It Wasn’t a Can of Corn for Cobb

When Ty Cobb played, they didn’t have relief specialists or fielders with basket-sized gloves. There were no night games and no cross-country flights to make it for a game the next day.

So, does Pete Rose have it tougher as he pursues Cobb’s record?

“Not necessarily,” says Charles Alexander, author of the book “Ty Cobb.”

“In Cobb’s day, there were virtually no restrictions on what the pitcher could do to the ball,” Alexander says. “It was close to open mutilation. Pitchers cut the ball with razor blades and banged the ball against their cleats. The spitball became popular in 1902 and several pitchers mastered it. It was within the rules for pitchers to spit tobacco juice into their gloves.

“Baseballs were generally considered ‘dead’ when Cobb played. They didn’t carry very far. Outfielders played about 100 feet closer in than they do today. Rose is mainly a line-drive hitter and a lot of hits would have been taken away.”

As for night games, Alexander says: .

“True, Cobb played all day games, but the earliest starting time during his era was 3 p.m. And games in Washington started at 4 p.m., so that government clerks could go after work. Those starting times mean that early and late in the season, Cobb had to hit in the twilight or the shadows, which is difficult.

“As for today’s jet travel making it tough, well, I think travel by train in the pre-air conditioning days also was tough. It was difficult to get good sleep on a hot Pullman car.

“And before air conditioning it was also tough to get a decent night’s sleep in a St. Louis hotel room in July. Players would soak bed sheets in the tub and then wrap themselves in the wet sheets to try to stay cool and get some sleep.”

Add Cobb: Another biographer, John D. McCallum, said that although Babe Ruth was the highest salaried player in the game, Cobb turned out to be the richest. By investing in Coca-Cola and General Motors, he amassed a fortune of close to $10 million.

In the final year of his life, Cobb, dying of cancer, behaved bizarrely. Wherever he went, he carried a brown bag that contained more than $1 million in stock certificates and government bonds.

Before falling into a final coma at Emory University Hospital in Atlanta, Cobb put the $1 million in securities on the night table beside his bed--and placed a Luger on top of them. The next day he died.

From the letters to the editor of Inside Sports:

“Just how big was the Los Angeles Times newspaper’s sports section during the 1984 Summer Olympics?”

C.L., HOUSTON, TEXAS

All we know for sure is that Vasily Alexeyev, visiting California on a good-will tour, pulled a groin muscle lifting it off a newsstand.

Larry Bird, on why he’s not excited about a tour of Indonesia where he and Red Auerbach are scheduled to conduct clinics: “I’ll have to smell Red’s smelly cigars for two weeks.”

Said Jim Morrison of the Pittsburgh Pirates, urging ownership to move the team where it will get some fan support: “It’s time Dan Galbreath took the bull by the reins.”

Or the horse by the horns?

Quotebook

Keith Hernandez of the New York Mets, after his batting average plunged to .251: “I’m in as deep a slump as I can be. I’m in a dark forest. No sun. Deep foliage.”