Take a look at the link I posted. If you could personally confirm some of the assertions made - that Cobb was quoted as saying blacks should be able to play in the Majors, and that he personally attended and threw out the first pitch in some Negro League games, and then sat in the dugout with players, would that be enough for you to conclude Cobb was definitely NOT a racist?

If so, apparently those events are documented somewhere. Perhaps the author includes his original sources within his book, or maybe you could contact him directly.

Cobb
 

For what it's worth, there was a letter written by Cobb (I think early 1920's if I recall) to a friend that was on eBay for a long time. In this letter, Cobb was talking about a piece of land he thought his friend should purchase. There was someone (who was black) that said the land was great hunting territory. When referencing this gentleman Cobb referred to him as "a Negro" which of course was very common practice at the time and he doesn't say anything negative about him (just how he said it was good hunting land). I would think if Cobb was truly the racist monster that he's made out to be, that he probably would have used another word to describe the man.

not sure if I am remembering correctly regarding the "Glory" tapes...definitely Davy Jones...not sure about Sam Crawford...but the supposed incident between Cobb and the groundskeeper's wife (and subsequently Boss Schmidt). The only two people who know whether that story is true or not are Schmidt and Cobb. Schmidt claimed that it happened. Cobb denied it. Press ran with Schmidt's story but did no follow up with the groundskeeper or his wife. So if teammates are retelling this story, they are doing so without firsthand knowledge based on what Schmidt said happened. It is worth noting that Hughie Jennings was about to begin his first year as manager of the Tigers at the time, and he was actively trying to get rid of Cobb due to his being a "disruption" for the team. Hugh Fullerton would later write that Jennings used Schnidt to engineer a "gentle frame up" of Cobb...to make Cobb look worse to Frank Navin who had no intention of trading Cobb.

Just some food for thought.

If Cobb threw out the first pitch at a single Negro League game, and/or sat in the dugout with the players--things I've never heard before--that would do it for me! Just attending Negro Leagues might make a strong enough case. I told you I have suspended judgement on the matter, and I meant that. I was wrong to take Crawford's recollections on the tapes and what I thought was common wisdom and turn it into such an accusation. But don't any of the recent books take the matter head on and resolve it with research? Don't any of you who are so interested in the matter--which I am not any more, frankly--have the results of that research to point to? How can this still be a matter for debate? I don't get it.

Sorry, Jeff, but that's some pretty "thin gruel" on which to hang the answer to an important question about such a significant figure in the game's history. And I could see if cutting both ways: yes, to his credit he didn't use the common pejorative, but why did he feel it necessary to mention that the opinion about the land came from a Negro? To discount this man's judgement, perhaps, as in "take it with a grain of salt?" Why else would you mention his race?

Great, then why not read Ty Cobb: A Terrible Beauty, and then independently verify those claims. Considering all the time and effort you've put into TGOTT, why not put in just a little more, in fairness to Ty.



Yes, the book Ty Cobb: A Terrible Beauty by Charles Leerhsen. Again, instead of going by popular opinion, which led you astray the first time, I would suggest you not just read this book and consider it the final word, but confirm the facts he presents for yourself. After that, I'd appreciate knowing what your ultimate conclusion is on the matter.

Definitely thin gruel (great term!), which is why I prefaced with for what it's worth. Just thought it was interesting.

Like others have said, the research done in A Terrible Beauty is enough for me.

No problem, I will read the book at some point. If he's done enough research to firmly refute the apparent misconception on my part (and many others) that Ty was a racist, that's a great thing for Cobb, his family, and his many admirers. It's even more admirable considering, as I said before, that I have no problem calling the country racist during that time, and nobody will ever shake me from that assertion--I remember seeing "white" and "colored" signs in D.C. as late as my high school years. Earlier in the discussion, I mentioned that my grandfather was friends with Cobb, and you won't find much bad about him in my book. I have no ax to grind against him, and never did.

As to playing against black players, yes. That is clearly true, at least for 5 games. In 1910, the Tigers went to Cuba for an exhibition series. Cobb and Crawford were both there, as numerous photos attest. Punch Cigarros issued an incredibly rare set of baseball cards including the Tigers team, one of which was Cobb. Other cards in the set depict players from the various Cuban teams, including negro league stars such as Pop Lloyd, Grant Johnson, Jose Mendez and Bruce Petway.

