Heart of a Tiger: Growing Up With My Grandfather, Ty Cobb

by Herschel Cobb

  My first game I started in center field, and things were pretty quiet until I got up to bat. This was my first time at bat in Middle League baseball. The kid throwing the ball was tall and bigger than anybody I had played against in Little League. I’d seen him before from the first base side and knew how hard he threw the ball, so when I stepped up to the plate, I was excited, nervous, and a little scared. I watched him throw a strike right by me, and then the yelling began. At first I heard just a lot of noise. Then I recognized my name, being called over and over again. “Cobb, come on . . . hit it, go after him, swing. Come on, kid, show your stuff. Swing, swing.” All of the yelling blurred together, but I knew they were hollering at me, and I didn’t know why. My teammates weren’t yelled at the same way. The shrieking was loud, from the stands, both sides of the baselines, and the infield. The calls were jeering, derisive, and demanding, like everybody screeching at me. I felt as if I had done something wrong or was about to. I looked at the pitcher and knew the screaming bothered him too because he stepped off the rubber, walked around the mound, rubbed the ball, put his glove hand on his knee, and took a long look at me and his catcher. I took a couple of practice swings and could feel my body tense up to defend itself. I didn’t like this at all. When I glanced toward our dugout, I saw my coach waving his arms furiously, as if to swing a bat. The thought that kept repeating itself was, “What is going on?” I looked past my coach to my bicycle. I came alone to the field, and I saw my way out. Half of me wanted to leave.

  The pitcher peered down at me and began his windup. His left arm went back and came at me. I saw the white ball roll off his fingers and spin toward me. It looked as big as a grapefruit, the seams spinning in a blur, the white brilliant in the sunlight. I swung as hard as I could. I heard a crack. I’d hit the ball, and I ran like hell for first base. When I got there, the first base coach was yelling, “Go, go, go, Cobb! Take second!” Yet I watched the ball come in from left-center, and by the time I’d completed my turn, the shortstop had it and was waiting for me to try. I stayed put. I was on first base with a hit. I felt great and excited. I touched the base under my left foot, took a couple of steps off and looked down the line toward the home plate. My senses were revved. Everything I looked at was vivid, colors standing out brighter than usual. The grass, dirt, hitter, backstop, every bit looked gigantic. The white chalk line running to home plate was wiggly, but followed a straight course, and I could see the bumps along its edges running over the dirt. I glanced at the pitcher, then down at the second base bag. It looked like a small, dirty white island sitting on a scuffed-up sea of dirt. I was ready to go.

  The yelling turned to taunting, didn’t stop. It got louder and louder. “Steal, steal! Go, go, go, you chicken, steal!” I heard a lot of names, like “chicken,” “bum,” and calls like “use your spikes, kid.” I didn’t know why I was the focus, but it felt awful. The fathers behind the fences along first and third, the other players, my own teammates, and my coach, all yelling at me. I saw open mouths, strained necks, waving arms. The kid guarding me at first base said mockingly, “Go ahead, Cobb, try it. You’ll never make it.”

  I could feel the voices as much as hear the words. It felt like a challenge to fight. Something was the matter because it was not encouragement but derision. I glanced over at my Schwinn, leaning against the fence. Oh, I didn’t want to be there, and I didn’t want to leave. Second base began to look like it was across the entire sports field. My teammate at the plate struck out on four pitches, and he was the third out. The inning over, I went back out to center field. The yelling calmed down, but when I came in for our team’s next at-bat, my coach started yelling at me.

  “Why didn’t you try to steal? Your name is Cobb,” he cried in front of my teammates. “Next time, go. Just go. I want you to steal second base.” His strident voice was full of disappointment. I knew he meant it, but I didn’t really know what he meant. My next at-bats were like the first. Each time I stepped into the batter’s box, my ears filled with jeers, taunts, demands, and loud disappointment. That day I grounded out, got another single, and flied out to deep left-center. Two for four for my first game. I was pleased with myself and knew I could do this Middle League stuff. But nobody said anything that confirmed what I felt.

