Ty and The Babe: Baseball's Fiercest Rivals: A Surprising Friendship And The 1941 Has-Beens Golf Championship [Hardcover]

Tom Stanton (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 15, 2007

Early in the twentieth century, fate thrust a young Babe Ruth into the gleaming orbit of Ty Cobb. The resulting collision produced a dazzling explosion and a struggle of mythic magnitude. At stake was not just baseball dominance, but eternal glory and the very soul of a sport. For much of fourteen seasons, the Cobb-Ruth rivalry occupied both men and enthralled a generation of fans. Even their retirement from the ball diamond didn’t extinguish it.

On the cusp of America’s entry into World War II, a quarter century after they first met at Navin Field, Cobb and Ruth rekindled their long-simmering feud—this time on the golf course. Ty and Babe battled on the fairways of Long Island, New York; Newton, Massachusetts; and Grosse Ile, Michigan; in a series of charity matches that spawned national headlines and catapulted them once more into the spotlight.

Ty and The Babe is the story of their remarkable relationship. It is a tale of grand gestures and petty jealousies, superstition and egotism, spectacular feats and dirty tricks, mind games and athleticism, confrontations, conflagrations, good humor, growth, redemption, and, ultimately, friendship. Spanning several decades, Ty and The Babe conjures the rollicking cities of New York, Boston, and Detroit and the raucous world of baseball from 1915 to 1928, as it moved from the Deadball days of Cobb to the Lively Ball era of Ruth. It also visits the spring and summer of 1941, starting with the Masters Tournament at Augusta National, where Cobb formally challenged Ruth, and continuing with the golf showdown that saw both men employ secret weapons.

On these pages, author Tom Stanton challenges the stereotypes that have cast Cobb forever as a Satan and Ruth as a Santa Claus. Along the way, he brings to life a parade of memorable characters: Bobby Jones, Walter Hagen, Grantland Rice, Tris Speaker, Lou Gehrig, Will Rogers, Joe DiMaggio, a trick shot–shooting former fugitive, and a fifteen-year-old caddy with an impeccable golf lineage.

No other ball players dominated their time as formidably as Ty Cobb and Babe Ruth. Even today, many decades since either man walked this earth, they tower over the sport. Who was better? Who was the greatest? Those questions followed them throughout their baseball careers, into retirement, and onto the putting greens. That they linger yet is a testament to their talents and personalities.

 

Praise for the Writing of Tom Stanton:
 
"Ruth and Cobb come together as never before in this charming story of rivalry and friendship. Stanton, a keen storyteller, has written a book that surprises and delights."
-Jonathan Eig, author of Luckiest Man: The Life and Death of Lou Gehrig
 
"The wardrobe mistress of baseball history seems to have assigned the white hat to Babe Ruth and the black hat to Ty Cobb for all time. The Babe, the legendary Sultan of Swat, has become the patron saint of the sport, flamboyant and loud, larger than life, hail fellow well met, a character who hit mammoth home runs and wiped the runny noses of neighborhood urchins. Cobb has become the villain, foul mouthed and cantankerous, unliked and unloved by even his teammates. . . . Now Tom Stanton comes along to rearrange the roles in his terrific new book, Ty and The Babe, which chronicles the relationship between the two baseball icons. He takes off the hats and tells us about the real people. And it all is great fun."
-Leigh Montville, author of The Big Bam
 
"Wonderful! Ty and The Babe is rich, elegant, and powerful. Tom Stanton vividly brings back to life two rival sports icons in a rollicking tale filled with tension, humor, and warmth. It's fantastic."