There are box scores showing that Cobb played at least 5 games in Cuba. In one game, Negro League catcher Bruce Petway threw him out stealing at least once and threw him out bunting at least once. Petway is reputed to have actually thrown him out 3 times, although I don't know that to be true. Lloyd, Johnson and Petway all out-hit him there and he is also reputed never to have played against black players again. But those 5 games can be substantiated for what its worth insofar as this discussion is concerned.

I have a degree is history and have been researching baseball history for over 40 years. The first rule I have found that most historians agree on is that when you have a large sample of first hand accounts they out weigh revised history.

We all have our favorites in baseball. I personally have read every possible source on Ruth and had the chance to visit with Bill Dickey many years ago to ask him about the Babe. I find Ruth to be very confusing, how intelligent was he, how out of control was he? I still have no firm opinion.

With that said, no player has had more "current revisionist history" printed about him than Cobb. There seems to be a "he couldn't have been as bad as they said about him" attitude. I lean on the first hand accounts which seem to say that yes he might not have been a great human being. A great player yes and as collectors we all see his cards rising. But?

True with regard to personal opinions and firsthand accounts of actual events. Not true of second or third hand accounts. At all.

Also, when what has been written about a person over the years has been demonstrably and provably false and misleading, what are we to think? We obviously cannot throw it all away and say that Cobb was a saint and just misunderstood, but it is equally vapid to simply not pay attention when new information comes to light.

Totally agree Tom but we have to be careful as to defining "what new has come to life."

Absolutely. In a Terrible Beauty Leerhsen does have a good amount of research to back up his statements regarding what is fact, what is fiction, and what is a 50/50 he said/he said type of situation. You also must be able to separate some leaps of faith that he does make with regard to opinions on certain matters. As with much in the field of history, there is a lot of "if "this" is true and "that" is true, it is reasonable to assume that "this" is also true". It may be and it may not be the case. There are definitely a fair amount of reasonable assumptions going on in this work. However, the research he does regarding what was always assumed to be 100% fact that turns out to either be complete myth or at best a he said/he said 50/50 is enough to make the findings of this book shed some new light on the situation.

Well said

I grew up in the deep South Georgia in the 60's. My family back to the Civil War. Concept of racism is different back then than today. Back then, culture and color segregation was not seen as racist. It was normal. Racist then was if you really hated the negros. So, taken into context of history, did Cobb hate negros?.... If he didn't, he was normal like most all other of us white folk...

Not really getting this. So during slavery, because it was the norm and the law, you wouldn't call the slave states racist?

Not sure I understand that one entirely either.

But to your point regarding Cobb using the term "Negro" to refer to someone in a letter that he wrote, of course that is a racist thing to do, without question. It was also a fairly normal thing to do back then. So I do not think that the point is whether or not Cobb was racist or not. It is fairly clear that he was. The question is more along the lines of whether or not he was a virulent racist as he has been portrayed for decades. The evidence may be pointing to that not being the case. It seems more likely that he was as racist as the everyday person of his time, which, granted, by today's standards is quite alarming.

The "slave states". Yeah, racist

All the people of those states? No, not all were racist.

Was he portrayed routinely as virulently racist? By whom? My impression in that regard was formed mostly by Crawford on the "Glory" tapes, I think, and as I've said, that doesn't seem to me now nearly enough to have drawn any kind of conclusion in that regard. My only other deep dive into Cobb was reading the Alexander book back in the day, and I can't remember what he wrote about it. I had always thought of Cobb mostly as quick-tempered, a brawler, with a fierce drive to win at all costs, confirmed both contemporaneously and in later accounts by my research. Other than that, my impression of his racial attitudes would probably have been similar to comments here to the effect that like most people he was a product of his time and environment and it would have been surprising and admirable had he NOT held the attitudes prevalent in those. Now I'm seeing some evidence that the latter might indeed be the case, and I hope that turns out to be true.

Agree 100%.

Came across this again in my stuff while searching for something and thought it would be a good addition to the original thread here...

http://starsofthediamond.com/leachglory.jpg
http://starsofthediamond.com/leachglory2.jpg

How many authors of such a book would have cut all the players in on the royalties? Just that one check was a decent amount of money in those days, equivalent to two or three grand today. But Larry didn't do it for the money. He was a peach.

