Ty Cobb signing habits
 

Hi everybody !

I just finished a Ty Cobb book wrote by his grandson Herchel. He wrote that he saw his grandfather reply to a lot of autograph request through the mail (even providing the balls and photos). This was in the late 50's.

This story is quite the opposite of what I've read in other books. Apparently he never responded to any request and threw everything away.

What is the truth ?

Thanks !

Cobb was a very gracious and willing signer. Lots of first hand accounts of him willingly signing. Just the sheer volume of Cobb signatures out there tells you what kind of signer he was.

+1

Tyrus was a very gracious signer. Often if you asked for his autograph you recieved a letter and at the bottom it would say something to the affect of oh here it the autograph you asked for "Ty Cobb".
Cobb was not nearly the monster that Al Stump made him out to believe he was and from every account I have read on him a very decent person who loved signing for his fans.
I have a letter he sent to a friend after spending a weekend with him and have seen dozens since of just how nice and warm he was and always seemed like he liked writing letters to anyone who would write to him.
Bottom line is you cant believe all the bad stuff said about Cobb...Was he perfect ? No but are any of us?

I owned this signed Cobb letter several years ago. It appears a fan had offered him money for a signed ball. Cobb went and bought the ball himself and told the fan to send a donation to his Educational Foundation. I wish I still had the letter!:(


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thats a awesome letter!!!

Mine that I own now from 1917

I’m almost more impressed with the Ramada Inn letterhead! A gracious and humble man even for 1960.

I own a Ty Cobb written letter, from January 30,1958. It was written to New Hampshire newsman Leo Cloutier, who held a sports celebrities dinner in NH each year. I think it provides awesome insight into Cobb the person, at least at that stage of his life. It is four pages in length, and was written after Cobb arrived back home in Georgia after having attended the event in New Hampshire.
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Ty Cobb
Cornelia, Georgia 1/30/58

Dear Leo:-

I wish to report that we got through ok by train to Boston and then train to N.Y. left by plane for Atlanta and then up here some 90 miles by auto.

I have had some very much needed rest since return, at my age I cannot take it so well anymore, have had sleep and rest around the clock for 4 or 5 nights since arriving back. Coming there may be my last for some time. I have determined to set a fee above the fee I asked of you and to eliminate the several that are contacting me , amongst two or three others Toronto has asked me to come there in April. I hope they won't meet my terms. I feel an obligation to go where the fee will send a student to college for a year otherwise I cannot go as I find it a hard & trying task at my age also with other matters of my own I should try to cope with.

I wish to thank you for your patience also your kindness to me and should also say the contribution to the Cobb Educational Foundation. I have 29 boys & girls in college now and I derive a great pleasure and satisfaction in doing this. We have some very fine boys & girls with unusually high marks as we have the pick from all the higher education institutions of Georgia from the Dean of Freshman Classes as one of the trustees is head of all these institutions of Georgia. Also each applicant after our investigation must qualify on the grounds of having had to work & fight their way through freshman year and their parents have no financial ability to further their education Etc. Wish I had had more time to tell you about this.

Again my thanks & appreciation to you, you certainly put on and developed an unusual affair.

My hope is that our God will grace you in every way. My kindest regards to Mrs. Cloutier who was so very nice in burdening herself with me during your event.

My best to you

Sincerely

Ty Cobb

P.S. Thanks for your thought in sending me all the papers

The other thing that I really liked about the 1960 letter is what was written at the end. He talks about convalescing. I believe this was written shortly after surgery when he was first diagnosed with cancer. He would die from cancer that following year.

If you do a search of Ty CObb Letters, you can find several online and they are really interesting to read.

This thread gets me more enraged of what Al Stump did to this mans reputation. Awful

Which would be the best TY Cobb bio to read?

Besides lying about Cobb in his book, Stump stole items from Cobb and forged his diaries and some autographs.

The best two Cobb bios are:

Ty Cobb: A Terrible Beauty, by Charles Leerhsen

War on the Basepaths, by Tim Hornbaker

Al Stump was a slime-ball. The other person I can't stand is writer Daniel Okrent. He was interviewed during Ken Burns "Baseball" and called Cobb the great black mark on baseball. I just love pompous self righteous a-holes that spout their opinions and shape other's opinions without putting that opinion in to proper context.

I really enjoyed the book Peach: Ty Cobb in His Time and Ours by Richard Bak. I thought it was a more balanced and fair representation of who Ty Cobb was.
The writer seemed to really do the appropriate research about Cobb and wrote quite a bit about his charitable side while still doing a good job of explaining his complexities as well. Has some great pics in it as well.

Stump also forged Ty Cobb on handwritten letters that have gotten into the hobby.

For years one of my "one that got away" items was a letter by Cobb. Two pages, pretty bland stuff, the second page was what I now know was Stumps fabricated Cobb. Not over the top nasty, but bad enough.

Now that I know more I'm glad I never scrounged up the money for it.

Herschel also mention in his book that he met Stump on one occasion. Stump only asked him negative stuff about his grandfather (his drinking, if he ever lost his temper or hit somebody in front of him). Obviously he never witnessed any of that, but that was the kind of stories Stump was looking for and he was insistent about it. On that same occasion he tried to steal a photo signed by Cobb, Ruth and someone else I can't recall.

I would recommend Herschel's book (Heart of a tiger). It's not your typical biography but we learn a lot about the person that was Ty Cobb in his latter years, and his soft side.

Thanks for all your replies !

I will watch just about any sports movie, even the Babe Ruth movies, but I just cannot watch that damn Cobb movie with Tommy Lee Jones based on Stumps book. I just want to kick a hole in the TV. LOL

Does anyone know why Ty signed so many examples with the date as well? I’ve observed this like no other ball player of his time or caliber (takes extra time and effort to add a date).

Just part of his specific and deliberate nature, to be sure. Lajoie did the same thing.

Hornsby was big on adding the year in later life. Randy Myers has been including the month and year for ages, but never the day. There are others.

This Ty Cobb letter from 1954 is one of my favorite items in my collection. I think it sheds light on just how accommodating Cobb was to fans requesting autographs in the mail. From his reply, it's pretty obvious he often got hammered with requests. But it appears that he cordially replied to people even when he sensed he was being taken advantage of.

As an autograph "hound" who has written to hundreds of athletes asking for signatures, I could definitely appreciate this letter. When I first saw it, I immediately loved its content and knew I needed it in my collection...it could have easily been addressed, "Dear Kevin" lol. (Not that I would have been someone taking advantage of him, but the fact that it was a reply to a TTM request.)

Like the one posted above, this letter was also penned on hoteI stationery. Based on this, I would suspect that Cobb often carried his fan mail with him while traveling and responded to requests in his spare time during trips. Just a theory.

In case you can't easily make out his handwriting, here is the text of his letter replying to a "collector" who had obviously sent him a stack of photos to sign. (Apparently, this is not just a modern eBay era trend that today's athletes deal with!):

"Dear Pat,
I do not like to sign so many pictures to one person, sometimes they are used to trade with. Also we have so many of such to sign from different ones. Also I have always felt honored anyone would want my autograph and try to comply.
Yours, Sincerely
Ty Cobb"

I love that humble line that he felt honored anyone would want his autograph and always tried to comply! Doesn't sound like a crusty SOB who threw everything in the trash to me!

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