-Ernie Harwell, Hall of Fame broadcaster
 
"Frankly, Ty and The Babe had me hooked from the opening page, a thoroughly absorbing tale that has all the charm and elements of an unforgettable film-the two greatest players from baseball's Golden Era, blood feuds, dueling rivals, brawling fans, mythologizing sportswriters and the consequences of a rapidly changing game . . . all capped off by a poignant golf match between a pair of fading titans. Tom Stanton has beautifully re-created the most romantic period of American sports, provided new and powerful insights into a pair of greatly misunderstood figures in Cobb and Ruth, and given baseball and golf fans everywhere something to cheer lustily about."
-James Dodson, author of Final Rounds and Ben Hogan: An American Life

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. Stanton's story of the rivalry-turned-friendship of Ty Cobb (with the Detroit Tigers) and Babe Ruth (with the Red Sox and Yankees) is as splendid as a sunny spring day at the ballpark. Cobb held eight consecutive batting titles the first time he stepped up to hit against Ruth, whom Stanton (The Final Season) describes as "a platter-faced, gray flannelled 20-year-old" rookie pitcher in 1915. The two men were opposite in many ways—a Southern Baptist slap hitter versus the Northeastern Catholic home run king—and they would go on to become enemies who competed fiercely for 14 seasons, frequently taunting one another and almost coming to blows. Ruth usurped Cobb's title as the greatest player in baseball and eventually turned Cobb's distaste for him into respect. After retiring, they were among the first class inducted into the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown in 1939. Two years later, they met in a golf match that stoked their competitive fires one last time and cemented their friendship. Sportswriters regularly characterize baseball players as one-dimensional, either deities or demons, and no two players suffered this fate more than this pair. Cobb is often recalled as a short-tempered racist and dirty player, and Ruth cast as a beer-drinking, hot dog–eating simpleton, but Stanton portrays them sympathetically as exceptionally talented men with complex flaws. Stanton's writing is seamless, exploring the lives of both men but never lapsing into tedious detail. (May)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

A book about the relationship between Ty Cobb and Babe Ruth might seem contrived to baseball fans, each icon representing such a different era, yin to the other's yang: Cobb as supreme master of the dead-ball era, and Ruth as the virtual progenitor of the modern home-run era. However different those eras were, the players' careers overlapped 14 seasons (1914-28)--long enough for each to develop an obsessive hatred of the other. Their story is great drama--the older Cobb refusing to relinquish his primacy even as the younger Ruth wrests it from him, Cobb bunting and stealing Ruth's Yankees to distraction as Ruth pummels Cobb's Tigers with a barrage of homers--and Stanton tells that story with flair and telling detail. Perhaps most remarkable is the transcendent respect the two men developed for one another during and after their playing days, Cobb realizing that Ruth was multidimensional, and Ruth appreciating Cobb's work ethic and game smarts. The players' rivalry would turn, postbaseball, to golf, which Stanton relates with humor and grace. A solid addition to the baseball shelf. Alan Moores
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 304 pages
• Publisher: Thomas Dunne Books; First Edition edition (May 15, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312361599
• ISBN-13: 978-0312361594
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.7 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (23 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #785,348 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

I grew up in the suburbs of Detroit. When I was a boy, my Uncle Clem -- a Bohemian spirit with unfulfilled literary dreams -- began giving me books that he loved and hoped would inspire me to write: books by Hemingway, Steinbeck, Thomas Wolfe, and others from the American canon of the '20s, '30s, and '40s. He wanted me to be a novelist.

Instead, I became a journalist and co-founded The Voice newspapers in Michigan, before going on to teach at the University of Detroit Mercy and to write nonfiction books.

My uncle died before my first book was published. Although he hoped I would write fiction, he would have appreciated these books, particularly the ones that mentioned him. I'm now at work on several projects, including a memoir about our relationship.

If you'd like to know more, check out my website at www.tomstanton.com or friend me through Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/home.php?ref=home). I'd enjoy hearing from you.

Thanks for checking out my Amazon page.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Brings "The Georgia Peach" and "The Bambino" Back to Life, May 15, 2007

By 

Mark J. Fowler "Let's Play Two!" (Jacksonville, Florida) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Ty and The Babe: Baseball's Fiercest Rivals: A Surprising Friendship And The 1941 Has-Beens Golf Championship (Hardcover)

Ty Cobb and Babe Ruth are names that resonate at the summit of baseball history in much the same way that Washington and Lincoln look out from Mount Rushmore. Like much of history, my previous encounters with the legends of Ty and the Babe were from dry, dusty tomes. People who were excited about them when they played preserved their names, but it's not hard to see why people today aren't as excited about Babe Ruth as our grandpa was.