  Something else was expected. I could see the disappointment in the faces of the adults and kids watching me, and hear it in the voices of my teammates. I walked to my bike, put my glove on my handlebar, and rode home alone.

  At our house, I sat in my uniform at the breakfast table. My mom walked in the front door and asked, “What’s the matter with you?” Her voice was slurred, and as she came closer I smelled whisky.

  “My game,” I started, “it was awful. Everybody screamed at me.”

  I didn’t have to explain any more. She stood in front of me, looked down at me in my uniform, and said, “Your grandfather.” The look on her face and her voice were full of contempt. She turned on her heel, heading toward her bedroom. She never said anything more. I knew she resented him intensely, and I knew he disliked her. I didn’t mention the heckling at my games again.

  My mother never mentioned baseball in our house, and only referred to Granddaddy in contemptuous terms, usually when she was intoxicated. She refused to have baseball books around and never attended a game of mine. I’d signed up for Little League on my own, encouraged by two school buddies, and did the same in Middle League. I rode my bike to my games and liked the idea of being on a “team.”

  After a dozen and a half games with screeching, yelling, and mocking taunts aimed at me, I was not sad to board the train to Palo Alto. I’d spend the rest of the summer at my grandmother’s and leave the rest of the Middle League season in center field to someone else. Neither my coach nor my teammates talked to me about what had happened or why, and by the end of the second game, I decided not to ask. I knew there was something I wanted and needed to know, but in Santa Maria, there was no adult I trusted to ask.

  Now, sitting next to him in his living room, I said, “Oh, Granddaddy, please, just tell me. What did you do? Who are you, really?” I felt his hand grip my whole waist.

  He was smiling broadly as he asked me, “Go on, tell me what’s been going on. How did your season go?”

  “Everybody yelled at me, Granddaddy, they just keep yelling. A lot of names. My first base coach never stopped yelling at me to steal. They wanted bigger hits. Wanted me to steal every time I got on base. It happened every game. They want me to get a hit every time. I can’t do that.” I blurted all this out without knowing exactly what to say, feeling frustrated, a little teary; I wanted comfort and an answer.

  Granddaddy shifted, starting to get out of his chair, and his right hand nudged me to stand up. “Well,” he said, “let’s see what we can do. Come with me.”

  He stood up beside me, appearing huge. He took my hand as we walked across the living room, toward the hallway that went to the back of the house. Once again, I realized how large his hand was as it wrapped around mine, and I felt his flesh gently squeeze mine, hold on for a moment, and then let go. Directly across from the archway that led in and out of the living room was a closed door. He looked down at me as he opened that door, and said simply, “Come on in and you can help me for a while.”

  Susan and Kit returned from the kitchen with four large bowls of peach ice cream and spoons. He saw her before she could speak and told her, “Susan, take care of your brother. We’re going to be busy in here for a while. Let Kit have Hersch’s share, and save mine in the freezer. Thanks, sweetie.”

  His office was a modest-sized room, probably a bedroom at one time. Every wall was lined with shelves, and a large desk occupied the right wall and filing cabinets filled the left. On the shelves sat baseball trophies, award plaques, signed baseballs, a bat lying lengthwise, framed pictures with autographs, a pair of cleated shoes, caps, and a couple of baseball gloves. In one corner were dirty, used bats leaning in a clump. Between the shelves and where they ended were large fr
amed photographs of Granddaddy. Most were old action pictures of him playing baseball, some with other ball players, some showed him with men in business suits. His uniform was old-fashioned, had a big “D” on the chest and a stand-up collar. I studied several of the pictures and just stared for a moment, my mind taking in that all this was really him. Granddaddy sprinting around third base to home, hitting left-handed, stealing second base, sliding into third base, catching a ball in the outfield. I remember saying to myself, “He’s really trying hard. Look at his face.” In several photos he appeared with groups of other baseball players, another with Babe Ruth, and another in front of an old-fashioned radio microphone with a crowd behind, yet another in which he wore a funny square hat with a fringe hanging down, and others with his family. I saw pictures of my father when he was a kid, of Uncle Ty playing tennis, and Aunt Shirley riding horses. I was stunned by all the pictures, telling the story of a long life. I was so curious, I forgot he was there with me.