Any idea how much each player received in total?

And any idea how many books initially sold?

No clue about the money. As for books sold, I remember seeing a figure of something like 250,000 quoted when we did the audio set, which was almost 25 years ago. It was then in its 14th printing and had never been out of print. Most of that total probably came in the first several years after publication in 1966. Very few non-fiction books ever achieve that level of success.

That check is so cool, and a great piece of baseball and literary history.

Here's 3 of the checks that I had

https://www.qualitycards.com/pictures/checks5.jpg

+1

I made a comment similar to this in the Top 50 Hated Players thread, and it wasn't regarded highly by some there either.

I have a MA in US History. My theory on life is everything is gray. There is no black and white. And that upsets many people. But people act out of necessity, and many times, necessity is controlled by uncontrollable forces (lessons learned very early in life from parents, experiences that affected outcomes, nature vs nurture ideas). That's also why we have the term hypocrite. As I said in another thread, a person can respect certain aspects of a different culture, and still treat people of that culture with disdain in other areas on life. As was said in an earlier post here, everyone in that generation was a racist. It is what it is.

It obviously must be said that many in the North were racist in there own way, and unions were extremely racist, blackballing African Americans from certain trades in order to protect the wages of white workers. No region of the US was free from racism, I live in Washington State, and segregated neighborhoods - due to activities of Realtor groups - existed even here, from Tacoma on the Puget Sound to Spokane on the Idaho border. And one need not be a virulent racist to be racist - simply saying something like "There goes the neighborhood" when a African American family moved in was simple enough to be racist.

I am currently reading a book on the life of Octavius Catto. If anyone wants a true eye opener as to how racist the North got, just pick up a copy of this book.

Since people are adding checks, I think I will add my letter from Bucky Walters to Mr. Ritter. I like how he shares his appreciation and like for the book.

https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/202...24edb087fa.jpg

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G930A using Tapatalk

Postcard used in book...

https://photos.imageevent.com/bicem/...0-231839_2.png

So all the members of the Underground Railroad were racists? It doesn't matter that whites were risking their lives, and sometimes dying, helping blacks. Branch Rickey must have been a racist too. How about Pee Wee Reese?

$2,027.99 to be specific. :)

$2,027.99 to be specific. :)

I'm a Christian man. The seed of hatred and discrimination lies within us all.

There has been and always will be the ability to accept one minority without accepting them all. There were many a white abolitionist who thought that removing Native Americans from their families and reservations and forcing them into schools far away so that they could assimilate into white culture was best for them and their kind.

And further, being an abolitionist didn't mean one stood for equality in all segments of society. Being an abolitionist meant that you didn't believe one man could subjugate and enslave another. Abolitionists weren't advocating interracial marriage. Many didn't even advocate women's right to vote.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G930A using Tapatalk

Some maybe, but ALL? All who were risking their lives were still racists? Isn't that diminishing what real racism is? People today like to throw around that term to make themselves superior to others they disagree with. Racism injured and killed real humans. It is a word that shouldn't be used lightly.

I think this is the salient point. I'm not a particularly active member here, nor am I anything approaching a competent baseball historian, but I have been blessed/cursed to have to walk this earth observing and evaluating my every move (ISTJ, represent!) Stereotyping is a common heuristic for dealing with unfamiliar situations. So, the question isn't whether a person is prejudiced or not, because everyone carries around some level of prejudice. The question is whether we can recognize that prejudice within ourselves and compartmentalize it away from our interactions with the world in general, and individuals specifically.

So, think of Cobb as Schrödinger's racist.

Well said....

A year earlier, as posted above, Edd Roush got one for $935. I guess that would be around nine grand today. Wow! Makes me wonder if Larry even kept any for himself

audio of "Glory'
 

An interesting thing about the audio version of Ritter's work is what was left out.

Chief Meyers, a charmer on tape, remained bitter about the treatment of Native Americans, something we couldn't pick up on in the book.

Rube Bressler, who was cut by the Cardinals at the end of his career, was still very angry about his treatment in St. Louis. His take on Branch Rickey is eye-opening.

