The Life and Times of Ty Cobb is a fascinating and authoritative biography written by an actor who has portrayed Cobb on stages across the United States and Canada. Cobb was one of the most controversial players in baseball history. Many baseball experts call Ty one of the greatest players who ever lived. His lifetime batting average of .367 is still the highest of all time. When he retired in 1928, after twenty-two years with the Detroit Tigers and two with the Philadelphia Athletics, he held more than ninety records. Numbers don't tell half of Cobb's tale. The Georgia Peach was by far the most thrilling player of the era: "Ty Cobb could cause more excitement with a base on balls than Babe Ruth could with a grand slam," one columnist wrote. When the Hall of Fame began in 1936, Cobb was the first player voted in. Babe Ruth finished second. Cobb was a complex, misunderstood man and one of the game's most controversial characters. He got in fights, on and off the field, and was often accused of being overly aggressive. His supporters acknowledged that he was a fierce and fiery competitor. Because his philosophy was to "create a mental hazard for the other man," despite his enemies, he was also widely admired. He was a friend of presidents from William H. Taft to Dwight D. Eisenhower. He was baseball's first millionaire and one of the first to endorse corporate products and make a Hollywood movie. After his death in 1961, something strange happened. His reputation morphed into that of a virulent racist who sharpened his spikes, a monster who attacked infielders and catchers. Books and films were full of myths, lies and uncorroborated stories. How did this happen? Who is the real Ty Cobb? Setting the record straight, actor and author Norm Coleman became the debunker of the myths and lies told about Ty. Coleman researched the life of the shy son of a professor and state senator from Georgia, who was progressive on race for his time and later became America's first true American sports celebrity. In the process, he tells of a life overflowing with stories of the men he knew: Babe Ruth, Joe DiMaggio, Ted Williams and many others. Coleman calls Cobb, "The Picasso of his time. Like Frank Sinatra, he did it his way." He writes of the man we thought we knew but really didn't.

"An biography of perhaps the most significant and controversial player in baseball history, Ty Cobb, drawing in part on newly discovered letters and documents"--

Profiles Detroit Tiger star who was one of the greatest baseball players in history.

Ty Cobb was one of the most famous baseball players who every lived. The author puts Cobb into the context of his times, describing the very different game on the field then, and successfully probes Cobb's complex personality.

"Highly successful in knitting together this story of the life of a most remarkable and dedicated player--perhaps the most spirited baseball player ever to have graced the diamond."--Library Journal. "I find little comfort in the popular picture of Cobb as a spike-slashing demon of the diamond with a wide streak of cruelty in his nature. The fights and feuds I was in have been steadily slanted to put me in the wrong. . . . My critics have had their innings. I will have mine now."--Ty Cobb "Frank, bitter, trend-setting autobiography."--USA Today Baseball Weekly "One of the most remarkable sports books ever written."--Los Angeles Daily News "The old Tiger still spits and snarls off the pages."--Cooperstown Review "Of Ty Cobb let it be said simply that he was the world's greatest ballplayer."--New York Herald Tribune (1961 editorial on Cobb's death) This Bison Book edition of My Life in Baseball is introduced by Charles C. Alexander, a professor of history at Ohio University, Athens, and the author of a biogrpahy of Ty Cobb.

Cobb personally wrote the story of his life for a newspaper syndicate after his 20 record-setting years in baseball. This illustrated edition is the first commercial publication of his words in book form.

The grandson of the legendary baseball player reveals another side of “a fascinating, severely flawed sports icon” (Booklist). Ty Cobb’s grandson Herschel saw a side of him that very few others did. While baseball fans were familiar with Cobb’s infamously cold, competitive nature—and his relationship with his own children was deeply difficult—Cobb, in his later years, embraced the opportunity to form a loving bond with his grandchildren during their summertime visits. In this moving memoir, Herschel Cobb reveals how his grandfather, after the devastating loss of two sons, shared his gentler side with Herschel and his siblings. Herschel’s own parents, a cruel, abusive father and an adulterous, alcoholic mother, filled his childhood with turmoil. But “Granddaddy” offered the stability, love, and guidance that Herschel desperately needed. “Elegantly written and genuinely moving,” this story of their relationship presents a unique perspective on this larger-than-life man (Publishers Weekly). “An unforgettable story . . . that will alter how you feel about baseball’s most demonized star.” —Tom Stanton, author of Ty and the Babe

Ty Cobb called baseball a “red-blooded game for red-blooded men,” warning that “molly coddles had better stay out.” By this, Cobb meant that baseball was the ultimate expression of the masculine ideal – a game of aggression, rivalry, physical and mental dexterity, self-reliance, and primal honor. For over twenty years, Cobb expressed his fierce brand of manhood in ballparks throughout the American Northeast, gaining for himself a level of celebrity that was unsurpassed in the early twentieth century. Fans idolized Cobb not only because he was the best player in the game, but because his boisterous and combative style of play satisfied their desire for exhibitions of visceral manhood. They found in Cobb an antidote for what they feared were the corrupting influences of over-civilization. With balance, precision, and empathy, Steven Elliott Tripp brings the era to life in a narrative Publisher’s Weekly has called “stunning.” In contrast to recent biographies of Cobb that have tried to minimize his more brutish behavior and minimize his racial antipathies, Tripp contextualizes Cobb, placing him squarely within the cultural milieu of both the rural South of his birth and the Northern sporting culture of his professional career. Moreover, Tripp’s reconstruction of early twentieth-century sporting culture isolates an important source of modern America’s culture of hyper-masculinity. Ty Cobb, Baseball, and American Manhood is both an important work of social and cultural history and an absorbing tale of ambition and the quest for dominance. Tripp has written the rare narrative that is as appealing to scholars as it is to general readers and sports enthusiasts.

The Deadball Era (1901û1920) is a baseball fanÆs dream. Hope and despair, innocence and cynicism, and levity and hostility blended then to create an air of excitement, anticipation, and concern for all who entered the confines of a major league ballpark. Cheating for the sake of victory earned respect, corrupt ballplayers fixed games with impunity, and violence plagued the sport. Spectators stormed the field to attack players and umpires, ballplayers charged the stands to pummel hecklers, and physical battles between opposing clubs occurred regularly in a phenomenon known as ôrowdyism.ö At the same time, endearing practices infused baseball with lightheartedness, kindness, and laughter. Fans ran onto the field with baskets of flowers, loving cups, diamond jewelry, gold watches, and cash for their favorite players in the middle of games. Ballplayers volunteered for ôbenefit contestsö to aid fellow big leaguers and the country in times of need. ôJoke gamesö reduced sport to pure theater as outfielders intentionally dropped fly balls, infielders happily booted easy grounders, hurlers tossed soft pitches over the middle of the plate, and umpires ignored the rules. Winning meant nothing, amusement meant everything, and league officials looked the other way. Mark Halfon looks at life in the major leagues in the early 1900s, the careers of John McGraw, Ty Cobb, and Walter Johnson, and the events that brought about the end of the Deadball Era. He highlights the strategies, underhanded tactics, and bitter battles that defined this storied time in baseball history, while providing detailed insights into the players and teams involved in bringing to a conclusion this remarkable period in baseball history.