Glory of Their Times

[Hankphenom]

Originally Posted by Bicem

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.

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?