Tom Stanton has done a service to baseball fans everywhere in "Ty and the Babe." He has preserved the legends of these two great ballplayers in a time capsule of words that brings the era of Tyrus and George to living, breathing, rip-snorting life. We can almost see the green outfields at Navin Field and Yankee stadium. We can almost smell the onions on the hot dogs. We can hear the crack of horsehide against Ruth's Louisville slugger and we can feel the gasp of surprise from thousands of fans when they realize that Cobb has dashed from third base - HE'S TRYING TO STEAL HOME!

They were remarkably different:
Cobb - the son of a Georgia State Senator, baseball scientist, expert of the bunt, the sacrifice, the well-placed base hit and the stolen base. He was a master of baseball psychological warfare and believed that everyone in a baseball park who wasn't actively trying to help his team was a mortal enemy.

Ruth - the son of a Baltimore saloon-keeper who was in a Catholic School for delinquents when he was drafted to pitch for the Boston Red Sox. Some forget that Babe Ruth was one of the best pitchers in the American League before the exploding popularity of his titanic home runs pressured Babe into becoming an every day player.

Cobb resented the fact that Home Runs were becoming the rage in the roaring twenties. He always thought that the smart combination of timely, controlled hitting and aggressive baserunning was the way to score. Home Runs seemed barbaric in contrast, and Ruth was the engine driving the train of popularity of the long ball.

Ruth hated the fact that Cobb publicly portrayed Babe as a crude bumpkin while Cobb was the intelligent master.

Over the years they developed a gradual respect for one another - as men and as baseball players. We get a sense not only of the icons as real people, but also of how they changed over time, including the ways that they changed each other.

Stanton's work here is meticulously researched - an addendum gives details of every single game Ruth and Cobb played together. But he gives elegant life to pale statistics reminiscent of the way that Joseph Ellis brings the Founding Fathers to life in his award-winning books.

This is a must-have for baseball fans.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Thorough Look At A Rivalry Between Two Baseball Greats, May 15, 2007

By 

C. W. Emblom "Bill Emblom" (Ishpeming, Michigan USA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Ty and The Babe: Baseball's Fiercest Rivals: A Surprising Friendship And The 1941 Has-Beens Golf Championship (Hardcover)

Author Tom Stanton has provided us with a unique look at the rivalry that existed between two players, one representing the superstar from the dead ball era while the other represented the changing of the game to that of the slugger. Babe Ruth gave baseball a much needed boost with his ability to draw fans out to the stadiums with his ability to hit home runs following the infamous Black Sox scandal, and Ty Cobb believed the game of baseball that he symbolized was being threatened by this newcomer who posed a threat to his position and popularity in the game. Both Cobb and Ruth were initially bitter rivals fighting for supremacy of the baseball public. Each had their own way of playing the game suitable to the skills they possessed, and each had an ego that needed to be fed. Each was viewed as a threat to the other, and author Stanton provides us with a number of anecdotes involving games between Cobb's Tigers and Ruth as a Red Sox and Yankee. This is not a rehash of stories you have heard several times before. Cobb and Ruth came to have a mutual respect for one another as the seasons progressed. Cobb, for his part, never forgot the support he and Tris Speaker received from Ruth when scandal reared its ugly head following their retirement from their respective teams in 1926. Ruth described Cobb and Speaker as "the finest names that baseball has ever known." Cobb felt Commissioner Landis kept them unduly waiting before exonerating them of the charges causing Cobb to later purposely miss the group photo at Cooperstown in 1939 to avoid being photographed with Landis, who wasn't in the photo anyway. Speaker, as is well known, did show up for the photo of the game's immortals on that day. The final section of the book covers the best two out of three golf meetings Cobb and Ruth did for charity in 1941 when their rivalry was renewed with good-natured ribbing although each was still competitive enough to want to beat the other. A lot was taking place in the game at that time. DiMaggio was on his way to hitting in 56 consecutive games, Williams would become the first batter to hit .400 since Bill Terry in 1930, and Gehrig died on June 2nd. The text of the book is 238 pages long in addition to an appendix that includes how Cobb and Ruth did against each other in each of the games they appeared together. Also included is an impressive bibliography from which the author has done research. I would like to point out that Ruth also had to deal with a tense rivarly with Giants' manager John McGraw who viewed Ruth as an intruder in New York City in addition to the one he had with Cobb. I do not hesitate to rate the book five stars even though there are a few profanities sprinkled throughout the book that make me question whether I should order extra copies for some kids who might appreciate reading it.

