Glory of Their Times

[Hankphenom]

Originally Posted by byrone

Hank, is there much in the way of documented accounts of Cobb being racist?

Great question, and one I would like to know the answer to myself. I would assume that whatever documentation has been found on the subject one way or the other would be recited in one or more of the several biographies, but I have only read the Alexander book and that was many years ago. My impression to that effect is based mostly on Sam Crawford's interviews with Ritter, which in other respects I found to be honest, accurate, and persuasive. I can't remember if Davy Jones addressed that aspect of Cobb's personality, which he also didn't have much good to say about in general. Those two interviews when it comes to Cobb can perhaps be discounted somewhat by the assumption of some jealousy on their part, but you'd be hard pressed to find two men who saw more of him in a baseball context and off the field as well, so their accounts have to be taken with a great deal of weight and seriousness. The other point I would make is that it would be most surprising, in a country that had so recently fought a civil war over the issue of the legal enslavement of blacks and was still virulently racist in every meaningful respect, to find someone from the deep south who was NOT a racist at that time. But if you can show me that Cobb was the exception that proves the rule, I would be eager to stand corrected.

[btcarfagno]

Originally Posted by Hankphenom

Great question, and one I would like to know the answer to myself. I would assume that whatever documentation has been found on the subject one way or the other would be recited in one or more of the several biographies, but I have only read the Alexander book and that was many years ago. My impression to that effect is based mostly on Sam Crawford's interviews with Ritter, which in other respects I found to be honest, accurate, and persuasive. I can't remember if Davy Jones addressed that aspect of Cobb's personality, which he also didn't have much good to say about in general. Those two interviews when it comes to Cobb can perhaps be discounted somewhat by the assumption of some jealousy on their part, but you'd be hard pressed to find two men who saw more of him in a baseball context and off the field as well, so their accounts have to be taken with a great deal of weight and seriousness. The other point I would make is that it would be most surprising, in a country that had so recently fought a civil war over the issue of the legal enslavement of blacks and was still virulently racist in every meaningful respect, to find someone from the deep south who was NOT a racist at that time. But if you can show me that Cobb was the exception that proves the rule, I would be eager to stand corrected.

Cobb's grandfather, with whom he was very close, prided himself claiming he was the only person in his town who voted for Lincoln. Cobb's father was a Democrat but in his short time in government work showed many times to be a friend of the black man and was often at odds with those who were openly virulently bigoted. So Cobb came from a lineage of men who bucked the trends on the issue of race during their lifetimes.

To me Cobb had an equal opportunity temper. White men and black men were on the wrong side of it.

And the story of him beating on a black groundskeepers wife and also the groundskeeper himself may have been fictional as it may have been made up by a teammate who was working with new manager Hughie Jennings to find a way to get Cobb off the team as Jennings feared he was "bad for team harmony". There were no other witnesses to the event. The two who he allegedly beat up were never approached by the media of the time. Cobb immediately denied it ever happened.

[Mark17]

Didn't Cobb have great things to say about some black players, like Willie Mays? A racist probably wouldn't do that.

Tris Speaker also came from the deep south (Texas) and was probably a racist in his younger days, as was typical of southerners born that soon after the war. But in his later years he was noted for mentoring Larry Doby.

If Cobb and Speaker, coming from the south to play in far northern cities, brought some of their regional prejudices with them, they gradually grew with the nation to become much more accepting of blacks. I would say, from what I've read, that they were no more racist, and probably less so, than most of the people in their respective home towns.

[Hankphenom]

Originally Posted by Mark17

Didn't Cobb have great things to say about some black players, like Willie Mays? A racist probably wouldn't do that.

Tris Speaker also came from the deep south (Texas) and was probably a racist in his younger days, as was typical of southerners born that soon after the war. But in his later years he was noted for mentoring Larry Doby.

If Cobb and Speaker, coming from the south to play in far northern cities, brought some of their regional prejudices with them, they gradually grew with the nation to become much more accepting of blacks. I would say, from what I've read, that they were no more racist, and probably less so, than most of the people in their respective home towns.

