[Hankphenom]

I think Larry Ritter's interviews in "The Glory of Their Times" provide a well-rounded picture of Cobb as told by his contemporaries. He had bad impulses and good impulses (especially later in life); could be loutish and paranoid or warm and gracious; was driven to win at all costs but not unfair how he went about it; Tried to beat the daylights out of some who had aggrieved him but helped thousands with his generosity; was neglectful of his training but kept in good enough shape to have been possibly the greatest player of all time over a 23-year career; had good friends and hunting buddies but also players, including long-time teammates, who didn't have a good word to say about him personally. Read, or better yet listen to, Sam Crawford and Davy Jones, who observed and interacted with Cobb so closely over such a long period, and you have to ask yourself if it really was just jealousy that had them painting such a dark picture of the man from a vantage point where most are willing to give some slack, if not completely forgive and forget? Well into their 80s, and they are still scathing and unrelenting in their assessments. I think it's great that more scholarly efforts are undoing the damage to his reputation done by Stump and other early chroniclers with a sensationalist agenda, and I hope we end up with a better rounded picture of a complex man who lived a complicated life. He deserves no less than an accurate portrayal.