Al Stump: The Felon, The Fraud, and The Man Who Created The Ty Cobb Myth

[pheasant]

Mr Burgess needs to write a book about Cobb now. I'd be the first to buy it.

[64Cards]

There's a fine line between being an aggressive or a dirty player. Also between intensity and irrationality. And between genius and insanity. I'd say Cobb swerved over the center line quite a bit.

Stump seems to have been an early practioner of Hunter Thompson's school of "Gonzo Journalism." Thompson was an incredibly talented and funny writer, but I think a lot of the stuff he "documented" was complete BS.

As for the movie, Hollywood has never let truth and/or accuracy get in the way of telling a story whether it's about sports, war, a politician or an entertainer. I thought it was an ok movie, pretty good acting by Jones and Wuhl. Believabilty is another question.

[Bill Burgess]

I'd put that Cobb movie on the same low level as the William Bendix 'Babe Ruth' movie of 1948. In both cases, the producers made no effort at background research. Completely went with the traditional stereo-types.

Tommy Lee Jones is normally good and Robert Wuhl is, too. But good performances are no substitute for even a modicum of truth, substance, reality and the level of knowledge that can be possible with even a crude attempt at background research.

Cobb and Ruth are SO MUCH more and better than their cultural stereo-types. It like portraying all Irish as drunks, all Italitians as mob-connected, all Jews as cheap mercenaries, all Orientals as brilliant students. If cultural stereo-types were to be taken at face value, all blacks would be perceived as lyers, shop-lifters and car thieves, and unwilling to let you walk through their neighborhoods without stealing your shoes. If stereo-types were fair, women would be mislabeled as heartless gold-diggers who only marry to quit their jobs, play house, have babies and get their own houses.

See how unfair cultural stereo-types are? They miss all the good, all the worthwhile, all the honest decency in everyone.

[Honus Wagner Rules]

Mr Burgess needs to write a book about Cobb now. I'd be the first to buy it.

I've been telling Bill this for YEARS!!!

[Michael Green]

Fascinating thread. I'd recommend reading Fred Lieb's Baseball As I Have Known It for its chapter on Cobb. He struck me as pretty even-handed. It would appear that Cobb may have had the racial attitudes of someone who was raised in the time and place where he was raised, and grew. That he could play like a man possessed doesn't mean he was evil on the ballfield, but obviously it takes a special combination of talent and drive to accomplish as a player what he accomplished. As for Al Stump, he wrote a fascinating story, and if Cobb was ill and on medication, his behavior might well have been affected. That doesn't excuse Stump's exaggerations (I am not disputing that), but I remember thinking, when I read it, if Cobb was so bad, why in the world did Stump stay with him!

[csh19792001]

The tobacco shop where he played cards was not on the same street as where he lived, no. Not many businesses to be found at all in Atherton actually. Kind of a strange town in that regards, almost 100% residential, nothing, nothing but beautiful homes.

Not even the same town. Just a few miles north, in Redwood City was his card club.

I knew where he played cards was not clearly not on Spencer Lane. I must've misread what you wrote and taking it to read "my grandpa delivered papers to Cobb", and my mind went to "his house".

[csh19792001]

For posterity.

[Blackout]

In Georgia 100 years ago?

or in georgia today