Ty Cobb: The Legend of Baseball Villain (I)

The story became legend, and legend, myth, and Ty Cobb became the most hated character in sports in the United States, although few really knew what he was accused of. Some said that he had stopped talking to his mother, Amanda Chitwood Cobb, who was a lousy son and an ungrateful one. Others, that much of the money he had had been obtained with dirty money, from illegal gambling and from shares that he had bought at advantageous conditions in companies on the verge of bankruptcy. Some more claimed that he poisoned his rivals by befriending them, and taking advantage of the slightest carelessness to pour a drop of whatever in their drinks, and that even, on more than one occasion, he altered his cigarettes and offered them some that he had adulterated.

Cobb was an idol and hatred, overflowing love and passion, and madness, rebellion, discipline, pride, fear, a man marked by tragedy for whom humanity was a mistake and was increasingly a mistake. His teammates were pieces he needed to win. And his opponents, enemies who had to be defeated. The public was a stupid mass of people who did not know what they wanted in life, and because they did not know, they became obsessed with baseball and baseball players, paying attention to what the newspapers said instead of stopping to interpret what he saw, and journalists were a stupid necessary evil, who were not even aware of who or whom they served. He used one and the other according to his convenience, which was, essentially, winning, moving up, filling up with money, and in short, all that they called success.