
Ty Cobb
A Terrible Beauty
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Narrated by:
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Malcolm Hillgartner
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By:
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Charles Leerhsen
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.People who viewed this also viewed...
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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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The unheard story
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Fantastic book
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True Cobb
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Factual, non-biased and intellectual
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a semi sweet peach
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the great ty Cobb
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Refreshing
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Loved the book and Ty.
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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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