I picked this book up at the Ty Cobb gift shop at the Ty Cobb Museum.
Cobb wrote this book as a newspaper section originally. In fact, it was pretty much lost until a Cobb researcher came across it, and pieced it together as a book. Talk about discovering a lost treasure! The books intro explains how the book was rediscovered.
This book is a real treat because it is written by Cobb really at the end of his baseball career. Ty discusses his dad's initial opposition to his playing baseball as a career. He discusses being cut from his first minor league team, but making his way back to that team later, and eventually finding his way to the Tigers.
Ty Cobb reveals a lot about himself. He says that he has always taken everything in life seriously. He openly talks about how he had trouble when someone was joking with him. He admits that he had difficulty finding the humor in certain situations, and he could not recognize a funny situation until someone else pointed it out to him.
Cobb seems to me to be someone looking back at his 20 year career (at that point) reflectively. He does seem to say that he wishes he had handled some situations differently, but he doesn't make apologies, nor does he seem regretful.
He talks about his various rivalries, and he seems to express that he considers many of his old rivals to be friends now. He appeared to respect his rivals, as they were also giving 100 percent.
Ty talks about the famous incident where he attacks a fan in the crowd.
This is a very fun and easy to read book. It also gives a great first person account of playing baseball almost a century ago.
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