All good points. When I called Cobb a racist--and as I said, I'm willing to stand corrected on that--I was referring to the younger man, and drew on the comments of his teammates on GOTT. Of course, the country changed dramatically in its racial attitudes over his lifetime, and it would surprising if many of the old-time players didn't change also. For example, I don't know how you could call the U.S. Armed Forces, which remained segregated until 1948, or many of the nation's schools that stayed that way into the 1960s, anything but racist based on those policies. But eventually they changed, the country changed, and people changed. I will ask again what concrete documentation was discovered in the research for his many biographies, and what does it point to in the racial attitudes of the younger Ty Cobb? I did a page or two in my biography of my grandfather on the racial issue and what little I could find where it impacted his careeer, mostly based on a handful of exhibition games he pitched against black teams and his fulsome praise of Josh Gibson after seeing him play in a spring training game in Florida in 1939. What is there on Cobb from original sources, I'd like to know?

[byrone]

Originally Posted by Hankphenom

All good points. When I called Cobb a racist--and as I said, I'm willing to stand corrected on that--I was referring to the younger man, and drew on the comments of his teammates on GOTT. Of course, the country changed dramatically in its racial attitudes over his lifetime, and it would surprising if many of the old-time players didn't change also. For example, I don't know how you could call the U.S. Armed Forces, which remained segregated until 1948, or many of the nation's schools that stayed that way into the 1960s, anything but racist based on those policies. But eventually they changed, the country changed, and people changed. I will ask again what concrete documentation was discovered in the research for his many biographies, and what does it point to in the racial attitudes of the younger Ty Cobb? I did a page or two in my biography of my grandfather on the racial issue and what little I could find where it impacted his careeer, mostly based on a handful of exhibition games he pitched against black teams and his fulsome praise of Josh Gibson after seeing him play in a spring training game in Florida in 1939. What is there on Cobb from original sources, I'd like to know?

Here are a few accounts:


But a lot of people have made assumptions about Cobb based on the date of his birth and the location, which was 1886 in Royston, Georgia or near Royston, Georgia, and so people just assume that he must have been a racist. But what they don't know — and what I found out — is that he descends from a long line of abolitionists. His great-grandfather was a preacher who preached against slavery and was run out of town. His grandfather refused to fight in the Confederate army because of the slavery issue. His father was a state senator who spoke up for his black constituents and broke up a lynch mob in town and had a very short political career because of it.

[Cobb] never said anything about race until 1952 when he told the Sporting News that "the Negro has the right to play professional sports," he said, "and who's to say he has not."


https://www.wbur.org/onlyagame/2015/...arles-leerhsen


I have over 40,000 newspaper articles, and NOT one article makes any correlation to Ty Cobb being a racist. All the evidence demonstrates Cobb’s support for the advancement of colored people, and yet, there is NO evidence that gives any indication that Mr. Cobb made any movement toward oppressing the black population.

Contrary, when Jackie Robinson entered into the major leagues, it began a slow process of allowing blacks to begin entering into every league in the country. When the Dallas club of the Texas League was considering allowing blacks to enter, Cobb was there to bat for them.


https://bleacherreport.com/articles/...s-not-a-racist



When he began work on a new biography, “Ty Cobb: A Terrible Beauty” (Simon & Schuster), Charles Leerhsen expected to uncover fresh depictions of the player as a racist and a spikes-sharpening attacker of opposing infielders. If Cobb was the meanest man in baseball flannels, additional animosity would not be difficult to find.

“I thought I’d find new examples of monstrous monstrosity,” Leerhsen said in an interview last week. “Instead, I found a very different person than the myth. I was a little disappointed at first. He’s more normal than I thought.”

Leerhsen’s research found neither a saint nor a Rabelaisian character like Babe Ruth. Sure, Cobb could be unpleasant and overly sensitive. He had a temper and fought with his share of people, including a fan who heckled him mercilessly. But Leerhsen did not unearth a bigot primed to attack black men or a brandisher of carefully filed daggers beneath his shoes.