  I heard him say, “Hersch, pull up that chair and give me a hand.”

  I sat down beside him, and he pushed a small cardboard box into my lap, just right for holding a baseball, and handed me a pen. “Now, you need to tape this shut and put the address on it,” he told me. “Just a minute.”

  He reached into a huge barrel placed next to his desk and pulled out a new white baseball. Settling it in his left hand, he held a fountain pen poised in his right. He leaned over his desk reading something, then said, “This boy’s name is Peter, lives in Pennsylvania. He plays ball there, second year in Middle League. Must be about a year older than you. Wants a signed baseball. Didn’t send one with his letter. Asks which way to hit. So, we’ll do it this way.” I stood up and saw he was reading a handwritten letter.

  On the ball he pulled from the barrel, he wrote the first line, “To Peter,” then under that, “Hit Left-handed,” then “Ty Cobb,” then the date, “7/23/56.” Green ink, large scripted letters, and a curlicue under his name.

  “Here,” he said as he handed me the ball. “That might help him out. Let this dry for a second. There’s some tissue in that box to put around the ball. Here’s Peter’s address. Print in big letters so the post guy won’t have a problem.”

  I reread the signed baseball while I fumbled for the tissue paper to wrap it in. I glanced up, and right in front of me was a large poster framed in dark brown wood. In a large center oval was a picture of Granddaddy’s face, and then four action shots in pie shapes filling the corners of the poster. At the bottom, in white, slanted capital letters, it read, “Ty Cobb, World’s Greatest Baseball Player.” I was transfixed. His picture in the oval was just like he looked now when he smiled, only he was younger. His eyes were looking off to the left, and the collar on his uniform stood up, close to his neck. I felt a tingling rush through my whole body, finishing in my head. This was no joke, this was my grandfather.

  I looked more closely at the other pictures of him, on each side, this time reading the print within each picture. At the top, a picture showed him batting left-handed, but it was a different photo than the single picture on his wall. The grandstands were full of fans and distinct, and his swing looked stronger. I read the words at the bottom three times because I couldn’t believe what they said: “Lifetime batting average, .367 over 24 years,” on the first line, then, under that “4,191 lifetime hits.” Oh my. I read it again. I felt like I’d stepped into a dream, where everything I’d known about myself suddenly changed. I knew I was good at baseball and basketball, and could run faster than most of my friends, but what I was reading amazed me. I felt awestruck, proud, and a little afraid of not doing as well as him. What did he really think about me?

  I was leaning far forward, starting to read another pie-shaped picture on the poster, when Granddaddy swung around. His elbow caught me by accident and rocked me back into my chair.

  “Sorry,” he said, “where are you going?”

  I quickly answered, “Nowhere, Granddaddy.” I felt embarrassed, but at the same time giddy and elated. I knew in an instant that all the razzing I’d taken was because those people expected that I’d do the same things on the diamond as my grandfather. Here was the full story of who he was. Only it was bigger, way bigger, than I’d ever suspected. I struggled to catch my breath. Now, what was I supposed to do?

  “Hersch, can you read this handwriting? It’s terrible.” He thrust a piece of paper in front of me. It was signed, “your best fan, Terry Ragel,” and the letter began, “I play third base in Little League and would like a baseball from you.” The sentences began straight across the page, but then slanted down more and more, so that by the end of the page, they were almost vertical.

  “His name is Terry, and he’s in Little League, so maybe he’s only in the fourth or fifth grade. He wants a baseball too,” I said.

  “How does he bat?” Granddaddy asked. I reread the letter, but it didn’t say anything about which side of the plate he hit from. “He only says he loves third base, and is that the right position for him?” Granddaddy laughed, which led into a cough. Then he cleared his throat and grinned at me.

  “I had a hell of a time stealing on Baker.”

  I thought, “Who is Baker?” I’d find out later he was talking about Home Run Baker, the famous third baseman. One of the most famous baseball pictures of all time was taken of Ty Cobb stealing third base on Baker. The picture was taken almost by accident and settled a long-running argument and accusation about whether Granddaddy intentionally used his spikes to gain third base. The photo is clear: the steal was clean.

