Ty Cobb Audiobook By Charles Leerhsen cover art

Ty Cobb

A Terrible Beauty

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Ty Cobb

By: Charles Leerhsen
Narrated by: Malcolm Hillgartner
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About this listen

Finally - a fascinating and authoritative biography of perhaps the most controversial player in baseball history, Ty Cobb.

Ty Cobb is baseball royalty, maybe even the greatest player who ever lived. His lifetime batting average is still the highest of all time, and when he retired in 1928, after twenty-one years with the Detroit Tigers and two with the Philadelphia Athletics, he held more than ninety records. But the numbers don't tell half of Cobb's tale. The Georgia Peach was by far the most thrilling player of the era: "Ty Cobb could cause more excitement with a base on balls than Babe Ruth could with a grand slam," one columnist wrote. When the Hall of Fame began in 1936, he was the first player voted in.

But Cobb was also one of the game's most controversial characters. He got in a lot of fights, on and off the field, and was often accused of being overly aggressive. In his day, even his supporters acknowledged that he was a fierce and fiery competitor. Because his philosophy was to "create a mental hazard for the other man," he had his enemies, but he was also widely admired. After his death in 1961, however, something strange happened: his reputation morphed into that of a monster - a virulent racist who also hated children and women, and was in turn hated by his peers.

How did this happen? Who is the real Ty Cobb? Setting the record straight, Charles Leerhsen pushed aside the myths, traveled to Georgia and Detroit, and re-traced Cobb's journey, from the shy son of a professor and state senator who was progressive on race for his time, to America's first true sports celebrity. In the process, he tells of a life overflowing with incident and a man who cut his own path through his times - a man we thought we knew but really didn't.

©2015 Charles Leerhsen (P)2015 Brilliance Audio, all rights reserved.
Baseball & Softball Sports Funny
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Meticulous Research • Historical Accuracy • Outstanding Narration • Debunked Myths • Balanced Portrayal
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I remember a couple of weeks ago having
a baseball conversation with a friend and Ty Cobb’s name inevitably came up. My friend asked “What do you think about Ty Cobb?” I replied that he was probably one of the dirtiest players to ever play the game!
All he said was “Are you sure about that?” He
said he read a book called ‘Ty Cobb: A Terrible Beauty’ and that he would gladly lend it to me.

For some reason I couldn’t wait for the borrowed book, so I found it on Audible when I got home that very night and began to listen.

Charles Leerhsen is a fantastic writer who had me captivated from first pitch to the last out.
Malcolm Hillgartener has a great voice to narrate this story. I did however find myself getting madder and madder the more I listened to Malcolm interpret Mr. Leerhsen’s words. I was mad because for 60 years I believed the lies about Ty Cobb, arguably one of the
greatest baseball players of all time. Because of the lies, I was duped. But I have learned a great lesson through this book, which is to never take information as fact until it can truly be verified as legitimate. Amazing what we can learn from the game of baseball and it’s tarnished stars long after they have parted this mortal coil.

Thank you Charles Leerhsen for setting the scorecard straight!

I highly recommend this Audible audiobook. I look forward to listening to it again in the extra innings to come.

I believed the lies…but not anymore

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Excuse me while I️ write this for I️ am a baseball guy, not an English major. Great to hear a different story about Cobb. Personally, I️ always found it hard to believe he was as bad of a person the stories made him out to be. Glad I️ came across this book to clear his name.

The unheard story

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As I reviewed the opening chapter or two of the book, I sensed it may be just a reworking of old takes by a Cobb apologist. I couldn't have been further from the truth. The book exposes the falsehoods, the laziness of writers and researchers, and the failure of baseball fans, and the general public, to demand substantive proof or evidence of what amounts to the libeling and slandering of a great ball player. The history of Ty Cobb needs to be corrected. Are you listening Ken Burns?

Fantastic book

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Story about a true competitor and a man who knew what he wanted both on the field and off, breaks some myths about an often misunderstood man.

True Cobb

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Excellent way of seeing the factual side of the Ty Cobb story. Not opinion based but seeing a great players life in truth. Regardless of a readers fandom for Cobb you can appreciate the history and stories told from all perspectives. Great book.

Factual, non-biased and intellectual

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if your looking for a well researched, true depiction of who Ty was both great and bad this is the book for you

a semi sweet peach

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I liked this book a lot it was precise and to the point good job

the great ty Cobb

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Finally a book that tells the true story of Ty Cobb. I for one was duped by the many false accounts of his life.

Refreshing

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All the misconceptions and outright lies exposed. read exceptionally well. Thank you for enlightening us.

Loved the book and Ty.

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Leershen's biography of the great Cobb is an outstanding piece of journalism, combining rigorous research with an entertaining narrative. So much of what was previously written about Cobb seems to have been utter fiction (e.g. that he was a racist, a dirty ballplayer, even a murderer). Yet while the portrait is sympathetic, Leershen does not paper over Cobb's shortcomings act as his apologist.

Hillgartner's narration is also outstanding, using accents judiciously (including a Georgia drawl for Cobb) and pronouncing all of the names right—something that is all too rare in sports biographies.

A great read for fans of old-time baseball.

First-rate biography, well narrated

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