“It’s a warts-and-all biography,” Leerhsen said, laughing. “But they’re warts, not tumors.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/01/s...notoriety.html

[Hankphenom]

That's an impressive ancestry of anti-racists, for sure, but is Ty known to have followed their lead in any fashion? 1952 seems a little late to be standing up for the right of blacks to play in the majors, if that's his first comment about it for the record. Is there any indication of Cobb having played in exhibitions against black teams, as so many white players did in those days? And the lack of documentation of his racial attitudes among Leerhsen's 40,000 articles doesn't surprise me, I would guess that to be true of most major leaguers of the era, it just wasn't something they would be asked about or would want to discuss during that time. I realize I'm playing a bit of the Devil's Advocate here, but it seems like pretty thin gruel to chew on so far, especially when balanced against Crawford's searing anecdotes on the GOTT tapes. Sam and Ty weren't close, to be sure, but I'm dubious that Crawford would make this stuff up to Ritter at that point in his life to get back at Cobb, and then there is Jones's corroboration and expansion on much of what Crawford had to say.

[byrone]

Originally Posted by Hankphenom

That's an impressive ancestry of anti-racists, for sure, but is Ty known to have followed their lead in any fashion? 1952 seems a little late to be standing up for the right of blacks to play in the majors, if that's his first comment about it for the record. Is there any indication of Cobb having played in exhibitions against black teams, as so many white players did in those days? And the lack of documentation of his racial attitudes among Leerhsen's 40,000 articles doesn't surprise me, I would guess that to be true of most major leaguers of the era, it just wasn't something they would be asked about or would want to discuss during that time. I realize I'm playing a bit of the Devil's Advocate here, but it seems like pretty thin gruel to chew on so far, especially when balanced against Crawford's searing anecdotes on the GOTT tapes. Sam and Ty weren't close, to be sure, but I'm dubious that Crawford would make this stuff up to Ritter at that point in his life to get back at Cobb, and then there is Jones's corroboration and expansion on much of what Crawford had to say.

My take on Sam Crawford from the GOTT is that he was more of a "Ty Cobb" than Cobb himself. Loner, curmudgeonly, jealous, etc.

As Crawford said, "Cobb “came up with an antagonistic attitude, which in his mind turned any little razzing into a life-or-death struggle,” Crawford recounted for Lawrence Ritter in The Glory of their Times years later. “He came up from the South, you know, and he was still fighting the Civil War. As far as he was concerned, we were all damn Yankees before he even met us.”

Little razzing indeed. Do you recall what they did to Cobb?

"The pretty thin gruel to chew on" would be calling someone a racist without evidence.

Regardless, no one should be called "racist" without strong evidence showing such.

[Kenny Cole]

Originally Posted by Hankphenom

That's an impressive ancestry of anti-racists, for sure, but is Ty known to have followed their lead in any fashion? 1952 seems a little late to be standing up for the right of blacks to play in the majors, if that's his first comment about it for the record. Is there any indication of Cobb having played in exhibitions against black teams, as so many white players did in those days? And the lack of documentation of his racial attitudes among Leerhsen's 40,000 articles doesn't surprise me, I would guess that to be true of most major leaguers of the era, it just wasn't something they would be asked about or would want to discuss during that time. I realize I'm playing a bit of the Devil's Advocate here, but it seems like pretty thin gruel to chew on so far, especially when balanced against Crawford's searing anecdotes on the GOTT tapes. Sam and Ty weren't close, to be sure, but I'm dubious that Crawford would make this stuff up to Ritter at that point in his life to get back at Cobb, and then there is Jones's corroboration and expansion on much of what Crawford had to say.

As to playing against black players, yes. That is clearly true, at least for 5 games. In 1910, the Tigers went to Cuba for an exhibition series. Cobb and Crawford were both there, as numerous photos attest. Punch Cigarros issued an incredibly rare set of baseball cards including the Tigers team, one of which was Cobb. Other cards in the set depict players from the various Cuban teams, including negro league stars such as Pop Lloyd, Grant Johnson, Jose Mendez and Bruce Petway.

There are box scores showing that Cobb played at least 5 games in Cuba. In one game, Negro League catcher Bruce Petway threw him out stealing at least once and threw him out bunting at least once. Petway is reputed to have actually thrown him out 3 times, although I don't know that to be true. Lloyd, Johnson and Petway all out-hit him there and he is also reputed never to have played against black players again. But those 5 games can be substantiated for what its worth insofar as this discussion is concerned.