by Al Stump
To reach the park by foot meant dodging a sputtering, smoke-belching variety of fifteen-mile-an-hour vehicles—Marvels, Reos, Hupmobiles, Aerocars, Buicks, Packards, and Model N Fords (the famous Model T type Ford, at $850, would not appear until 1908). As of 1905, Detroit had more than seventy firms producing 22,800 gas cars annually. Cobb envied the begoggled, duster-coated drivers. If ever he could afford to own one . . .
FOLLOWING HIS first appearance, he read in Detroit’s Free Press: “Cobb, the juvenile outfielder, got away well. Tyrus was well-received and may consider a two-base pry-up as a much better career opener than usually comes a young fellow’s way.” Sportswriters also liked his stance at bat, marked by a slight crouch with feet close together, his rather heavy 38-ounce club (about 2.4 pounds) held steady at shoulder height and set to whip around in coordination with a short forward stride. His swing was a contained, economical one, not from the heels.
In a rematch with the New Yorkers the next day, August 31, the opinion of the press was split. Some observers cheered his two singles in four times up off right-handed change-up specialist Jack Powell, a 23-game winner in 1904. His base hits were a useful contribution to a 5–0 Tiger shutout of the Highlanders. But offsetting this was a first-inning headfirst steal attempt in which the catcher’s throw easily beat him. That allowed baseman Kid Elberfeld time to slam his knee into the back of Cobb’s neck and grind his face into the dirt. “The professional teach,” it was called—a naked attack on apprentice ballplayers to discourage stealing. Cobb’s nose was skinned and he bled a bit. Bill Armour said, “I wanted to see what you could do against Red Kleinow’s arm. It was damned dumb to go in leading with your head.” Down in Augusta, months earlier, George Leidy had warned him of the same error. After Elberfeld’s roughing-up, Cobb rarely went into a base other than feet first, with neck muscles bunched. He filed away the name of Norman Arthur “Kid” Elberfeld for purposes of evening the score at another time—if there was another time.
Another bush-league exhibition came in the seventh inning of his second start. He violated the basic rule of never running through a stop signal given by a coach. Base runner Cobb tried to score from second base on a single to medium-deep center field. Ignoring Bill Coughlin’s hold-up sign at third base, he was tagged out by a near body length and roundly booed. “Archie Hahn, the Olympic sprint champ,” wrote a critic, “couldn’t have made that work.”
Evaluating afterward those break-in days, Cobb recorded, “I was riding high one moment, in the dumps the next. The worse thing was not knowing if I belonged there or not. It was all maybe. Maybe I did, maybe not. That put me into too much of a hurry to look good.”
His main handicap was that he felt inferior alongside mature big-leaguers: “I’d never dreamed that men could field and hit so wonderfully. Such speed, class, style, and lightning thinking. It was common then for games to be low scoring and close scoring—1–0, 2–1, 3–2—decided by gaining the last inch of advantage. Scientific ball at its best. It hasn’t been matched since.”
In a Labor Day game came plays that he felt decided whether he would leave town or stay. Chicago’s scrappy White Sox, bidding for the pennant in the late season, visited Bennett Park for a doubleheader. A turnout of seventy-six hundred rambunctious fans packed along baselines and outfield restraining ropes. Hazers yelled at Cobb in center field, “Hey, sprout, does your ma know you’re out?” This was touching on sensitive ground. Cobb glared back. After that someone threw a cheap child’s toy at him. He kicked it all the way to the ropes. Detroit’s agitators were now aware of something—the new boy could not stand to be razzed.
Amidst an uproar, Chicago’s Jiggs Donahue drove a ball deep to left center. It resembled a two-base hit until Cobb, racing under it at the last moment, speared the ball one-handedly, almost blindly, over his shoulder. He shot it back to the infield, saving two runs. A few innings later he again showed off his throwing arm. Donahue was at first base when Ty chased a long grounder, pocketed it, and fired two-hundred-odd feet on a line to third base. Donahue, out to stretch the hit into a two-base advance, was out sliding. Detroit beat the White Sox. Back on the bench, Germany Schaefer nudged Ty, saying, “Can’t you hear the folks? Go out and take a bow.”
