Best All-Time Center Fielders #2: Ty Cobb
“The way those clubs shift against Ted Williams, I can’t understand how he can be so stupid not to accept the challenge to him and hit to left field.”—Ty Cobb
Considering how Ty Cobb felt about the Williams Shift back then, imagine how he’d feel about the extensive use of the shift today. He would probably go out of his mind watching hitters vastly inferior to Williams not take advantage of the easy hits available against the shift. Too bad Cobb doesn’t tweet from the after life, like Old Hoss Radbourn.
The two biggest stars in baseball in the early part of the 20th century were Ty Cobb and Babe Ruth. They dominated the sport, like an Bill Russell and Wilt Chamberlain dominated the NBA in their day. In the ensuing 80-plus years, Ruth’s stature has remained as one of the behemoths of baseball. Cobb is still regarded as one of the all-time greats, but he’s not spoken of in the same way Ruth is.
With that in mind, it’s interesting to note that Ty Cobb received the most votes among the five players who made up the inaugural class of the Baseball Hall of Fame. Cobb Received 222 of the 226 votes cast, which was seven more votes than Ruth and Honus Wagner received. Christy Mathewson (205 votes) and Walter Johnson (189 votes) filled out the five-man class.
In those early days, batting average was everything and no one hit for average like Cobb. He played his first season with the Detroit Tigers as an 18-year-old in 1905, hitting .240 in 41 games. He would never again hit below .300, not even in his final season when he was 41 years old.
In the 13-year-stretch from 1907 to 1919, Cobb averaged .377/.441/.527 while scoring 104 runs and stealing 57 bases per year. He led the league in batting average every year but one during this period. The year he didn’t lead the league in hitting, he hit .371 and finished second behind Tris Speaker’s .386.
Cobb wasn’t just posting empty batting averages, though. He also led the league in on-base percentage seven times in his career and slugging percentage eight times. He had four seasons in which he led the league in all three rate stat categories. He didn’t hit many home runs, but often finished with double-digit triples and 30 or more doubles. Six times he led the AL in stolen bases, topping out with a then-record 96 steals in 1915.
In the “little known facts” category, Cobb also pitched five innings in the major leagues. Most baseball fans know that Babe Ruth was a pitcher before becoming an outfielder full-time but I would guess very few know that Cobb pitched a few times. In his five innings of work across three appearances, Cobb allowed two earned runs for an ERA of 3.60.
Cobb was a driven and talented man who played with an incredible passion. He banged out hits like a machine. Once he got on, he was always a threat to steal or to aggressively take an extra base on any hit ball. His style of play has been well-documented over the years, as has his personality.
When I wrote about Cobb last year, I referenced a couple books from 2015 that had somewhat contrasting views about the person Ty Cobb truly was. I learned that many of the stories baseball fans have heard that portray Cobb in a very negative light are either exaggerated or outright false.
He wasn’t a saint, of course, but he also wasn’t as bad as he’s been portrayed. Now there’s a new book out about Cobb that takes a very deep dive into source material at the time, including extensive use of contemporary newspaper accounts, to examine the life of Cobb.