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Who Was Ty Cobb? The History We Know That's Wrong

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flowers:

--- Quote from: A-Lert on April 16, 2016, 07:14:20 pm ---The sports world is littered with myths  and misconceptions. That helps to keep it interesting. King Felix isn't pitching well today, uncharacteristically  wild, but has held the hated Yankees to one run through 5 innings. He just tied Randy Johnson's Mariners strikeout record.

--- End quote ---
Wow....I used to love to watch Johnson pitch.

A-Lert:

--- Quote from: flowers on April 16, 2016, 07:49:33 pm ---Wow....I used to love to watch Johnson pitch.

--- End quote ---

I did too. It looked like the ball was released halfway to home plate. I don't imagine too many hitters looked forward to facing the "Big Unit".

Remember when he killed the bird with a pitch?

flowers:

--- Quote from: A-Lert on April 16, 2016, 08:04:44 pm ---I did too. It looked like the ball was released halfway to home plate. I don't imagine too many hitters looked forward to facing the "Big Unit".

Remember when he killed the bird with a pitch?

--- End quote ---
Oh yeah I do. I also remember when he won the World Series with the Diamondbacks. He went on the late show and sat down next to the desk. A young girl was sitting next to him. She asked who he was and he turned to her and said maybe you would remember me if I did this? He then put his baseball glove over half his face like when he pitches.

EasyAce:

--- Quote from: A-Lert on April 16, 2016, 07:14:20 pm ---The sports world is littered with myths  and misconceptions. That helps to keep it interesting.
--- End quote ---

The problem is, with baseball the truth is usually more interesting. True of other sports as well.

You can get a good taste of that if you seek out Allen Barra's That's Not the Way It Was: (Almost) Everything
They Told You About Sports is Wrong, in which he debunks well and good, among other things:

* Whether baseball was "just a game" before the free agency era. (It wasn't.)

* There was more "loyalty" before free agency than after. (False.)

* Only a salary cap could have allowed small market teams to compete with big market teams. (Abject bullsh@t---and
the late Doug Pappas debunked that one even deeper in his writings prior to his unexpected death in 2004. Here's
a thumbnail summary: the small market teams were richer than people thought, but their owners weren't spending
their dollars on player development or free agency signings.)

* A lawsuit brought players free agency. (Nope. I noted it above: Curt Flood lost at the Supreme Court.)

* Arnold Rothstein fixed the 1919 World Series. (False. The Big Bankroll only got in on the action after the fix
was planned.)

* The Black Sox scandal drove Ring Lardner away from baseball. (Not true---what Lardner didn't like was the
live ball introduced for 1920; he dismissed it as "Br'er Rabbit Ball.")

* "Say it ain't so, Joe." (Never happened. It was contrived from something Hugh Fullerton overheard outside
the courthouse where the Eight Men Out were tried.)

Barra zapped a few other myths in a few other sports, some of which you may know, such as:

* Bob Cousy being basketball's first behind-the-back dribbler. (He was the first in the NBA, but not the
first pro player to use the technique.)

* Bill Russell dominated Wilt Chamberlain. (Russell's teams won more championships but Chamberlain
statistically was the better player.)

* Julius Erving was the reason for the ABA-NBA merger. (Not quite.)

* The "long count" that cost Jack Dempsey against Gene Tunney. (Not quite.)

* Rocky Marciano was the only undefeated world heavyweight champion. (False.)

* The Phantom Punch in 1965. (False again, but the real story is just as fascinating---and disturbing,
and it has nothing to do with whether Sonny Liston threw the rematch with Muhammad Ali [he didn't].)

* Super Bowl III was a huge upset. (It wasn't. Hint: Joe Namath knew exactly what he was talking
about when he predicted a Jet win.)

* Johnny Unitas was Bart Starr's superior. (Not even close.)

* Vince Lombardi's most infamous quote. (He didn't exactly say winning was "the only thing.")

And when it comes to baseball, few debunk better than Barra in his books Clearing the Bases and
Brushbacks and Knockdowns, in which you would learn:

* Babe Ruth wasn't the greatest five-tool player of all time. (Hell, he barely had three tools. Barely.)

* Ruth wasn't the greatest team player of all time. (Hint: Ninety percent of the game is mental and the
other half is physical. And even Ty Cobb didn't have half the reputation for selfish play that Ruth had.)

* Bob Gibson was better than Juan Marichal. (False. Match up their best seasons and you'd see
Marichal outpitched Gibson. Not to mention that Marichal would have won the Cy Young Awards
Sandy Koufax won if Koufax wasn't in the league in those seasons.)

* Don Shula was the coach you wanted for the biggest NFL games. (No way, Jose.)

* Jackie Robinson wouldn't have been a Hall of Famer if he was white. (False. Remove his race, look
at his numbers top and deep, and Robinson would most certainly have been a Hall of Famer. Not to
mention that Minnie Minoso should have been one.)

* Roger Maris belongs in the Hall of Fame. (Sadly, false. Maris was kept from making a bona-fide Hall
case by injuries, including a drastic one the depth of which the Yankees kept from him because, by
1965, the team was fading, the farm was parched, and the team needed as many of its marquee
names on the field drawing fans as possible, but a wrist injury Maris suffered that year sapped
what was left of the power prior injuries had begun draining.)

* Compare Ted Williams to Joe DiMaggio---who was the better player? (Player, not hitter.)

* Compare Tim Raines to Pete Rose---who was the better player? (They were similar players: early-in-
the-order hitters who had a little power and reputedly used everything short of extortion to reach
base. Now, line up their fifteen best seasons against each other and dare yourself to believe who reached
base more often using up less outs to do it.)

Believe me, my friend, there's almost more fun in turning sacred cows into steak than in worshipping
the sacred cows. And it never kills the fun of baseball.
while creating more runs. )

A-Lert:
Henry Aaron is still the home run king, IMO.

http://www.baseball-reference.com/leaders/IP_career.shtml

We'll never see anyone break Cy Young's record. We may never see a pitcher throw 5,000 innings in a career again.

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