps because of the hazing his teammates gave him, the rookie became an animal. "I was just a mild-mannered Sunday-school boy," Cobb liked to reminisce 40 years later. "But those old-timers turned me into a snarling wild-cat." They snubbed him, sawed his bats in half, locked him out of hotel rooms. He responded with his mouth, his fists and his average. In Cobb's first full year he hit .320, and that was to be his worst mark ever. In the era of the spitball he led the league...
...Cobb's patented hands-apart grip made him a nonpareil singles and doubles hitter, but furnished him with little power. Or so it seemed. In the Babe Ruth epoch, when Cobb was criticized for failing to hit the long ball, he went on record: "I'm going for home runs for the first time in my career." That day he went six for six: two singles, a double and three home runs. The following game he hit two more homers. The Peach had made his point; he hit just seven more home runs that season, and only...
...along, it was the inner game of baseball that truly interested Cobb: theft of a base, the hit and run, advancing from first to third on a bunt and unbounded psyching of the opponent. He knew, for example, that Walter Johnson had a lethal fastball but that he never threw at the batter. So Cobb crowded the plate and worked the fireballer for walks and opposite-field hits. Cobb often drooped listlessly at the plate, then ran the bases furiously, colliding with infielders and leaving their blood in the dust. All along, he bench-jockeyed with the worst of them...
Long after his career ended at 42 in 1928, Cobb complained about the decline of his sport. "The fabric of baseball is crumbling, "he warned. "I'd want players less interested hi a bonus, a business manager and a bowling alley than in fighting to win." But he was surprisingly modern in his self-interest. Like Rose he became a player-manager with a mouthful of statistics, mostly about his own achievements. Like Rose he was a headlong competitor whose determination made him exceed more gifted men. And like Rose he grew wealthy with shrewd investments, a high salary...
There is one essential difference between the legend and his successor. Rose can always laugh at himself. Cobb preferred to smile when the opposition blew a big lead. He was not much on irony; that his base-stealing records were surpassed by three black men, Wills, Lou Brock and Rickey Henderson, would not have amused him. Nor did he appreciate a generous anecdote told about him by a batting pupil. In 1960 Lefty O'Doul was asked, "What do you think Cobb would hit today?" The old outfielder guessed, "Oh, maybe .340." Then why do you say Cobb...