Glory of Their Times

[todeen]

Originally Posted by Hot Springs Bathers

I have a degree is history and have been researching baseball history for over 40 years. The first rule I have found that most historians agree on is that when you have a large sample of first hand accounts they out weigh revised history....

...With that said, no player has had more "current revisionist history" printed about him than Cobb. There seems to be a "he couldn't have been as bad as they said about him" attitude. I lean on the first hand accounts which seem to say that yes he might not have been a great human being. A great player yes and as collectors we all see his cards rising. But?

I have a MA in US History. My theory on life is everything is gray. There is no black and white. And that upsets many people. But people act out of necessity, and many times, necessity is controlled by uncontrollable forces (lessons learned very early in life from parents, experiences that affected outcomes, nature vs nurture ideas). That's also why we have the term hypocrite. As I said in another thread, a person can respect certain aspects of a different culture, and still treat people of that culture with disdain in other areas on life. As was said in an earlier post here, everyone in that generation was a racist. It is what it is.