by Ring Lardner, BOSTON AMERICAN, JUNE 18, 1911

He's Always Quarreling, but His Craze to Win Does That, and He's Popular.

He was here last week, not long enough to get very well acquainted with the general public of Boston, but plenty long enough to convince said public that he is not yet prepared to yield the baseball crown to Joe Jackson or any other “upstart from the minors.”

It is not strictly accurate to say there is only one Cobb, for he has a brother, also a ball player, and a son, who may be one. But there is only one Ty Cobb, and, as Charles Comiskey says, you have to hand it to him.

This same Charles Comiskey had seen “King” Kelly, Bill Lange, Hugh Duffy and all the other great ones perform in their palmy days and he hesitated not a moment when the question was put to him: “Who is the greatest ball player of all time?”

Cobb had beaten Comiskey’s team time after time, had taken the pennant from the White Sox in the final game of the 1908 season, and yet the Chicago owner gave him his full meed of praise, instead of calling him “lucky,” or “fresh,” or “dirty,” as many another has done.

Cobb’s various accomplishments are ancient history. There is nothing to be said of his mechanical ball playing that the “fans” have not seen for themselves and appreciated. But there is a great deal to Cobb’s work that does not appear on the surface or that is overlooked by the public because it is busy watching something else.

The general impression prevails that Cobb is not popular with his teammates and that he has hardly any friends on rival teams. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Ty has an argument with one of the other Tigers almost every time the Detroit club engages in a close game. Other great ball players have their “spats” under similar conditions, but that does not mean that they are disliked. Cobb quarrels more often with his mates simply because victory means more to him than it does to the majority of athletes. He is crazy to win, and he sometimes forgets his manners in the heat of battle.

For the benefit of the “fans” who have been led to believe that Cobb has few friends on his own team or on others, it might be well to call attention to the scene that takes place before every Detroit game. Cobb will usually be found “warming up” with some of the members of the “other” club. He is “kidding” them and they are handing it back to him, but there is no real hostility between him and the men with whom he happens to be conversing. And the same is true when he is with the rest of the Detroit players. Ty is something or a “kidder” and he likes word battles next to the actual conflicts of the diamond.

In the Spring of 1908, Cobb had a real fight with Catcher Charley Schmidt. It took place in the Southern training camp.2 It was caused by a disagreement between the two over Ty’s treatment of colored people; rather, one colored person. Schmidt and Cobb went behind the stand at the ball park and had it out, and the catcher, who has taken up the fight game professionally, had all the better of it. Cobb admitted that he was licked and then he and Schmidt became fast friends. As for the other Tigers, they were divided about evenly in their partisanship, but none of them held anything against Cobb for his share in the proceedings.

The recent coldness between Cobb and Sam Crawford was brought about by an argument between Ty and Donie Bush over signs. Bush was, and still is, just ahead of Cobb in the batting order. Now Ty has a complicated set of signals for the man on base when he is at bat. He claims that he must use at least five hit and run signs to deceive the opposing battery. Most players have only one. Bush got mixed up two or three times and failed to read Cobb’s signs aright.

In the middle of one game, in the 1910 season, one of these mix-ups occurred and it resulted disastrously for the Tigers. Whereupon Cobb gave Bush a sharp “call” and Donie, who is some conversationalist himself, came back. But be seemed to be getting the worst of it and Sam Crawford went to his rescue.

It was then that Sam and Tyrus got into a rapid-fire duel of epithets that could scarcely be called complimentary. They said everything they had to say and then didn’t speak to each other for a long time. Manager Jennings insisted on a patching up of the quarrel this Spring, and now the two are good friends.

Crawford, who, by the way, is faster this season than he has been foryears, seldom gets mixed on signs. Cobb is ahead of him, and Ty does whatever he is told to do by Sam when the latter is at bat. And the plays that the two pull off through their silent understanding are good samples of the real value of “inside baseball.”

In the first inning of last Monday’s game here two were out and the bases were empty when Cobb came up and beat out a slow hit to Purcell. It was natural to suppose that he would either attempt to steal on the first or second ball, or that Crawford and he would work the hit and run. Two balls were pitched out, but Ty failed to go.

On the next one he started at full speed and Crawford, instead of swinging or letting the strike go over, laid down a bunt and beat it to first. It didn’t have to be a perfect bunt, for the Red Sox were taken entirely by surprise.

Purcell came in to field the bunt and third base was left unguarded for the moment. Of course, Cobb kept right on going, and, of course, he reached it in safety. The play was a dandy, but it was wasted, for the usually reliable Delehanty fell a victim to Hall and struck out.

If it had been in the latter part of the game and if the Tigers had needed a run to win or tie, you can bet that Cobb would have attempted a theft of home, and he would have come close to getting away with it. As it was, he had to play safe and conserve his best efforts for later on.

The public gains its impression that Cobb is unpopular through his evidently harsh verbal altercations on the field, with members of his own and rival teams. He does argue with the rest of the Tigers and he does quarrel with his opponents, but it is all in the day’s work, and is usually forgotten the moment the game is over. It is Cobb’s overwhelming desire to win that is at the root of all his squabbling.

Cobb appears unable to get through a battle at Philadelphia without some sort of unpleasantness. He has quarrels with Frank Baker and Cy Morgan, which appear to be fixtures. Boston “fans” will remember the birth of the Morgan-Cobb disagreement. The controversy with Baker arose over the latter’s assertion that Ty had spiked him purposely. There was a great of fuss about this case, and the two players have been at each other ever since.

The Tigers say that Baker deliberately kicked Cobb when the latter was sliding back to third base in one of the games of Detroit’s recent series at Shibe Park. Cobb then attempted to tread on Frank’s foot. It is hard to get at the truth of these complaints and cross-complaints because each club backs its own man. But Cobb has friends among the Athletics and that was proved last Fall, when he took part in the All-Star series that helped the American League champions in their preparation for their brush with the Cubs.

Cobb doesn’t care whom he “bawls out.” Hughey Jennings has been scolded fiercely by the “Georgia Peach.” To be sure, Hughey has been there with the back talk but it never served to frighten Cobb into silence.

Cobb stands out there in center field and tells his mates about all the mistakes they make. Then he tells them again on the bench. He informs the pitchers that they worked like high school kids against certain batters, charges the infielders with ignorance and negligence and even “calls” his fellow outfielders when he thinks they have pulled a “bone.”

Some of them shoot hot language back at him and swear they will never associate with again, but they are all his friends after the game, or after they have had two or three days in which to think things over.

Tyrus isn’t immune from criticism. When he makes a mistake it never goes unnoticed. But he doesn’t make many and so his critics don’t have much chance to get back at him.

If Cobb were born to be unpopular, his sharp tongue would surely make him very much so with his fellow players. But to prove to your own satisfaction that the other Tigers are his friends, you have only to “knock” him in their presence, or assert that Jackson, Wagner, Lajoie, Speaker, or someone else is his superior as a ball player. If they don’t just laugh at you they will show temper and express themselves after the manner following: “If you’d travel around with us and see him every day you wouldn’t talk about other ball players in the same breath. And if you claim that Wagner or Jackson or anyone else is in a class with him you’d better go to the nearest alienist and have your bean examined. We’ll pay the fee.”

Editor's Note: The preceding story was excerpted from "The Lost Journalism of Ring Lardner", a compendium of Lardner's newspaper and magazine columns compiled and published by the University of Nebraska Press, 2017. While the book is copyrighted, it's doubtful that any of Lardner's work is not fully in the public domain, since all of his work is a century old or more. The story and the complete anthology were captured in pdf form and are now a part of the IdleGuy.com library and can be accessed for free, at this link.

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