Ty Cobb
Ty Cobb
Tyrus Raymond "Ty" Cobb, nicknamed "The Georgia Peach", was an American Major League Baseballoutfielder. He was born in rural Narrows, Georgia. Cobb spent 22 seasons with the Detroit Tigers, the last six as the team's player-manager, and finished his career with the Philadelphia Athletics. In 1936 Cobb received the most votes of any player on the inaugural Baseball Hall of Fame ballot, receiving 222 out of a possible 226 votes; no other player received a higher percentage of votes until...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionBaseball Player
Date of Birth18 December 1886
CityNarrows, GA
CountryUnited States of America
The base paths belonged to me, the runner. The rules gave me the right. I always went into a bag full speed, feet first. I had sharp spikes on my shoes. If the baseman stood where he had no business to be and got hurt, that was his fault.
When I began playing the game, baseball was about as gentlemanly as a kick in the crotch.
The crowd makes the ballgame.
I had to fight all my life to survive. They were all against me... but I beat the bastards and left them in the ditch.
Walter Johnson's fastball looked about the size of a watermelon seed and it hissed at you as it passed.
Speed is a great asset; but it's greater when it's combined with quickness - and there's a big difference.
That boy Mantle is a good one.
He batted against spitballs, shineballs, emeryballs and all the other trick deliveries. He never figured anything out or studied anything with the same scientific approach I gave it. He just swung. If he'd ever had any knowledge of batting, his average would have been phenomenal. ... he seemed content to just punch the ball, and I can still see those line drives whistling to the far precincts. Joe Jackson hit the ball harder than any man ever to play baseball.
Most collisions out on the fields are needless.
When I played ball, I didn't play for fun.
The longer I live, the longer I realize that batting is more a mental matter than it is physical. The ability to grasp the bat, swing at the proper time, take a proper stance; all these are elemental. Batting is rather a study in psychology, a sizing up of a pitcher and catcher and observing little details that are of immense importance. It's like the study of crime, the work of a detective as he picks up clues.
The first time I faced him I watched him take that easy windup and then something went past me that made me flinch. The thing just hissed with danger. We couldn't touch him... Every one of us knew we'd met the most powerful arm ever turned loose in a ball park.
Don't come home a failure.
To get along with me, don't increase my tension.