Read Online Cooperstown Confidential by Zev Chafets - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Zev Chafets
Ads: Link
Cobb told Al Stump that he had beaten one of his attackers bloody and, using the sight on the barrel of a Belgian Luger as a blade, slashed another and drove him away.
Then, in 1994, Stump published an un authorized biography, revealing the rest of what the long-dead Cobb had told him about the incident. “[I] lashed away until the man was faceless. Left him there, not breathing, in his own rotten blood.” It isn’t clear if this version is accurate. Perhaps it was only Cobb’s after-the-fact embellishment. Baseball historian Doug Roberts combed through the Detroit Medical Examiner’s autopsy reports for that period, found no corpse that matched the description, and concluded that there had been no murder. Even if Roberts is right, though, the story illustrates something fundamental about the first Hall of Famer—in old age, Cobb was still the sort of man who would have been proud to take credit for a murder.
In the parlance of a later time, Cobb was a hater. His teammate Sam Crawford said he never stopped fighting the Civil War. Early in his career, Cobb was convicted for assault and battery for slapping a black construction worker in Detroit. At Cleveland’s Euclid Hotel, he slapped the black elevator operator and slashed the black night manager, George Stansfield, with a knife (to be fair, Stansfield hit Cobb with a nightstick). That fight resulted in criminal charges and an arrest warrant that forced Cobb to travel to the 1909 World Series in Pittsburgh by way of Canada. In New York, three years later, Cobb went into the stands after a heckler named Claude Lueker who called him “half a nigger.” Cobb beat the man bloody with little resis tance; Lueker, it turned out, had lost a hand in an industrial accident, and was missing three fingers on the other. Ban Johnson, the president of the American League, suspended Cobb indefinitely, but Cobb was unremorseful. “When a spectator calls me a half nigger, I think it’s about time to fight,” he told the Detroit Free Press .
At the end of the 1926 season, Cobb suddenly announced his retirement as player-manager of the Tigers. Shortly thereafter, Hall of Fame center fielder Tris Speaker quit as player-manager of the Cleveland Indians. Speaker, the only man to interrupt Cobb’s streak of twelve American League batting championships, was voted into the Hall in 1937. He, too, was a racist, a sheet-carrying member of the Ku Klux Klan. There were lots of bigots in baseball (and in America) in those days, but most didn’t go all the way to the KKK, and few fans would have thought of membership as representing integrity, sportsmanship, and character.
Cobb and Speaker had more in common than a hatred of black people. They shared a secret. The story began in late September 1919, when Cleveland had already clinched second place and the Tigers were fighting for third. According to Detroit pitcher Dutch Leonard, he met with Cobb, Speaker, and outfielder Joe Wood to discuss an illicit gambling deal. “Don’t worry about tomorrow’s game,” Speaker allegedly told the others. “We have second place clinched and you will win tomorrow.” With the fix in, the four of them planned to make wised-up bets on the next day’s game.
Leonard confessed all this in a letter to American League president Ban Johnson at the end of the 1926 season. He also produced letters from Cobb and Wood that seemed to verify his claim. Cobb was late getting his money down and made nothing from the fixed game, but Wood won six hundred dollars, which he divided with Speaker and Leonard (by check!), minus thirty bucks to the clubhouse boy who actually placed the bet. Ban Johnson reacted to this information by buying the incriminating letters from Leonard for $20,000, suspending Cobb and Speaker, and trying to force them into retirement. But Landis, who saw Johnson as a rival, reversed the decision.
“These players have not been, nor are they now, found guilty of fixing a ball game,” Landis ruled.
Then, in 1994, Stump published an un authorized biography, revealing the rest of what the long-dead Cobb had told him about the incident. “[I] lashed away until the man was faceless. Left him there, not breathing, in his own rotten blood.” It isn’t clear if this version is accurate. Perhaps it was only Cobb’s after-the-fact embellishment. Baseball historian Doug Roberts combed through the Detroit Medical Examiner’s autopsy reports for that period, found no corpse that matched the description, and concluded that there had been no murder. Even if Roberts is right, though, the story illustrates something fundamental about the first Hall of Famer—in old age, Cobb was still the sort of man who would have been proud to take credit for a murder.
In the parlance of a later time, Cobb was a hater. His teammate Sam Crawford said he never stopped fighting the Civil War. Early in his career, Cobb was convicted for assault and battery for slapping a black construction worker in Detroit. At Cleveland’s Euclid Hotel, he slapped the black elevator operator and slashed the black night manager, George Stansfield, with a knife (to be fair, Stansfield hit Cobb with a nightstick). That fight resulted in criminal charges and an arrest warrant that forced Cobb to travel to the 1909 World Series in Pittsburgh by way of Canada. In New York, three years later, Cobb went into the stands after a heckler named Claude Lueker who called him “half a nigger.” Cobb beat the man bloody with little resis tance; Lueker, it turned out, had lost a hand in an industrial accident, and was missing three fingers on the other. Ban Johnson, the president of the American League, suspended Cobb indefinitely, but Cobb was unremorseful. “When a spectator calls me a half nigger, I think it’s about time to fight,” he told the Detroit Free Press .
At the end of the 1926 season, Cobb suddenly announced his retirement as player-manager of the Tigers. Shortly thereafter, Hall of Fame center fielder Tris Speaker quit as player-manager of the Cleveland Indians. Speaker, the only man to interrupt Cobb’s streak of twelve American League batting championships, was voted into the Hall in 1937. He, too, was a racist, a sheet-carrying member of the Ku Klux Klan. There were lots of bigots in baseball (and in America) in those days, but most didn’t go all the way to the KKK, and few fans would have thought of membership as representing integrity, sportsmanship, and character.
Cobb and Speaker had more in common than a hatred of black people. They shared a secret. The story began in late September 1919, when Cleveland had already clinched second place and the Tigers were fighting for third. According to Detroit pitcher Dutch Leonard, he met with Cobb, Speaker, and outfielder Joe Wood to discuss an illicit gambling deal. “Don’t worry about tomorrow’s game,” Speaker allegedly told the others. “We have second place clinched and you will win tomorrow.” With the fix in, the four of them planned to make wised-up bets on the next day’s game.
Leonard confessed all this in a letter to American League president Ban Johnson at the end of the 1926 season. He also produced letters from Cobb and Wood that seemed to verify his claim. Cobb was late getting his money down and made nothing from the fixed game, but Wood won six hundred dollars, which he divided with Speaker and Leonard (by check!), minus thirty bucks to the clubhouse boy who actually placed the bet. Ban Johnson reacted to this information by buying the incriminating letters from Leonard for $20,000, suspending Cobb and Speaker, and trying to force them into retirement. But Landis, who saw Johnson as a rival, reversed the decision.
“These players have not been, nor are they now, found guilty of fixing a ball game,” Landis ruled.
Similar Books