  “Well, tell him ‘Good Luck,’ then,” I suggested. And that’s what he did. “To Terry, Good Luck, Ty Cobb,” dated “7/23/56.” He handed the ball to me to pack and put the address on the box.

  He took another letter from the stack on his desk. As my hands worked, I again leaned far forward to inspect another pie-shaped picture in the poster. This showed Granddaddy standing in front of an old-fashioned radio microphone. He is grinning, and his hair is thin on top. The uniform has an elephant on the left side of the chest, not a “D.” Another player stood next to Granddaddy.

  “That’s Tris Speaker,” I heard him say, “one of the best ball players there ever was. Connie Mack brought us together. Ever hear of him? He was a great friend of mine. Our last year.”

  He was talking over his shoulder, and I saw him turn his head back to his desk. I mumbled, “I don’t think so, Granddaddy.”

  I learned later that Tris Speaker was famous too. Granddaddy always spoke highly of him and said that Speaker and Rogers Hornsby were the best hitters ever in baseball.

  I examined Granddaddy in that picture. He was old, with the lines on his face etched deeply and very little hair on his head. His nose had changed a little, and the collar on his uniform lay flat. But one thing really caught me: even in a picture, his eyes possessed the twinkle and clarity that I knew so well. Within the picture, in smallish white print, it read, “12 Times American League Batting Champion, Batted over .400 Three Times, 23 Years Over .300.” I thought, “Could an old guy really do that? Over .400, three times. That’s four hits in ten at bats, all season. Did he really do that?” I wanted to ask something, but I couldn’t think of how to have it come out right.

  He put another baseball in my lap. I had been almost standing up, gawking at the poster, and the movement of his hand pulled me back down into my chair. “Here,” he said. “This one goes with this letter. Take a look at it.”

  The letter read, “Dear Mr. Cobb, I love baseball, and I play outfield, just like you did. I can throw pretty far. My dad said you were the greatest ever. He died last year. Please autograph a baseball for him and me. His name was Jim.” It was signed, “Thank you, Charlie.”

  He signed that ball, “To Charlie & Jim, from Ty Cobb” and under that, “7/23/56.” Granddaddy hesitated but in the end didn’t write anything else. He leaned over his desk and began reading another letter. I stared at the letter in my hand and wondered what Granddaddy was th
inking. He seldom mentioned my father, who had been dead for nearly five years now, nor my uncle, Ty Jr. Thoughts swarmed in my head, landing near my heart, where I was afraid to go. I liked my grandfather, and I wanted him to like me. I was still searching for something of the father I did not have.

  I looked up again at the poster in front of me, at the pie-shaped picture that showed him sliding into second base. The slide was called a “swing slide” or “hook slide.” The idea was to slide to the outside of second base, hooking the corner of the bag with your left toe, thereby sliding under the tag.

  While I was reading and imagining, I heard his voice, very soft and close to my ear: “When I was a young boy, I built a sliding pit in my backyard and practiced that slide hour after hour, just to perfect my timing and technique. I wanted it perfect. I wanted to be the best.” He had leaned over, his head level with mine, looking a little at that picture and a little at me. His voice sounded almost sad, and he slowly withdrew as he turned back to his desk. I looked closely at the picture, and at the statistics underneath. It read, “96 Stolen Bases Single Season, 892 During 24 Seasons. Stole Home Plate 54 Times.” I was amazed and a little bewildered. Granddaddy never mentioned any of this during the past three years while we visited him in the summer. He never said one thing about baseball. I was like every boy who played baseball. I knew statistics and averages for lots of current players. These statistics were truly astounding to read, especially while sitting next to the man who created them.

  Many of the letters asked for an autographed picture. He had stacks of different action photos of himself on the shelf in front of him and tried to pick a picture that matched the request of the writer. He showed me pictures of himself racing around third base, sliding into home plate, standing at home plate with a bat, catching a fly ball in the outfield, and other action photos, asking me which seemed best for the request. He was careful to sign them across the bottom, with a message and the date. Anybody who wrote received an autographed baseball or photograph.