Ritter was interviewed by Mike Shannon for "Baseball The Writers' Game." It is very insightful. Ritter mentioned interviewing a player who was senile (we don't discover who). He also said not all of the interviews were productive, but he blamed himself for that. Someone (it may have been Ritter) said Willie Kamm was so dispassionate about his baseball career that he could have been talking about someone other than himself.

As for Cobb being a racist, where this thread seems to be leaning, let's just say that Ty Cobb was difficult. Odd might be a better fit. There IS plenty of evidence of that.
lumberjack

Racism is not treating a group of people equally because of race or heritage. One does not need to burn a cross or lynch a man to be racist. When Hank Aaron couldn't sleep in the same hotel as his teammates was that not racism? When he had to wash his uniform at the black laundry on the other side of town, was that not racism? So then his teammates who said, "gosh Hank, I'm sorry, but that's just the way things are," don't they bare some burden for the problem continuing? They aren't just innocent bystanders. They could sleep elsewhere, they could eat elsewhere, but they didn't.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G930A using Tapatalk

Why are hijacking this thread and making it about whether or not long dead men that were raised and lived during times many of us were not born in either were or were not racist to some degree or another?

There will be no consensus reached here people! We don’t know the answer, nor will we ever know. It is like watching Don Quixote attacking a windmill!

Nice comment. I like the Don Quixote reference. I'll stop.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G930A using Tapatalk

Of course it is. The statement akin to 'everyone is a racist' diminishes racism to the extent of saying every person alive is breathing. If indeed, everyone is a racist, what is the point of even being concerned with racism at all? Beyond being a bludgeon for preferential usage of the term.

Tschock, your answer was given by carlsonjok, who said it very well.

Or, if you're a bible believer, it's to realize your imperfection, to begin to follow the Lord's commands and to change your habits (to love thy neighbor as thy self, or to follow the golden rule), and to accept the redeeming power of Christ.

I'm sorry to hijack this thread like someone said earlier. I really like theory, theology, and philosophy and the attempts to turn theory into real life application.... and the difficulties this presents in trying to accomplish it.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G930A using Tapatalk

Having seen the royalty checks posted here , and seeing others in the past I wonder about the differing amounts per player , and how the royalty amounts for each player were determined as well as how long did the players receive the royalty checks ?
One thing is clear and that is that Ritter did a great job with the book and by all I’ve ever heard or read he tried to treat the players fairly throughout the process .

Interesting, it doesn't appear there was a set amount each player rec'd as the amounts in the checks are very different, although they were all written at different times so no true 1:1 comparison. The Roush check being the largest is interesting but it also appears to be the oldest check (1967) so maybe that was an initial amount rec'd for the ability to interview & their time and the later smaller amounts were royalties based on book sales? I believe the book came out initially in 1966.

Each player may have negotiated their own contract. If you have ever read anything about Roush he was a pretty shrewd and somewhat demanding player when it came to his contracts so he may have just negotiated better? Or it could be based on portion of the book that was dedicated to their story... the more interesting players likely got more press and thus a larger check? Interesting questions.

re.Glory
 

Here's what Ritter told Mike Shannon: "I don't remember how much each [subject] got...but it was something like 10, 15, 20,000 dollars.....Even when they died, we had written documents as to who was to get their share in the future."

This went on until, as Ritter said, the bookkeeping got to be too much. He eventually bought out everybody for $500 for their share. This would have been around 1987.

Ritter did not take anything from the project as it would have created tax problems for him. He was pretty well off and certainly in better shape than the retired players.
lumberjack

It would make sense that the largest checks were at the beginning, then diminished over time. I'm pretty sure Larry didn't have any contracts with the players since he had no publisher for the book when he did the interviews and didn't really know if there would be one. He told us that Billy Werber refused to be interviewed unless he was paid, so there was no interview. Werber told Larry he planned to write his own book, so why would he give Ritter the information for free? Larry took some satisfaction in recounting how his book made many of the players famous again and how he was sure that Werber regretted his decision. It's surprising to me that so few of Larry's "Glory" checks have surfaced over the years considering he probably wrote at least one a year to all 28 players in the book for years. But I don't think I've ever seen one later than the early 70s. You would think if some of them came out, they all would have come out. In the dim recesses of my mind, I think autograph dealer Doug Averitt might have bought them from Larry, I know he had a bunch of them in the late 90s.