Cobb was unsure how a rookie should respond to cheers and just sat there. Schaefer pushed him to his feet. For the next moments he heard his first big-time crowd salute.
Twenty-four hours later, he was in trouble. Against the White Sox, he took a bead on a fly ball and with no forethought went after it. The chance clearly was in left fielder Matty McIntyre’s territory, of which McIntyre was highly possessive. A bad man to cross, McIntyre had batted a weak .254 and .265 in the past two seasons; his job was in danger. Cobb infuriated McIntyre by cutting in front of him, in what one sportswriter called “a high, senile prance, for one so young,” and causing him to drop the ball.
He was capable of worse gaucheries. At Washington he let three fly balls pop out of his glove for errors in two games, and missed a steal sign. His teammates gave Cobb a razzing. Armour replaced him in center field with McIntyre, sending the rookie to left field.
A few games later, Adrian “Addie” Joss was on the mound for Cleveland, mowing down Tigers with a curveball that gave him one of the lowest lifetime earned-run averages in history (1.88). After reaching Joss earlier for a single, Cobb came to bat in the ninth inning of a deadlocked game. He worked Joss to a full count before singling again.
In the press section, as Cobb later learned, Harry Salsinger of the News said, “Look at that idiotic lead Cobb’s taking off first. Joss will pick him off easily.”
Instead, a sacrifice moved him to second base, where he once more took a lead bordering on the foolhardy. Joss whirled and threw to the bag. Cobb beat the tag by the smallest of margins. He darted back and forth, yipping at Joss. Batter Matty McIntyre hit a slow-bounding ball that took a last high hop and was barely knocked down by Cleveland’s second baseman. Now Detroit had its first look at the advertised speed of the Georgian. Advancing to third base and beyond in a flash, while in full stride he glanced back at the second-base situation. The fielder momentarily did not have the spinning ball under control. Cobb saw him juggling it. Without a pause Cobb raced on. The play at home plate was tight, but he beat a hurried high throw to Cleveland’s catcher, Nig Clarke, to win the game. The crowd yelled his name this time.
Bill Armour was impressed by the sight of a beginner successfully moving from second to home on a ball hit to the shallow infield. “That’s one of the best running jobs I’ve ever seen,” he told the press. “He must have traveled that last ninety feet in three seconds.”
By that impetuous final-inning dash, Cobb put the Tigers at the .500 mark for the first time since early season. They finished in third place with a 79–74 (.516) record, the best any Detroit team had done since 1901. By improving to third place, Armour had probably saved his job. Numerous managers had come and gone—George Stallings, Frank Dwyer, Ed Barrow, Bobby Lowe—since the century’s turn. The authoritative Reach Guide of 1905 said, “Armour did an admirable job of managing and his colorful new second-base combination of Charley O’Leary and Germany Schaefer … and a young outfielder named Cobb … added new strength to the team.”
As the season’s end neared, Ty was considered worth keeping on the roster, although seen as a hot-and-cold performer who could make teammates and fans tear their hair. He was notably deficient at fielding hard-bounding grounders, and weak against some forms of left-handed pitching. Guy “Doc” White of Chicago broke up laughing after striking out the youth four times in one afternoon. “I thought I’d be released after that game,” Cobb remembered. “By September I kept waiting for the ax to fall … why it didn’t I still don’t know.”
One answer to that might have been the home run he hit that late season against Washington. His first big-league home run was a three-run, inside-the-park job. The ball, pulled into the right-field corner, bounced away from the fielder and Cobb simply outra
n its return. “He went so fast,” commented the Detroit News, “that he almost ran over the two Tigers scoring ahead of him, Sam Crawford and Germany Schaefer. This kid can outleg the No. 1 horse hitch at the Central Fire Department.”
A strikeout victim too much of the time, he compensated to a degree by going on batting spurts. When Detroit finished its season at Cleveland on October 7, Tiger regulars urged Armour to bench the kid and let Jimmy Barrett, slowed by a knee injury, end the campaign at his former outfield position. Cobb had replaced Barrett back on August 30. “Can’t do it,” replied Armour. “Frank Navin wants to see more of him. We’re not sure what to do about him next season. He’s got plenty of fight.”
