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Average Customer Review
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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
Despite Stumps' Revision, This Is One of the Great Basball Books, March 31, 2000
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.
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6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
A side of Ty Cobb never seen before!, January 19, 2000
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.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
If ya like Ty, you'll like his book, September 14, 2002
I was born in 1951 & read Cobb's autobio around 1961. My 1st baseball biography. I like it now as much as then. It's considered "in" today to cut it & Cobb up & call it "self-serving". Well, I've read hundreds of "autobio's" since & never come across one that isn't self-serving. Isn't that the point of writing your story? I find Cobb's book no more dishonest than any other. It's true value is to get you to think as a ballplayer & offer a window into his times, how they played the game. Whether or not you like his book depends on if you like him. And I do. I think he's the greatest player ever by a long shot. So did all the players from his & Ruth's time. Ruth ONLY wins the nod among those who never saw either one play. Although Ty was emotionally unbalanced, wrapped way too tight & was wired to go off at most anything, he also was the most honest guy, and also generous. He helped dozens of guys on other teams improve their hitting & play. I highly recommend Ty's book & also Stump's later Cobb bio. Together they're something else!!
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
"Baseball is a red blooded sport for red blooded men." Cobb, September 16, 1998
"Pink Teas and molleycoddles had best stay out." So says the the best baseball player EVER to play the game. From the blistering red clay of Georgia to the glory that was Tiger Stadium, to the cold moors of Scotland, Ty Cobb tells the story of his life and times. Is it the truth? Al Stump, who cowrote the book, would say no. Ty Cobb would say yes. In the end it doesn't really matter. I'm sure that Cobb was the man somewhere in between. You can argue and debate whether he was a good man or a bad one, but there is no debating that he played the game like it was meant to be played. A competitor the likes of which we have never seen and will likely never see again. This book is a must read simply because of the picture it paints of a man struggling to survive away from home, in a hostile place, surrounded by hostile men, but ever fighting on. "Baseball is a struggle for survival." Ty Cobb
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
Fascinating introspection, December 8, 2008
It is well-known that Cobb used this autobiography as a means to shape his public image in a manner consistent in which he viewed himself, a noble honorable gentleman of the wrongfully subjugated South striving to be the greatest ballplayer ever. He takes liberties with the truth frequently attempting to justify his behavior from a victim's position, wrongfully accused and persecuted. On the surface this may seem to be an ordinary human response. However, in Cobb's case, the noble heights to which he attempts to project his intentions are fascinating. He tries to impress upon the reader that he was a success in everything he did--as an entrepreneur, a ballplayer, a war hero, golfer, celebrity, and man of politics, sophistication and aristrocracy. He even attempts to make the reader believe that he would be remarkable in any venture that he tried.
Read together with Stump's later companion biography entitled Cobb, a more complete picture of his life is formed. Cobb was a man maniacally driven to success by a deep fear of failure and being ordinary. He was rancorous and often hostile, intolerant of those he considered his inferior and likely very self-absorbed. What makes his story so fascinating is the perfect storm effect of it. Cobb was born in the heart of Dixie to a relatively well-regarded family a decade after the end of Reconstruction. He excelled in a game that was barely past its infancy and had not yet reached maturity or any sense of social respectability. The game was a regional sport focused in the Northeast, the southern and western most city was St. Louis. His rise to athletic fame occurred in a city (Detroit) where one of America's most important industries was just beginning to take rise. His alienation from his teammates, many of whom he shared a mutual dislike for due to religious and regional differences, allowed him to network with an auto entrepreneurial crowd as his athletic fame grew. Later, similar man meets moment opportunities arose in his life during WWI and when a Georgia pharmacist invented Coca-Cola. From a macro standpoint, he represented the New South and its engagement of the new 20th century.
As alluded to with Stump's later companion book, Cobb takes liberties with the truth casting himself in a more positive light. The same liberties may have been taken in the opposite direction with Stump's second book, as Stump himself was recognized as a somewhat self-serving promoter of his own work and may have accentuated the truth for his own benefit. Regardless, the actual truth probably lies somewhere between the two and each in their own right are fascinating looks at a deeply complex man.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
One big story, with a million entertaining substories., August 19, 2003
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.
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TY Cobb, August 2, 2009
An in depth view of baseball's yesteryear from Ty Cobb's perspective when the game was very different from today's nice guys always finish best. A must read for those who wondered what baseball used to be like.
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Ty Cobb, in his own words, December 10, 2008
I like to read about the past, the players, the games that influenced a national past time. Ty Cobb was his own man in a time when speaking out was looked at differently. He wanted to be the best, and in his mind he was the best baseball player in his era. The book is written in the same way. You can tell by the way he explains things that, in his mind, this is the way it happened. His style is easy to read, does not drag you down with prose or fancy wording, but he tends to get bogged down at times by details and stats that may or may not be true. He explains his childhood in a different light than other books written before his book, which is more on line to what may have really happened. It was a good read, with his stories and accounts of what occured during his playing days, the players he played with or against, and the tales and legends written about him during his career. I liked the book, the stories and his wit. Pick up the book, give it a try. You won't be waisting your time or money.
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Superb. Almost as great as Cobb himself., December 25, 2007
Being an inveterate baseball fan since the days of Mickey Mantle, and having already spent considerable summers delving into the fascinating roots of the game, I had no grand expectations in starting this book, acquired at the Cobb museum in Georgia. To you, dear reader, I declare that this is among the very best pieces of baseball literature that I've had the privilege to experience. The book covers not only the physical aspects of Cobb's career--the sojourn in the minors, the early, somewhat less than stellar rookie season--but also the mental aspects of Cobb's approach. Here he details the innovations he brought to the game, the obstacles he overcame, the intra-team battles he fought, and later, his ability to transfer this tenacity and judgment to the business world.
A great book.
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Great book, February 13, 2006
This book is great Ty Cobb teaches you all of his secrets and relationships between other players in his time he even picks his all time team that he would go against anyone today and he said he would beat anyone with his all time team I think he probably would
This book is a must for a Cobb fan and a must if you are a baseball fan
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