Don't Believe Everything You Read and Hear: Ty Cobb, A Terrible Beauty

Photo: from the book's Goodreads page (and from my review)

I've got a major sinus infection and fever, that the doctor said looked like strep or the flu, and she just said she thinks I should be out of action for at least three days, so forgive the lack of structure here. Doing my best...

As Shakespeare's Caesar showed us (and Orwell's Animal Farm), when someone in charge repeats something often enough, the masses believe it. (Defense Exhibit A: Iraq having weapons of mass destruction. Exhibit B: Everything Mr. Orange said to win the chair he never sits in.)  Charles Leerhsen's Ty Cobb: A Terrible Beauty attempts to show that everything we've thought, read and seen in a movie lately about Ty Cobb is either fiction, exaggerated, or misleading.

He largely succeeds, but he gets carried away with his own success. He inserts lame jokes into the text. He happily shows how he's correct and writers like Al Stump aren't. He's right, but does he have to be so gleeful and boastful about it? And most of the errors he points out about Cobb aren't direct falsehoods, but errors of degree. Was Cobb the psychotic we've learned about? No, he wasn't. But would you choose him over Honus Wagner to be on your team? No, you wouldn't. The Tigers desperately needed him, so they coddled him for as long as they needed to, but that was not a happy family in Detroit. Speaking of happy families, Cobb's mother did shoot his father, and Cobb apparently was emotionally and perhaps physically abusive to his kids, and perhaps his wife.

He favors Cobb with such a bias that he writes: "In Honus Wagner [the Pirates] had a marquee star who had almost all of Cobb's ability and none of his charisma..." (223). Now, there's a lot wrong there. Not so fast. Wagner had ALL of Cobb's abilities--including hits (Cobb 4,189; Wagner 3,420) average (.366 to .328) and stolen bases (963 to 897). The point isn't that Wagner surpassed the numbers; the point is we're talking about 2 all-time greats playing at the same time, amassing very similar numbers. And Wagner never saw the live ball era of the 1920s as Cobb did. Wagner retired in 1917 while Cobb hung up his spikes in 1928. Had they played during exactly the same years, their numbers would be closer. Though Cobb may have a slight edge with the bat, the numbers show that Wagner could have matched them, but didn't. Why? Perhaps the Pirates didn't need him to.

But the point Leerhsen never makes in his whole 400+ page book is that on defense for his career, Cobb owes 10 games to the Tigers (his defensive WAR is -10), while for his career Wagner gives his team +21 wins on defense. That's a swing of 30 games, which Cobb's 38 points of batting average, 700 hits and 66 stolen bases don't compensate for. (Cobb played 3 more years than Wagner, and Honus never saw the lively ball of the 20s.) Cobb was known as an average to below-average defender, at best, while Wagner made other players' jaws drop at shortstop. He played Gold Glove- caliber defense every day, according to his contemporaries, in The Glory of their Times. All of the players said Wagner was better than Cobb because of Wagner's defense, and that they all stood around and watched as Wagner hit. Nobody says that about Cobb.

Also consider Cobb's behavior. Leerhsen makes it clear that he was nowhere near the crazy butthole everyone thinks--but he also makes it clear that he was a pain in the ass to his own teammates, to anyone who got in his way on the basepaths (I can let that slide, as the players did. See what I did there?), to the team management that usually coddled him and adopted him, and to fans, both for him and against him. Did Cobb assault a black waiter? No, he didn't. Did he dislike African-Americans in general? The evidence says No, that he was indifferent, and that he was for them if they were good ballplayers, like how he spoke in favor of Jackie Robinson. Did he kill 3 people, as has been said? Nope.

But did he jump into the stands and beat the crap out of a paraplegic? Yes, he did! Did he slide with his spikes up? Yes, he did, but only if you were in his direct line on the basepaths. And if you were at a base, including home, he usually slid away from you. Did he say bad things to almost everyone, including his teammates, kids and wives? Yes. Did he drink too much as he got older and turn nasty? Yes, he did. You get the idea. Now, did Wagner do any of those things while active? Was the whole Pirates team against him? Did he piss off his ownership? Did he assault the disabled and chase after umpires and fight almost every guy he knew? Nope. And does that translate into a better team, so that it could be said that he helped his team by not being a butthole like Cobb was? You bet. (Though, like Cobb, Wagner drank too much when he got old. But while alcohol made Cobb angry, bitter and mean, the sauce just made Wagner babble incessantly, and start baseball stories that could last an afternoon.) In a nutshell, that's the argument Bill James makes when he says that Ted Williams was a better hitter than Stan Musial, but not a better ballplayer (or left fielder).

