[Peter_Spaeth]

In 2010, an article by William R. Cobb (no relation to Ty) in the peer-reviewed The National Pastime, the official publication of the Society for American Baseball Research, accused Al Stump of extensive forgeries of Cobb-related baseball and personal memorabilia, including personal documents and diaries. Stump even falsely claimed to possess a shotgun used by Cobb's mother to kill his father (in a well-known 1905 incident officially ascribed to Mrs Cobb having mistaken her husband for an intruder). The shotgun later came into the hands of noted memorabilia collector Barry Halper. Despite the shotgun's notoriety, official newspaper and court documents of the time clearly show Cobb's father had been killed with a pistol. The article, and later expanded book,[5] further accused Stump of numerous false statements about Cobb, not only during and immediately after their 1961 collaboration, but also in Stump's later years, most of which were sensationalist in nature and intended to cast Cobb in an unflattering light.[1] Cobb's peer-reviewed research indicates that all of Stump's works (print and memorabilia) surrounding Ty Cobb are, at the very best, called into question and, at worst, "should be dismiss[ed] out of hand as untrue".[1]