Ty Cobb: A Terrible Beauty by Charles Leerhsen
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Reviewed by: Jim Patrick
What I Read: Ty Cobb: A Terrible Beauty by Charles Leerhsen
What It's About: Ty Cobb,
who played from 1905 to 1928, was inducted into the inaugural class of the Baseball
Hall of Fame in 1936. His contemporaries
considered him the greatest player of his era due to his unrivaled hitting prowess
and baserunning ability. He won 12
batting championships and stole 892 bases in his career. History has not been kind to Cobb,
however. His many detractors counter his
accomplishments with his perceived character flaws. He has been portrayed as being mean, physically
violent, and racist—a nasty ballplayer and a wretched human being. Several Cobb stories have been repeated ad
nauseam in baseball books: Cobb filing
the spikes of his baseball shoes to create baserunning weapons of intimidation;
Cobb running into the stands to attack a “crippled” heckler; and Cobb dying as
a lonely and friendless recluse.
Leerhsen provides ample documentation for his rebuttals of these
stories, and he also challenges numerous accusations and statements from
previous biographies written by Charles Alexander and Al Stump. Leerhsen’s Cobb is indeed highly competitive,
overly sensitive, and capable of lashing out in anger and violence. However, his Cobb is also a devoted family
man, an intellectually curious man who loved to read, a financially savvy man
who died a millionaire, and a generally well-liked man who dined (and golfed)
with celebrities and politicians. And,
although a southerner, he was an early advocate of racial integration in
baseball. These unknown sides of Cobb
have been rescued by Charles Leerhsen’s research.
What I Thought: After
getting over my initial shock at the author’s contemporary writing style and
frequent pop culture references—Charlie Sheen and Donald Trump are both listed
in the index—I found myself greatly enjoying this unique look at Ty Cobb’s life
and career. It is unique because
Leerhsen presents Ty Cobb as a multi-dimensional human being, not the
caricatured demon of previous Cobb biographies.
As someone who has read dozens of baseball biographies, I can attest
that many are plagued by an overabundance of trite sports clichés or by a
stuffy and overly reverential tone. Fortunately,
Ty Cobb: A Terrible Beauty, suffers
from neither of these failings. It is
well-researched and smartly written, and for a 400+ page biography, it was a
fast and entertaining read.
Readalikes: Connie
Mack and the Early Years of Baseball by Norman Macht
Baseball: An Illustrated History by Geoffrey C. Ward
Or look this book up
on NoveList!
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