Armour noticed how Cobb had handled the matter of Bill “Jap” Barbeau, Cleveland’s second baseman. Barbeau one day had tried to block Cobb’s slide into the bag. A hurtling body, spikes extended, had hit Barbeau at the knees, sending him backward, stunned. Torn from his grip, the ball had rolled into the outfield. Cobb was safe, Barbeau’s leg had been cut, and the game-winning run had scored.
To take a man out of a play by charging him at full force was a football tactic seldom used in this game. But an attitude was growing in Cobb that argued that while it was standard practice to impede a runner’s access to a base by any means, fair or foul, there was a limit beyond which the defense should not go. Within baseline boundaries, access should be equal for offense and defense. The rulebook was vague on the subject. Cobb’s interpretation was becoming one of Give me room or get hurt.
Not until he grew to more than six feet and 185 to 190 pounds and was proficient in the use of momentum was he fully able to enforce his belief. As it stood now, he was making a start at confronting those who shut him off—at times by slamming balls into his face. “I have some loose teeth to prove it,” he pointed out that winter. Bloodying his spikes on basemen would in time involve him in more field fights and off-field brawls and inflame the national audience and press more than any other aspect of his play.
Along with handling Barbeau, he had two base hits against Cleveland on October 7. That concluded his tryout with the Tigers. He had appeared in all 41 games left on the schedule after he reported. Batting down the lineup in fifth place most of the time, he had produced 36 hits in 150 times at bat for a .240 average. Included were 6 doubles, no triples, and 1 home run. His runs scored came to 19, not a bad showing for so few games. Armour did not let him try for steals, and his bases stolen came to only 2. He had won at least 4 games with his bat and feet.
In the field, against the wind that whirled in Bennett Park, he had made 85 putouts and 6 assists with just 4 errors, for a .958 average—not bad at all. Through all of his years Cobb insisted that, at the outset, he was a poor fielder. His total of errors does not support that description. His reason for playing down his defensive work had to do with the Georgian’s claim that he was in no way a natural ballplayer. He wanted it certified and understood that he succeeded only by detailed observation, application, and perseverance. “Not until 1907,” he said, “could I be considered sound in the field and beginning to understand hitting. I earned everything I did by damned hard effort.”
His .240 average for a minor part of the season just ended would represent the only time in twenty-four big-league years that Cobb averaged under .300—a tremendous feat. No major-league batter from Honus Wagner, Shoeless Joe Jackson, Nap Lajoie, Rogers Hornsby, Tris Speaker, George Sisler, Paul Waner, Harry Heilmann, Jimmie Foxx, Charlie Gehringer, Al Simmons, Babe Ruth, and Lou Gehrig to Joe DiMaggio, Stan Musial, Ted Williams, Mickey Mantle, Willie Mays, and Hank Aaron—has ever maintained over an extended career an unbroken .300-and-up record. All failed at least once to hit .300. Cobb missed hitting .300 or better only in part of one season; thereafter he did it for twenty-three consecutive years. His sustained excellence remains the all-time record, with the probability that no hitter will ever tie or equal it.
BASEBALL WRITERS, puzzled by the upstart Cobb that autumn, pictured him as a question mark followed by an exclamation point. The News’s Harry Salsinger saw him as “a ghost in advancing when he manages a hit” and “good at ducking beanballs” and “one who might develop into an offensive threat.” Paul Brusky of the Times went overboard with “here is an infant prodigy.” Brusky had been intrigued enough to check out Cobb’s recent past, and was aware of the killing of Professor Cobb of sixty days earlier. He let his readers know that the youngster had played with a heavy burden of grief. In Sporting Life, Brusky admired his “wonderful ability” to resume play so soon after his father’s funeral. The phrase “small miracle” was tossed around.
Other Tigers had not surpassed Cobb’s .240 mark by much. As previously noted, aside from Sam Crawford’s near-.300 performance—best on the club—infielders Schaefer and Pinky Lindsay and outfielders Charley Hickman, Bobby Lowe, and Matty McIntyre had batted at from .193 to .267. Armour’s need for power ran right down the lineup.
Although major-league baseball attendance in general was climbing, the Tigers, despite finishing third, were at the bottom in 1905 in American League home draw, with 193,384, or an average of only 1,264 patrons per game. So poor was the showing that it was predicted that the franchise would be moved from the low-income Corktown district of Detroit to a larger eastern metropolis.
