It is hard to compare the eras, but Joe Jackson and Ty Cobb from the past, Sandy Koufax and Roger Clements from the present.
When I get the record, all it will make me is the player with the most hits. I'm also the player with the most at bats and the most outs. I never said I was a greater player than Cobb.
I broke in with four hits, and the writers promptly declared they had seen the new Ty Cobb. It took me only a few days to correct that impression.
I never saw anyone like Ty Cobb. No one even close to him as the greatest all-time ballplayer. That guy was superhuman, amazing.
I have heard of managers who encourage players not to slide hard for fear they will get hurt and be lost from the lineup for a time. That is why you occasionally see a player go into second base on a double-play ball and not even bother to slide. I wonder, could Ty Cobb sit though plays like that and hold his lunch?
He was the strangest of all our national sports idols. But not even his disagreeable character could destroy the image of his greatness as a ballplayer. Ty Cobb was the best. That seemed to be all he wanted.
Few names have left a firmer imprint upon the pages of the history of American times than has that of Ty Cobb... he seems to have understood that in the competition of baseball, just as in war, defensive strategy never has produced ultimate victory.
(Rogers) Hornsby could run like anything but not like this kid. (Ty) Cobb was the fastest I ever saw for being sensational on the bases.
It hurt me a great deal. It put a lot of pressure on me because I was at a young age and the writers around here and throughout the league starting comparing me to Cobb. It put a lot of pressure on me.
I know everything about Ty Cobb except the size of his hat.
Claire Hodgson, born Clara Mae Merritt, was the daughter of a prominent Georgia attorney who had once represented Ty Cobb. She was still a teenager when she married Frank Hodgson, a gentleman caller nearly twice her age.
Cobb would have to play center field on my all time team. But where would that put Speaker? In left. If I had them both, I would certainly play them that way.
At Tiger Stadium, the dugouts are so low that you walk in and hit your head on the ceiling. People would say, 'Don't feel bad. Ty Cobb did the same thing.'
The Babe was a great ballplayer, sure, but Cobb was even greater. Babe could knock your brains out, but Cobb would drive you crazy.
