Letter Shows Kinder Side of Cobb : Baseball: A note written by the Hall of Famer is auctioned for $5,225. In it, he encouraged another player, contradicting his nasty reputation.

A handwritten letter that could help change the nasty reputation of Ty Cobb sold for $5,225 at auction.

Cobb wrote the letter Jan. 25, 1953, to Brooklyn Dodgers first baseman Gil Hodges, who was criticized for going hitless in 21 at-bats during the 1952 World Series.

The letter was auctioned off Thursday in Manhattan.

“I think you can make all of them eat their words the coming season and this is not psychology,” wrote Cobb, a member of the Hall of Fame and for many years baseball’s all-time hit leader. “You have the power, nothing wrong with eyes, then it has to be wrong fundamentals, stance, body balance and position, stance as to plate position, grip on bat.”

Cobb also wrote that “when hazing young players was in vogue naturally I received my share.” As a result, he said, “I developed a ‘feeling’ for every young player.”

Hodges’ team lost the series to the New York Yankees in seven games.

The letter’s kind tone clashes with Cobb’s reputation. He was described in the “Total Baseball” encyclopedia as “mean, vindictive, selfish, vain, a bully, a racist, paranoid, cruel and hot tempered.”

In 24 years starting in 1905, Cobb hit .367, with 4,191 hits, 1,961 RBIs and 892 stolen bases.

Cobb indicated in the letter that he had helped other young players improve their games. He wrote he had “been rewarded much only by appreciation expressed, also in watching box scores for evidence of better results gained by the player and secretly to myself enjoyed thinking I might have had a part in the improvement.”

He invites Hodges to write to him for three or four simple tips on improving his game.

Cobb added the “only stipulation there is no publicity crediting me.”

“I have been in deep water myself and no one to help me, I enjoy helping others on that score alone,” he said.

Cobb died in 1961.

The auction was staged by Harmon Darvick Autograph Auctions.

At the same auction, a scrap of paper bearing the shaky signature of the disgraced, illiterate baseball player “Shoeless” Joe Jackson sold for $23,100.

While other autographs have sold for more when they appear on letters and documents, the Jackson signature is on a shred of paper--just 4 by 1 1/2 inches--cut from a legal document Jackson signed in April, 1936.

The $23,100 price was the second-highest ever paid at auction for an unattached signature; the record of $56,000 was paid for the rare signature of Button Gwinnett, a signer of the Declaration of Independence.

Jackson hit .356, third-highest in history, during a 13-year career that ended when the commissioner of baseball banned him and seven other Chicago White Sox players for accepting money to throw the 1919 Series with Cincinnati.