Ty Cobb Photo Gallery
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Birthday Tribute to Ty Cobb: His Great Season of 1911
Baseball’s most controversial figure, Ty Cobb, was born 130 years ago today, on December 18, 1886. To recognize the occasion, here’s a repost of a short essay I wrote a while back on his great season, 1911:
“I often tried plays that looked recklessly daring, maybe even silly. But I never tried anything foolish when a game was at stake, only when we were far ahead or far behind. I did it to study how the other team reacted, filing away in my mind any observations for future use.”
—Ty Cobb in The New York Times
Ty Cobb had one of the greatest years in baseball history in 1911. He led the American League in most offensive categories, including average (.420), hits (248), runs (147) RBIs (127), stolen bases (83), doubles (47), triples (24), total bases (367), slugging (.621), on-base percentage (.467), and OPS (1.088). In addition, he had a 40-game hitting streak. Cobb hit eight home runs but finished second in that category to Frank Baker’s eleven. He was awarded a second Chalmers car by the Baseball Writers Association of America for being voted the American League MVP.
In the featured photo below, we see the classic Cobb slide into Frank “Home Run” Baker. Be sure to click on the photo to see a much larger version.
“Shoeless” Joe Jackson led him by .009 points in the batting race late in the season. Near the end of the year, Cobb’s Tigers had a long series against Jackson’s Cleveland Naps. As fellow Southerners, Cobb and Jackson were personally friendly on and off the field. The competitive Cobb used that friendship to his advantage. He ignored Jackson when Joe tried to speak to him. When he persisted, Cobb snapped angrily back at him, making him wonder what he could have done to enrage Cobb. The always-scheming Georgia Peach felt that it was these “mind games” that caused Jackson to “fall off” to a final average of .408, twelve points lower than Cobb’s .420. Cobb’s average was a twentieth century record which stood until Rogers Hornsby surpassed it with .424.
Cobb is widely credited with setting 90 MLB records during his career. He still holds several records as of the end of the 2016 season, including the highest career batting average (.366), and most career batting titles (12). He retained many other records for almost a half century or more, including most career hits until 1985 (4,189); most career runs (2,244) until 2001; most career games played (3,035) and at-bats (11,434) until 1974; and the modern record for most career stolen bases (892) until 1977.**
Cobb still holds the career record for stealing home (54), and was the youngest player to compile 4,000 hits and score 2,000 runs. Cobb ranks fifth all-time in games played. He committed 271 errors, the most by any American League outfielder.
**All Cobb statistics taken from Baseball Reference. Some of these career numbers are in dispute.
-Gary Livacari
Photo Credits: All from Public Domain
Information: Excerpts edited from the Ty Cobb Wikipedia page
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