He was major league baseball's first super-store, the first man ever inducted into the baseball

whole of fame, and he still has the game's highest career batting average, 366, almost

90 years after he retired.

His name is Ty Cobb.

Yet despite his historic achievements, he is often remembered for being the worst racist

and the dirtiest player ever to take the field.

If you know baseball, you've heard the stories.

Ty Cobb would pistol whip black men he passed on the street.

He once stabbed at death the black waiter in Cleveland just because the young man was acting

uppity.

On the field, he was set to sharpen his spikes to cut up rival infielders.

He supposedly had no friends.

In the movie Field of Dreams, Shua's Joe Jackson says that Cobb wasn't invited to the

Ghostly Cornfield reunion because, quote, no one liked the son of a bitch.

A lifelong baseball fan, I believe these stories when I set out to write the first authoritative

biography of Cobb in 20 years.

I've been hearing them all my life, and like a lot of people, I took the repetition as

evidence.

But to my astonishment, as I delved into the source material, newspapers, census reports

and personal letters, I couldn't find any proof that they were true.

On the contrary, Cobb's teammates on the whole seemed to respect him, defending him on

the field and off.

...