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Ty Cobb was a
fierce competitor—the Detroit Free Press described him as “daring to the point of dementia.” During his playing days he
set 90 Major League Baseball records, and his career batting average (.367) and most batting titles (12) will likely never
be eclipsed. Yet his legacy as a ballplayer is overshadowed by his temper as well as his no holds barred style of play. He
was loathed by his own team mates as well as the opposition. Ernest Hemingway wrote of Cobb: “The greatest of all ballplayers—and an absolute shit.” While
Joe DiMaggio said of him: “Every time I hear of this guy again—I wonder how he was possible.”
Al Stump,
in his biography, Cobb, revealed something of the many demons that drove Cobb to
greatness. Cobb’s father was killed, by his mother, a week before Ty became a major league ballplayer. Although she
was acquitted on the grounds it was accidental, who can know what Cobb thought. His father, who was against his son playing
ball, told him only not to return home a failure. He never did, but he did lament, after his playing days were done, that
his father never got to see him play.
It’s
strange how the ghosts of our parents haunt us.
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| J. Conrad demonstrates the hands apart grip Cobb made famous |
I once wanted to play baseball, but my parents would have none of that. They may have
crushed the dream but not my love affair with the game. After I turned 40, I knew my dream of playing ball was gone, and so
it seemed natural, after finishing the January books, that I'd write a baseball novel. Backstop: A Baseball Love Story in
Nine Innings was the result.
I’ve long been fascinated with Ty Cobb the ballplayer. Al Stump’s biography
was brought to the screen in 1994, with Tommy Lee Jones in the title role. When I saw the film I became fascinated by Cobb
the man. I just completed Cobb’s Conscience (a working title and what I consider a sub-genre of historical fiction).
More than a murder mystery, The Cobb Legacy is the story of a man's search to connect with his dying father while also coming to terms with his adulterous affair and impending divorce, and doubting that love with an old friend can
be his. A dash of the paranormal is also part of the story. This was my most challenging write to date.
JCG
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| A great photo of the warrior, Cobb, frozen in time |
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| One of the greatest baseball photographs ever taken, Ty Cobb sliding into third base |
C
is for Cobb,
Who grew spikes and not corn,
And made basemen
Wish they weren’t born
—Ogden Nash, Sport Magazine, January 1949
“Baseball
is a red-blooded sport for red-blooded men. It’s no pink tea, and mollycoddles had better stay out. It’s a struggle
for supremacy, survival of the fittest.”
—Ty Cobb
“If
you and I are going to get along, don’t increase my tension.”
—Ty Cobb
“Love
is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it
is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.”
—1 Corinthians 13:4-5
Prologue
Royston, Georgia,
August 8, 1905
“They killed him
when he was still young. They blew his head off the same week I became a major-leaguer. He never got to see me play. Not one
game, not an inning. But I knew he was watching me ... and I never let him down. Never.”
—Tyrus Raymond Cobb
Amanda had just loosened
the belt on her robe when she heard a creak from the balcony outside the second story bedroom window. Her oldest boy
was playing baseball in Augusta, while the younger two, another son and a daughter, were at friends’ houses.
She retied her robe and quickly stepped,
barefoot, over to the bed, where she squatted and felt under the bed for the double-barreled shotgun her husband kept for
protection; William was out of town on business. Standing, Amanda strained to cock first one barrel and then the other on
the heavy shotgun. Struggling to aim the twin at the window, she tilted her head to listen, over the rush of running water
from the bathroom, for sounds from the balcony. She heard a faint scratching at the window and was grateful that she’d
had the foresight to lock the doors and windows. A moment later, the round, white face of William appeared at the glass.
The water suddenly stopped its mad rush and
silence, as it often did, filled the void between Amanda and William.
William appeared startled by the sight of
his wife armed with the shotgun, but then Amanda watched her husband’s gaze move from the twin barrels aimed at his
midsection to a place just over her right shoulder. A moment later his dark eyes narrowed on Amanda’s face.
The pane of glass now separating them, save
for its transparency, seemed, to Amanda, a sort of metaphor for what their marriage had become. Meeting her husband’s
anger bravely, Amanda felt a corner of her mouth twitch and rise slightly. Too late, William realized his grim fate.
Amanda savored, for a moment, the transition
from stern cruelty that normally resided on her husband’s face to fear before she pulled the first trigger. Recoiling
from the blast, she heard the shattering of glass and saw a gaping red hole appear in William’s abdomen.
William stumbled backward, landing hard
against the balcony railing, and stutter-stepped forward again with a groan, framed within the remnants of the window. The
pistol with which he’d armed himself for the occasion clattered to the balcony.
Amanda pulled the second trigger, and the
top of William’s head exploded.
Turning to look behind her, to where her
husband had confirmed the town’s talk of her duplicity, Amanda told her lover, “You need to go, quickly. There’ll
be questions.”
Additional excerpts can be read on my blog.
Photos of J. Conrad Guest courtesy
of Sommerville Photographie
You’re listening to Why Try to Change
Me Now? from The Best is Yet to Come: The Songs of Cy Coleman, sung by Fiona Apple.
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