WHILE COBB prepared for a return to a mother facing criminal proceedings in the case of her dead husband, club secretary Frank Navin remained silent on the question of whether Cobb had shown enough ability to be retained for 1906. Armour was not talking, either. Gossip had it that economy measures would be imposed next year. Cobb failed to see how, under management’s existing policy, more money could be saved. On long, hot road trips, game suits went unlaundered; players washed them in sinks on trains and hung them out windows, where the uniforms were peppered by flying cinders. Bathing facilities at parks and at second-rate hotels were few and primitive; men often dried in their own sweat upon leaving a city. Lacking a trainer, players with cuts or abrasions were bandaged by teammates. Only the best pitchers and a few veterans were provided with sleeping berths on trains. Most of the Tigers, Cobb included, slept sitting up. Road meals came cold and unappetizing.
Boss Navin, however, riding up front in a private compartment, dined and slept in comfort. “Navin kept us badly housed and fed through my early years with Detroit,” Cobb attested. “That went for a lot of clubs in those days. But we were about the worst at getting pissed upon by the ownership.”
Other trouble was shaping up. Cobb was unpopular with a majority of the Tigers. Matty McIntyre and pitching mainstay Ed “Twilight” Killian set the tone by ignoring him on and off the field. The team’s main men had little in common with an eighteen-year-old from a distant part of the country. Most of the members were northerners and midwesterners. Cobb’s pronounced southernness—with his slurry drawl and a stiff, formal way of addressing people—was not “regular.” He did not drink or joke around. Moreover, Cobbs had fought against the Union in the Civil War.
During the first days after his arrival he was not seen as a threat to take someone’s job. But once his occasional flashy play indicated that he might turn out to be more than a short-term replacement, resentment built among the established outfield corps of Charley Hickman, Matty McIntyre, Jimmy Barrett, and Duff Cooley. Only fun-loving infielder Germany Schaefer and utilityman Bobby Lowe hospitably invited him to sit with them at dinner. There was no room for him at postgame gab sessions in hotel lobbies, at floating poker games, at barbershop-quartet singing. It was ostracism, by men who were old pros at it. The team’s attitude had not yet hardened into outright hazing—that was coming—but Cobb, reviewing his 1905 experience, wrote, “It was a them-against-me setup … it wasn’t about to get better.” It was not much comfort to know that rookies everywhere were treated like plague carriers, a baseball practice as old as the day when umpires wore top hats and derbies and four strikes composed an out.
At the last moment, early in October, Cobb changed his mind about
leaving immediately for home. Word from Royston concerning his father’s estate was troubling. Cobb had always thought that the Professor was well fixed. Now letters from his family showed that much of W. H.’s property was mortgaged, and the cost of lawyers to defend his mother in her forthcoming trial for voluntary manslaughter had mounted. The cash problem was serious.
Cobb stayed on in Detroit for a few days to pick up ninety dollars for a pair of postseason games matching the Tigers with a local all-star semipro team. While on the field, he was approached by a reporter from a Lansing, Michigan, newspaper. The man brought up the subject of Amanda Cobb and her shotgunning of W. H. “What are her chances for acquittal?” asked the reporter.
“Get away from me,” Cobb warned.
When the reporter persisted in his questioning, he was grabbed by the shirt and britches and sent staggering. It drew a reprimand from Frank Navin as the postseason ran out.
Cobb’s final act of an incredible month was to try pinning down Armour on what he could expect next spring. “It’s all up in the air,” said Armour, who liked Cracker Cobb for his hustle. “I haven’t been offered a contract, myself. Maybe neither of us will be here next time.”
“If I come back,” pressed Cobb, “do you think I can get twelve hundred dollars for the season?”
Replied Armour, “Navin has to pay some of the boys more than twice that. He thinks you might be a comer. So don’t be bashful about getting all you can.”
Uncertainty remained. Cobb would say in later years that he was not even sure at this point that he could afford to stay on as a ballplayer.
CHAPTER NINE
“A HANDFUL OF HELL”
“Temperamental, humorless, egocentric, Cobb proved an inviting target for the hardboiled primitives on the team … with Detroit he had no friends, whatever … they hated his guts.”