Quote:
Originally Posted by Hankphenom
I'm glad you liked my book, Byrone, thanks for that. But you keep saying "no evidence" as if the Crawford and Jones tapes don't exist. I keep asking for some firm evidence that Cobb was somehow the opposite of what they claimed. There was considerable evidence to that effect about my grandfather, and I wrote about and documented it. Where's the evidence for Cobb? The games he played against black teams; contemporary admiration for the black players of his time; etc.? As for his fighting, he got into lots of fights for different reasons, not just when he was taunted from the stands. The good things I have to say about Cobb in my book far outweigh the bad things, something also reflected by the players in "Glory" the book and audio. I just don't see any reason to try to pretend that the bad wasn't there, too. Perhaps the picture of Cobb painted in the past did accentuate the bad to an unfair degree, and the one-sided impression created by Stump and others needed to be corrected, but there's no sense in going too far now in the other direction and trying to pretend he was some kind of saint. Feel free to respond to this, Byrone, then let's close it out, I'm all Cobbed out!
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Never said Cob was a saint. Don't think anyone ever has.
You seem to put a lot of weight on the possibility that he may have not played against black teams.
It was clear that once Cobb's Detroit season was over, that was it...off he went to Georgia without much thought of baseball. It's probably true that he didn't play much against white teams off-season either.
He hunted and rested mostly.
He detested spring training, often showing up only when he absolutely had to. While many players would need spring training to get in shape, Cobb was already in great shape, from all his hunting and hiking over the winter.
And as mentioned, if Crawford or others said that Cobb had no friends in baseball,they lied. He had plenty. And again, it wasn't that Cobb wanted to hang around ball players all year, he obviously enjoyed having time to himself.
I just don't see any reason to try to pretend that the bad wasn't there, too. Perhaps the picture of Cobb painted in the past did accentuate the bad to an unfair degree, and the one-sided impression created by Stump and others needed to be corrected, but there's no sense in going too far now in the other direction and trying to pretend he was some kind of saint
I guess that's what we are seeking, the truth. Was he sometimes bad? He sure was. But racist? I'm not so sure.
And I hate it when people flippantly throw around the word "racist"