Calling Good People “Racist” Isn’t New: the Case of Ty Cobb | 5 Minute Video
Ruining someone’s name is very easy. So is calling them a “racist.” Take the case of Ty Cobb, one of the greatest baseball players ever. Cobb is known as a racist and a dirty ballplayer. Is it true? Charles Leerhsen, author of “Ty Cobb: A Terrible Beauty” sets the record straight.
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Script:
He was Major League Baseball’s first superstar. The first man ever inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame. And he still has the game’s highest career batting average — .366 — almost 90 years after he retired.
His name is Ty Cobb.
Yet, despite his historic achievements, he is often remembered for being the worst racist and the dirtiest player ever to take the field.
If you know baseball, you’ve heard the stories: Ty Cobb would pistol-whip black men he passed on the street. He once stabbed to death a black waiter in Cleveland just because the young man was acting “uppity.”
On the field, he was said to sharpen his spikes to cut-up rival infielders. He supposedly had no friends. In the movie Field of Dreams, Shoeless Joe Jackson says that Cobb wasn’t invited to the ghostly cornfield reunion because, “No one liked the son of a bitch.”
A lifelong baseball fan, I believed these stories when I set out to write the first authoritative biography of Cobb in 20 years. I’d been hearing them all my life and, like a lot of people, I took the repetition as evidence.
But, to my astonishment, as I delved into the source material — newspapers, census reports and personal letters — I couldn’t find any proof that they were true.
On the contrary, Cobb’s teammates on the whole seemed to respect him, defending him on the field and off.
His opponents said he played the game hard, but clean! Wally Schang, a veteran catcher was typical. He once said, “Cobb never cut me up. He was too pretty a slider to hurt anyone who put the ball on him right.”
One famous photograph from 1912 shows Cobb flying foot-first into the crotch of St. Louis Browns catcher Paul Krichell. It looks bad. But pictures can be deceiving. In reality, Cobb is kicking the ball out of Krichell’s glove. He didn’t spike the catcher. Krichell later said, “In a way, it was really my fault. I was standing in front of the plate instead of on the side, where I could tag Ty as he slid in.” Indeed, in 1910, Cobb actually asked the league to require that players dull their spikes!
And what about the bigotry – how could a man born in Georgia in 1886 not be a racist?
Well, as it turns out, Ty Cobb descended from a long line of abolitionists. His great-grandfather was a minister who preached against slavery and was run out of town for his troubles. His grandfather refused to fight in the Confederate army because of the slavery issue. And his father, an educator, once broke up a lynch mob.
On the subject of blacks playing with whites, Cob said, “The Negro should be accepted wholeheartedly and not grudgingly… The Negro has the right to play professional baseball, and who’s to say he has not?”
Cobb attended many Negro league games, sometimes throwing out the first pitch and sitting in the dugout with the players. He said Willie Mays was the only modern-day player he’d pay to see.
As for that black waiter he supposedly killed? Well, in reality he was a hotel night watchman. And Cobb didn’t kill him, he just scuffled with him. And – oh, yeah – the guy was white!
For the complete script, visit https://www.prageru.com/videos/calling-good-people-racist-isnt-new-case-ty-cobb
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Please, i believe all of it … racist mofo!… get outta here with all that ….
One name: Josh Gibson is finally in the record books!!!!!!❤
Lies are the source of evil
I hope you all know that PragerU is literally a propaganda company. I believe baseball historians and the news.
Prager University believes no white person has ever done anything wrong, and no black person has ever done anything good.
Sounds like Trump…..!
Is funny I didn't hear you mention about the time he climbed in the stands and beat up a man with one arm. But you're right about one thing he was not a racist but a good man I do not know?
I’m not sure about first superstar. I think that would have been Honus Wagner. Everything else I agree with.
This sounds like Roger Maris too from 61* like this happens because talentless people are jealous and have big mouths. This is why lying is a sin in the Bible – lies can be destructive and powerful. Looking for the truth is so important now more than ever
It’s a shame that over a million people have watched this video, and that countless have accepted it uncritically. It’s as misleading and, ultimately false, as anything Stump wrote. For a balanced assessment of Leerhsen, see Joe Posnanski, “The Baseball 100” (2021), especially p. 732. While Posnanski credits Leerhsen for correcting some of the myths, he rightly describes Leehrsen’s book as “extreme” and even unbelievable. Having weighed the evidence on Cobb from multiple sources, Posnanski writes that Cobb was beyond any doubt “a bully, a manic competitor, a deeply unpopular player, a violent man, an alcoholic, and, yes, surely, a racist.” Posnanski directly addresses and dismantles—with hard evidence—several of the ridiculous claims in this video. He recommends Steven Tripp’s more recent book on Cobb for anyone who seeks a balanced account. What’s sad is that anything that claims to expose false accusations of racism is going to get a zillion views. That’s because people seek out validation for what they already believe in the first place. Bottom line: if Stump is bad history because it leans too far in one direction, Leerhsen is equally bad history because it leans too far in the other direction.
A good cautionary tale about blindly going along with popular narrative.
imagine hollywood and their leftist sympathizers outright lying again and they will never own the lies and damage done there is no ag
Ty Cobb was so good for so long, it's odd. The Georgia Peach…💯
Ty Cobb was NOT a good person and WAS racist. He beat a fan for calling him a Half N*****. He was banned from baseball for it, until other white players boycotted because they wouldn’t want to called the same. His teammates also hated him. Sam Crawford famously almost refused to play beside him in the outfield. Holy shit this video is complete garbage. Prager U keep pumping that white ideology!!!! Man this ‘University’ is sad, has tiny hands, and fake news.
Detroit legend. The greatest ball player of all-time!
What else do we accept as "fact" that is not true?
You people baffle me.Yea ok he was from the deep south in the early 1900's and he wasn't racist huh? When it was literally the thing to do,It was normal.. Appalling how you people try and sugar coat and lie about the horrible shit you have done to black people.
I once believed all the lies too before I looked into it and xould find bo concrete proof he was in fact racist and the exact opposite is far more likely.
So why didn't people say Ruth was racist ??
ANSWER: BECAUSE RUTH WASN'T RACIST !!
Elvis was also falsely accused of being racist. Another very good man whose reputation was drug through the mud because of baseless lies.
Trying to rewrite history. Ty Cobb is the bigot we know him to be.