My Life in Baseball: The True Record [Paperback]

Ty Cobb (Author), Al Stump (Author), Charles C. Alexander (Introduction)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 1, 1993

"Highly successful in knitting together this story of the life of a most remarkable and dedicated player - perhaps the most spirited baseball player ever to have graced the diamond." - "Library Journal". "I find little comfort in the popular picture of Cobb as a spike-slashing demon of the diamond with a wide streak of cruelty in his nature. The fights and feuds I was in have been steadily slanted to put me in the wrong...My critics have had their innings. I will have mine now." - Ty Cobb. "Frank, bitter, trend-setting autobiography." - "USA Today Baseball Weekly". "One of the most remarkable sports books ever written." - "Los Angeles Daily News". "The old Tiger still spits and snarls off the pages." - "Cooperstown Review". "Of Ty Cobb let it be said simply that he was the world's greatest ballplayer." - "New York Herald Tribune" (1961 editorial on Cobb's death). This Bison Book edition of "My Life in Baseball" is introduced by Charles C. Alexander, a professor of history at Ohio University, Athens, and the author of a "Biography of Ty Cobb".

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

One of sports literature's great whitewashes and cover-ups, Ty Cobb's autobiography is anything but the "true record" of its titular claim. Cobb was as haunted and complex a man as has ever sharpened a pair of spikes, and, in his 70s, when he sat down to tell his story, he simply didn't want the whole of his truth revealed; he preferred to perpetuate his legend. What results, then, is a flawed fairy tale filled with colorful anecdotes and reminiscences that duck the demons that fueled Cobb's inspired play like a pitcher trying to hide from a line drive smashed in the direction of his eyeballs.

Interestingly, the story behind the book is far more raucous and compelling than the book itself. Cobb, as violent and demanding at the end of his life as he was in his playing heyday, virtually kidnapped Stump (one of the most honored sports writers of the late '50s and early '60s), subjecting almost every word and observation to Cobb's approval. Stump finally exacted his literary pound of flesh years later when he slid spikes high into Cobb's ghost with the publication of his marvelously rich--and real--accounting of Cobb's life in Cobb: A Biography. Stump not only nicked the fuzz off the Georgia Peach in that second effort, he recounted the harrowing circumstances behind the first. Together, the two books provide a fascinating prism into a man's life and legacy, the first volume bending the light to diffuse the truth, the second straightening it out to preserve it. --Jeff Silverman

Review

"Highly successful in knitting together this story of the life of a most remarkable and dedicated player—perhaps the most spirited baseball player ever to have graced the diamond."—Library Journal

(Library Journal )

"Frank, bitter, trend-setting autobiography."—USA Today Baseball Weekly

(USA Today Baseball Weekly )

"One of the most remarkable sports books ever written."—Los Angeles Daily News

(Los Angeles Daily News )

"The old Tiger still spits and snarls off the pages."—Cooperstown Review

(Cooperstown Review )

"Of Ty Cobb let it be said simply that he was the world''s greatest ballplay (New York Herald Tribune )

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 315 pages
• Publisher: Bison Books (January 1, 1993)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0803263597
• ISBN-13: 978-0803263598
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.3 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (20 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #420,834 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #5 in Books > Biographies & Memoirs > People, A-Z > ( C ) > Cobb, Ty

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Despite Stumps' Revision, This Is One of the Great Basball Books, March 31, 2000

By 

Tim R. Niles "Nomad" (Silicon Valley) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: My Life in Baseball: The True Record (Paperback)

I bought this book through the Sport (Magazine) Book Club inabout 1962 when I was twelve and learned more about how to playbasball from it than from any other source.

You don't have to be a driven old man with a lot of ugly qualities to recognize this book for what it is: magnificent lessons in the art and science of baseball.

Ty Cobb succeeded at baseball, he succeeded at making money, and he may have been a failure in many ways as a human being, BUT this book is a fitting remembrance of his approach to baseball.

9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A side of Ty Cobb never seen before!, January 19, 2000

By 

Michael J Woznicki "Michael J Woznicki" (Holland, MA USA) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: My Life in Baseball: The True Record (Paperback)

When you think of hard nose, intense play to win ball players, the first name that comes to mind is Ty Cobb. This book, which is one of the best books about Cobb, shows the side of the man who was most hated in the game he excelled at, baseball.

The story of Tyrus Raymond Cobb is one that will forever be both myth and fact blended together. What this book does is gives the reader a greater understanding and appreciation of a man who ruled baseball for more than 20 years.

You look into the history of more than baseball; you'll see the life outside of baseball, and the life most people never knew. Walk through the past and relive the glory of the game with the greatest hitter of all time. What this book reveals is more than sports history, it's far more.

Ty Cobb is baseball and Ty Cobb the man is more than the legend. The book is must have for those that love baseball. You'll find yourself captured from page one. A real hall of fame book about a real hall of fame player.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One big story, with a million entertaining substories., August 19, 2003

By 

Deanna Rubin (Seattle, WA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: My Life in Baseball: The True Record (Paperback)

I really enjoyed reading this book. It was the first book about Cobb that I had ever read; before that, he was just a name and statistics to me.

The overarcing story of this book is Ty Cobb's career in baseball, with a little bit about his life before and a few flashes into his life after. Now, it would be easy to sum up a career in baseball with several numbers, a few game highlights, etc. But that is not what you'll find in this book. What you'll find is a ton of short, 5-10 paragraph interludes about almost every big name in baseball from the 1905-1928 period... and even big names elsewhere. Ty Cobb was fortunate enough to have interacted with everyone from actors to presidents to business executives, and he has humorous angles on each of them. I actually laughed out loud several times while reading this book at the way he portrayed various people.

In a lot of ways, reading this book is almost like listening to your grandfather tell stories of his adventures and his friends in his youth. Except it's not your grandfather, it's Ty Cobb, telling stories of the Golden Age of Baseball, and his friends were legends like Walter Johnson, Christy Mathewson, Connie Mack, Tinker-to-Evers-to-Chance, Nap Lajoie, and others who may also simply be names in the Hall of Fame to you. Cobb's stories bring life to long-dead names, color to old black-and-white photos. Most of us have only heard legends of those early parks, players, pennants, pitches, pundits. Cobb was there. And through reading his story, it almost feels like you were there, too.

While I've read other reviews that say this book hides the Dark Side of Ty Cobb, I don't think that is entirely true. He definitely talks about some ways he treated people, such as Shoeless Joe Jackson, that makes you realize that at his core he was a man who would stop at nothing to win.

It doesn't matter if you like Ty Cobb or hate Ty Cobb. If you want to hear some great baseball stories, read this book.