Even on Tape, Ty Wasn’t a Peach of a Guy

Almost four decades after his death, the “meanest man in baseball” still is making news.

In an interview recorded more than half a century ago on a wire spool recorder recently discovered in a Florida garage, Ty Cobb told sportswriter Grantland Rice how much he enjoyed life after baseball.

“I’ve almost felt like a prisoner who has been set free,” he said in the 1949 interview, excerpts from which were published this week in the Tampa Tribune. “I gave up my life to the game for 25 years.”

The dusty recording machine was unearthed in a central Florida garage and sent to Cooperstown, N.Y.

“He did talk to the media, but he wasn’t the most pleasant of men, I believe,” said Jeremy Jones, manager of recorded media at the Hall of Fame, who confirmed the tape’s authenticity.

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Trivia time: Who are the two golfers who have won four consecutively scheduled LPGA Tour events?

One-track minds: Here’s another example of how obsessed the folks in South Carolina are with NASCAR:

It seems the state transportation commission has renamed a four-mile stretch of state Highway 221 in Spartanburg County as “David Pearson Boulevard” in honor of the hometown driver with 105 Winston Cup victories.

No, the speed limit is not 180 mph.

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Bottom dollar: The price of the best season seats at Pittsburgh’s PNC Park, the ones right behind home plate, will cost $12,100 to $16,125 next year.

The Pirates’ name gets more apt by the day.

Kobe or not Kobe: The Lakers’ play this season has won new fans everywhere, including Mike Littwin of the Rocky Mountain News.

“For me, it’s enough just seeing Kobe Bryant,” Littwin wrote. “Of all the great young players, including Vince Carter, I’ll take Bryant, if just for style points.”

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March hare: Nick Canepa of the San Diego Union-Tribune regards the NCAA tournament as the most exciting sporting event in the country.

“Dramas unfold as if Tennessee Williams drew up the brackets,” he wrote. “There is comedy. Pain. Chaos. Heartbreak. Exhaustion. Pathos. Athos. Porthos. Aramis. I could go on.”

Not here.

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Irish nays: The Washington Post’s Tony Kornheiser reveals why Notre Dame was not invited to the NCAA’s party.

“Notre Dame has quality wins, but college basketball has a technical term for 14 losses: It’s called ‘a lot’ of losses.”

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Sinking his teeth in: What worries the Seattle Mariners, according to Art Thiel of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, “is that Alex Rodriguez will join Ken Griffey Jr. and Randy Johnson as superstars whose departures make the Mariners feel like one-eyed dentists--struggling to scare up business.”

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Trivia answer: Mickey Wright, in 1962 and again in ‘63, and Kathy Whitworth in 1969.

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And finally: Asks the Denver Post’s Jim Armstrong: “How can Boomer Esiason, you know, trash Al Michaels for, you know, getting him, you know, canned from, you know, ‘Monday Night Football’?

“No, we didn’t know, Boomer. You were supposed to tell us. It’s called being an analyst, bubba.”