Did Ty Cobb really beat up a crippled fan “within an inch of his life”?
It seems like this is one of those stories that has taken on a life of its own.
Apparently he beat up a “cripple” with no hands and almost killed him.
Is this true? Or did he punch a regular guy, and the media blew it up?
billy
Cobb did vault into the stands in New York in May 1912 to beat a heckler who questioned the racial purity of his parentage. The man had lost three fingers on one hand and the entirely of the other in an industrial accident. Tha man, Claude Lueker, was an apparently well-known heckler at the ballpark. Nothing I’ve ever read said that Lueker was injuried that severely.
http://wso.williams.edu/~jkossuth/cobb/race.htm
Cobb was no doubt a son of a bitch…and a hell of a ballplayer.
I don’t know about “within an inch of his life,” but the basic story that he beat a fan who wa cripple is true.
Cobb was being heckled from the stands and the heckler began insulting Cobb’s mother. At a time when everyone regarded insults to one’s mother as the worst that could be said, addressed to a Southern boy who took special pride in maintaining his “honor,” when said Southerner also happened to have one of the most violent tempers seen in sports in the 20th century, the actions of the fan/heckler were quite ill-advised. Cobb rushed the stands and started wailing on the seated fan. It was only after he had knocked him out of his seat and that it was apparent the fan was crippled. (He was not sitting in a special wheelchair deck as might happen, today.) (It is also possible, given Cobb’s temper and general personality, that the information would have made no difference to Cobb–he is quoted as having said as much at the time.)
The story has an interesting follow-up. Cobb was suspended for the act and the rest of the Tigers went on strike in protest (based on the insults to Cobb’s mother). Faced with a forfeit (which meant that he would lose his share of the gate at the next scheduled game), the owner scrounged around the area picking up guys that would be willing to play in a Tiger uniform. The high school kid that he found to pitch took a shellacking.
This site tells the story differently, claiming that Cobb saw that the fan was a cripple and backed off, but that seems inconsistent with the strike that followed, to say nothing of the repeated details that appear when the story is told.
(Actually, he waled on him; the wailing was done by Leuker.)
For some reason the link provided by fiddlesticks omits Cobb’s wonderfully disturbing punchline. After Cobb was done beating Lueker someone remonstrated with him saying, “Don’t you know that man has no hands?”
Cobb: I don’t care if he doesn’t have any feet.
Some guy, huh?
Incidentally, Hilltop Park where the Yankees played was on the current site of Columbia Presbyterian Hospital. It has a meditative garden which has a bronze replica of home plate in the exact location of the original.
Actually, he whaled on him.
Cobb had … issues … with society. Let’s leave it at that.
He got into fights quite frequently, especially with blacks. Cobb’s mother shot and killed his father. Also, when Cobb was breaking into the majors, there were very few Southerners on any of the teams.
A Freudian would have made a lot of money psychoanalyzing Cobb.
Well, he probably did both, given that the whaling (thrashing) probably resulting in waling (raising welts and bruises). Since the print version I originally read, years ago, focused on Leuker’s injuries, waling was the word I mistyped, originally.
Mea Culpa tomndebb, didn’t pull out the dictionary the first time around. That’s the something new I learned today I guess.
Well, whaling would probably have been the better word to choose; it simply was not the word that I mistyped.