It's not clear by the numbers that Cobb was that much better than Wagner with the bat (though I'll concede the point that he may have been a little bit, like Ruth over Gehrig), but it's also very clear that Wagner was the much better defender and clubhouse presence. I don't give much credence usually to the latter, but I do when we're talking about a chronic problem like Cobb, though he may not have been the psychotic we've been led to believe he was. Having read this book, I see him now as a Jimmy Piersall type of neurotic, a nervous and anxiety-ridden guy, with an ability ten thousand times that of Piersall. But essentially the same temperament.

So that's what we've got here. The author makes the mistake of celebrating himself too much--ironic, since that's what he shows Cobb did too much, which made his teammates dislike him. He was better than they were, and different, and smarter, and faster, and that also made them dislike him. In fact, the T206 guys on his team actively bullied him, to the point that a few of them were suspended by the team. I don't criticize Cobb for this, though one would think he could have somehow handled it better. After all, Wagner was better than all of the Pirates of his time, and nobody taunted him or beat him up, even when he was a rookie. But Leerhsen says at least 12 times (I stopped counting) that Wagner (and Lajoie, and Elmer Flick, and other HOFers of the time) were grunts with a lunchpail, guys who would be in the mines without baseball, boring guys with no personality--I'm not making this up, or exaggerating. Leerhsen calls them these things.

Well, hell, I used to know a lot of people I thought were interesting, who did a lot of crazy things, who hurt a lot of good people, either emotionally, mentally or physically (or all of the above), but weren't they fun and exciting? But then I grew up, and I saw that stable and consistent behavior is a helluva lot more interesting than the crazy, destructive and self-destructive crap I saw the "exciting" people do. Those latter people flamed out, or exited from my life, stage left, (or both) and I replaced them with stable and consistent people with different things about them that were exciting and interesting.

Which ones would you rather work with for 20+ years? Exactly. Turns out, consistent and stable people make your job (and therefore your life) easier. Leerhsen gets caught up in his own cult of personality, like Cobb did in his, and it made them both pale in comparison.

So if you like the T206 era as I do, and you're interested in who Ty Cobb was, like I am, you should read this, and you'll find it interesting. It's informative, it sets the matter of Cobb straight, and it's a good read.

But like those guys who keep repeating the same thing, and it's believed because it's on the internet, or it's in print, or it's what you want to hear, or it's said by someone in some sort of power--Well, don't believe everything you read, you know? Ironic, because that's the point of this book, and Leerhsen proves his point in a way that he doesn't want to. But there it is.

Crazy '08

Photo: Book cover, from http://cardboardgods.net/2008/04/30/interview-with-cait-murphy-author-of-crazy-08/

I've been a little crazy myself, in the last year or so, amassing a collection of 1908-1911 T206s from various sources, and displaying them in my office.  'cuz I'm awesome and exciting like that.  From behind SGC- or PSA-graded cases peer the faces of Jack Pfeister, Hooks Wiltse, Red Ames, Dave Brain, Red Murray, Solly Hofman, Clark Griffith, Dots Miller, Fielder Jones, Chief Meyers, Laughin' Larry Doyle, Lee Tannehill, Harry Steinfeldt, Wild Bill Donovan, Nap Rucker, Doc Crandall, Wee Willie Keeler, Al Bridwell, Rube Marquard, Frank Smith, and Cy Seymour.  And Joe Tinker, from a 1911 T205.  All of them played baseball in the year wonderfully carzy baseball year of 1908.  They played for the teams most covered in this book: the Chicago White Sox; the New York Giants; the Detroit Tigers; the Chicago Cubs; the New York Highlanders (soon thereafter known exclusively as the Yankees) and the Pittsburgh Pirates. I've got their T206s, and they're all in this book. 

And it is captivating reading.  Like the cards themselves, the book is a time capsule of 1908.  Life.  Baseball.  People.  Living conditions.  It's all there.  The book is not just about baseball.  In it you see the personalities of all these guys, plus the more popular players I can't afford: Ty Cobb; Honus Wagner; Eddie Plank; Frank Chance; Christy Mathewson; Walter Johnson, and so many more.  You see a typical day and a typical life in 1908--equal parts gritty, harsh, hard, yet alluring.

Countless of these guys played baseball because otherwise they'd be digging and dying in the Pennsylvania mines.  They're spotted by scouts and managers playing for semi-pro or mine teams in the middle of nowhere, for teams of towns with populations less than 500.  They're typically given one chance, and one chance only, by a system in which the teams don't have to sell them to the major league team, and often didn't.  The manager--who was a manager, a general manager, a scout, and a bookkeeper, all in one--would take one look at a player, and say Yes or No based on a five-minute appraisal.  The players in this book (and in The Glory of their Times, which will be reviewed soon, too) all say that better players than they did not play major-league baseball not because they lacked the skill--but because they lacked the good fortune.