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Showing Cobb and Ruth in their glory as competitors, rivals, and even as grudging friends, May 11, 2007

By 

Craig Matteson (Saline, MI) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Ty and The Babe: Baseball's Fiercest Rivals: A Surprising Friendship And The 1941 Has-Beens Golf Championship (Hardcover)

As interesting as I thought this book would be, it is actually more interesting and engaging than I had anticipated. Tom Stanton takes us through the careers of Ty Cobb and Babe Ruth by taking us through their intense rivalry. This works so well because Cobb was considered, by far, the greatest baseball player of all time and epitomized the "deadball" era that emphasized base hits, base running with lots of stealing, and intense gamesmanship. The trash talking of our era would have seemed tame back then.

Ruth was a very fine pitcher who could also hit very well (an exceeding rare combination). There was even resistance to his wanting to emphasize hitting and playing everyday because he was so valuable an asset on the mound. As Ruth changed the game in favor of power and home runs, Cobb and the other veterans derided it as a fluke. However, as others adopted Ruth's style and the number of home runs exploded (and the ball became livelier), the number of people attending ball games exploded. The patrons decided which style of ball they wanted.

The older proponents of Baseball Science who loved the old style of play complained that the new fans understood nothing of the game and that the power game had changed things for the worse. What is undeniable is that the game was changed forever.

Stanton also helps us see Cobb and Ruth more as real human beings rather than as two-dimensional myths. Again, their competitiveness and their rivalry for baseball supremacy helps us understand them as flesh and blood men through the stories of their encounters. In the appendix, the author provides us with a short summary of every game that Cobb and Ruth played against each other. Fascinating stuff.

Both Cobb and Ruth were avid golfers of some skill. Ruth had a lower handicap, but Cobb never ever stopped competing no matter the situation. They had challenged each other to a golf match that finally took place, for charity, in 1941. There were three match-play events with the last being played in Detroit, Cobb's baseball home. This is another fascinating story and shows us these men after their glory days were behind them.

I also appreciate that Stanton takes on the wholly negative image that Cobb has in today's popular mind. This is in part due to a scurrilous writings of Al Stump and a movie made from his book. We should remember how he was regarded by the men who played with him and by the writers of his time. It is true that we judge baseball according to the lights of the power game, but to disregard Cobb's manifold achievements is to show disrespect to the history of the game. For heaven's sake, Cobb stole home 54 times! No one is even close.

I do wish that Stanton had taken a couple of extra pages and shown their records that both Cobb and Ruth held when they retired and who surpassed them and when (and which they still hold today). That would have been a helpful touch.

Stanton also provides us with a great bibliography of material of these two greats. I believe that once you read this fine book you will want to read more and this well done reading list will make that desire easier to fulfill. The index is also very usable.

If you love baseball or are even mildly interested in it or either of these two players, this is a book you will certainly enjoy and should buy and read right away. It will make for a few enjoyable evenings of reading and you will know these men better than you ever have before (unless you are a deep historian of the game). I know I was interested in reading it and it surprised me how much I enjoyed it.