Young Fan Saw Another Side of Cobb

Despite Jim Murray’s recent article on Ty Cobb, where he supports the alliance of Hollywood and journalism in the character assassination of arguably baseball’s greatest player, I would like to offer one story in defense of this man.

In August of 1956, when I was a 9-year-old boy in the San Francisco Bay Area, my friends found Ty Cobb’s phone number listed in the Atherton phone book. We dialed the number and found the voice on the line kind and receptive. Mr. Cobb invited us to his house, greeted us at the door and gave us a tour of his Southern-style mansion. He then wrote out detailed autographs for all four of us and presented them, along with miniature bats with his name inscribed. As he said goodby to us two hours after our arrival, he kissed the little girl and gave the boys a handshake.

While the recent film and Al Stump’s biography may be well researched and the rumors about Mr. Cobb’s racism, misogyny and repressed anger over his mother’s shooting of his father may have merit, wouldn’t it be better to adhere to Leo Tolstoy’s maxim about all men, namely that they are like rivers, deep in some areas, shallow in others. Undoubtedly, I met Ty Cobb on one of his deeper days.

HAROLD K. SCHEFSKI

Long Beach