Honus Wagner politely declined to play baseball in 1908, he says, so he could go home to his farm and raise his chickens.  Turns out, this was a salary clash behind the scenes.  He played it quietly, like a gentleman, and he got the money he wanted.  A similar salary dispute--and not a disagreement about his likeness being sold with tobacco products--led to his insistence that his T206 baseball cards be destroyed.  They were.  Only about 50 supposedly survived the purge.  The one known to be in the best condition is worth, literally, millions of dollars.  I don't have that one, naturally.  So I instead got Honus Wagner's constant double-play partner, the second basemen to his shortstop: Dots Miller.

Ty Cobb was despised by his peers, his own teammates, the umpires, and the fans.  He was considered the second-best player in the majors, behind Wagner--who was the equal to Cobb as a hitter and as a baserunner, but who was a Gold Glove-caliber fielder at every position, and very well-liked to boot.

Christy Mathewson lost a lot of very important games towards the end of that season.

Fred Merkle's mental lapse wasn't the only reason the Giants missed the playoffs that year.  A rookie pitcher beat them three teams in the final ten days of the season.  Mathewson lost a lot of close games--but still won over 30.  The Giants were 10-6 in their last 16 games.  And so on.

A team could lose their chance to make the playoffs by half a game due to a rain-out.  And it happened in 1908.  The rule that all necessary, rained-out games must be played at the end of the year didn't go into effect until 1909.  Unbelievable.

Ballplayers played amidst terrible conditions, on the field, physically, and otherwise.  It was common for teams to play exhibition games during the season, on travel days between cities, in small towns.  They played 154 games that counted, minus rainouts, plus perhaps a dozen or more games that didn't count.  And the stars were expected to play in all of them.

Very good teams counted on their HOF starting pitchers to the extent that such pitchers pitched both games of a doubleheader, or for three or more consecutive days, or in relief--often all in the same week.  The end of 1908 saw Mathewson, Plank, and Three-Finger Mordecai Brown pitching all of the final dozen or so games.

Most games had just one umpire.  (!)  So players would do things like miss third base by fifteen feet as they were running home, and the lone umpire was looking elsewhere.  The league finally bent and put two umpires on each game.

Spitballs were legal.  Pitchers openly spit and loaded up the ball.  Players were expected to use the very same one ball all game long.  Games were often stopped so a player could go into the stands and retrieve a foul ball.

And so on.  Not just baseball: the serial killer of the Chicago-area farms--a large, unattractive woman who lured men to their deaths through soliciting for romantic partners in the paper--gets its own chapter.  This situation, which I will make into a novel someday, has never been conclusively solved.  Some say the woman escaped capture.  Her name was Belle Gunness.  Look 'er up.

Vaudeville--very popular.  Popular New York players could make a second career--or a first--on vaudeville stages during the off-season.  Many of them did.  One of them, Mike Donlin, left baseball for the stage.  And then came back, of course.

The writing is crisp, and clear, and very authoritative--and with a slight bite and attitude.  It is very quick reading, though I cannot say that non-baseball fans will love it, too.  I think you have to be a fan to read it, but there's a lot of history and 1908 reality here, too.

And this, from George Will, reviewing the book for the New York Times:

"Murphy’s book is rich in trivia — not that anything associated with baseball is really trivial. Did you know, for example, that when the Yankees were still the Highlanders (they played at the highest point in Manhattan) they adopted their interlocking NY lettering “based on the Tiffany design for the Police Department’s Medal of Honor”?

Readers of “Crazy ’08” can almost smell the whiskey and taste the pigs’ knuckles. This rollicking tour of that season will entertain readers interested in social history, will fascinate students of baseball and will cause today’s Cub fans to experience an unaccustomed feeling — pride..."

The Jefferson Key--Steve Berry

Well, not my thing, usually.  Kept me compulsively reading in much the same way your gaze has to follow the hit tennis ball.  Potboiling cliffhanger in its most base form, but that's what works, right?  Characters are essentially just names; you root for the good guys because they're the good guys--and so on.  Again, like following a hit ball.  You hate yourself for reading, but it's a "I wonder what happens next?" connect-the-dots.  But you rate it for what it is, for what it attempts to be, not because you want it to be another Silence of the Lambs meets Indiana Jones, and it fails miserably.  Sort of like NCIS meets Dan Brown, except NCIS has humor and actual tension, and Angels & Demons and Da Vinci were much more interesting, and actually written much better.  This book is like ex-ballplayer Jeff Frye, who when he played made you think that if this guy can play baseball, then any common Joe can, even me.  Here, if Steve Berry can make the bestseller lists, then I can, too.  Which is ludicrous, of course, but it makes you feel that way.

Having said all this, I have to give it 4 stars because I did compulsively read on and flip the pages, and that's the whole point, right???  Who cares why I did it, just that I did it, right?  The book gets sold, and the publishing company and author get paid either way.  I read on knowing that I had better things to do, but...Well, you get the idea.  And don't let the title fool you: It's not much about Jefferson, or a key to anything, or even two pages that are the McGuffin...Bleh.