OleMissCub

Oh ok. So that's what it meant. I thought he was saying that Cobb beat up on Yankee pitching legends.

I get the example you are trying to make, but Cobb was a loose cannon with a horrible and violent disposition on occassion, just a plain old hick douche....Tyson is an uncontrollable lunatic. Another difference is their status in a purely sports context. Tyson isn't even in the top 50 in a list of top boxers ever, whilst Cobb is generally always regarded in the top 5.

I think we're talking semantics here. Yes, he was violent. Yes, he was racist. So I suppose that would make him a violent racist on occassion. Whities?

Because I don't thinks it's fair to his greatness as a baseballer that the first thing people thing people think of when they hear the name is his off the field craziness. They don't think about Babe Ruth's debauchery, adultery, violence, etc., or Hornsby and Speaker's association with the klan, etc. Again, there is a difference between someone defending a person's actions and someone seeking that the facts of that person's life be put into accurate perspective. However, the fact that he is remembered the way he is among sports lovers is perhaps his ultimate punishment for being such a turd. Plus, defending the indefensible is fun in a way, it puts your devil's advocate skills to the test.

I don't see how my response is an apologist response when i basically said the same thing you just said, unless you consider yours an apologist response. Their race was a major factor in getting the incident started, but his decision to use violence against them was not at all to do with their race, but rather had to do with his psychotic temper. He beat the hell out of everyone, regardless of skincolor. We're not saying the same thing. I disagree completely with the bolded section. Why? His temper caused him to cross the line between arguing and violence and hit those people, not their race. His racism started those arguments, but his violent nature is what took it to the next level. He had zero self control when it came to his temper. I think it might be that you are reading on Burgess' page about all the violence tied to his bigotry, and therefore are associating his violence and bigotry as one in the same. If you read about the 3 or 4 racial incidents of violence mixed in with his 50 or so other documented incidents of violence against whites, then it would probably be more plausible to you that his decision to use violence was not racial. AL president Ban Johnson once said, "Cobb would climb a mountain just to punch an echo."

I don't see how my response is an apologist response when i basically said the same thing you just said, unless you consider yours an apologist response. Their race was a major factor in getting the incident started, but his decision to use violence against them was not at all to do with their race, but rather had to do with his psychotic temper. He beat the hell out of everyone, regardless of skincolor. I disagrre with Burgess' thesis on that part. I feel he was a product of his era, and as the mindset of his era changed, so did his. His enormous efforts to help blacks during the end of his life were probably his attempt to atone for his past wrongs. Burgess' thesis in that regard is also wrong because Cobb never did ANYTHING to try and fit in. I don't see how a Cobb scholar like Burgess would suggest that. Cobb is one of the most independant people I've ever come across in baseball. He was most certainly NOT a follower. He didn't care what anyone thought about him.

Again, I'm not sure how much of him assaulting those people really had to do with their race or gender exclusively...that might have been why he got into an argument with them in the first place, but his decision to actually attack people and cross that line had mostly to do with his violent personality. Cobb fought ALL people, black, white, green, blue. People back then avoided arguments with Cobb like the plague. Because of his mental instability, he was able to turn on just about anyone, even his best friends, in the snap of a finger. All of that mental instability goes back to how curious it was that he could be someone so generous to others when he wanted to. It's odd because his many acts of genorosity were seldom published, at his own request. This strange and often deplorable personality is why there are so many books on him.

If I don't like being mocked anonymously on the internet, I really don't like it in person.

Ehhh...I'd say these incidents are a combination of all three.

Ouch, in 1989, Dawson had a 4.6 WARP...the WARP of the other vote getters: Raines: 9.7 Gwynn: 11.4 Eric Davis: 11.4 Schmidt: 10.3 Ozzie Smith: 10.3 Jack Clark: 7.4 Will Clark: 7.5 Murphy: 11.1 Strawberry: 8.9

There's no explaining his psychotic behavior in the "Bungy" incident, as it is known. To this day it is still unclear as to why he went crazy on Bungy. There's two versions to the story, one says that he just slapped Ty on the back, while the other says that Cobb got into a verbal altercation with Bungy about the condition of the field. If the former explanation is true, then this is definitely a horrific racist episode on his part. If the latter is true, this incident can probably be choked to his overall propensity toward violence in some situations, regardless of what color the person was. The Ada Morris incident is just deplorable. Another example of the psychotic rages he was capable of. Dude was seriously messed up in the head.

Who the HELL voted Mickey Morandini for MVP that year?? http://www.baseball-reference.com/awards/awards_1998.shtml#NLmvp

I agree on all counts. I did hear a good joke during the Ole Miss-LSU game about Alabama. When they announced the score, there was a BAMA fan we were with who started throwing a fit. This guy behind us said "hey, what do maggots and Alabama fans have in common?....They can both live for 40 years off dead bears."

Nick Saban....... http://msn.foxsports.com/cfb/story/7467808

Not that it's the end all be all of stats, but Rollins' 118 OPS+ is the lowest of any MVP in either league since Zoilo Versalles in 1965.

No kidding. They gave him the gold glove to try and solidy his pick. Anyone else notice ESPN homering hardcore for him the last week of the season? Holliday: .340/.405/.607, 150 ops+, 212 hits, 120 runs, 50 doubles, 36 hr, 137 rbi, 386 total bases Rollins: .296/.344/.531, 118 ops+, 212 hits, 139 runs, 38 doubles, 30 hr, 94 rbi, 380 total bases Wright: .325/.416/.546, 150 ops+, 196 hits, 113 runs, 42 doubles, 30 hr, 107 rbi, 330 total bases Can someone look up the metrics for win shares and VORP for these guys. Also, look at the guys that Rollins had around him. Howard, Utley, Rowand, etc. This isn't to say that Holliday didn't have some guys around him who were very good, but he clearly seems to have more value to his team than Rollins for the Phils.

I called it. IMB! and Rocket Sauce were also correct in their assertions that Hanley and David Wright had better seasons as well.

thus, my George Wallace comparison Well, it took George Wallace getting a stomach full of lead before he changed his ways. I think Cobb's ideas on race were just the same as the mainstream at the time, and as mainstream America's ideas on race progressed, so did Cobb's. Cobb wasn't a politician either, so I don't see what he had to gain from becoming enlightened.

I don't mind if Ramirez or Wright wins it over Holliday, I'm just worried that Rollins is going to get it. It seems that in the last week of the season ESPN really made a push to try and stump for Rollins, despite having vastly inferior numbers to Ramirez, Wright, and Holliday.

:lol: :lol: :lol:

There was nothing condescending in my tone about asking if people recognized who Babe Ruth was via his negative actions. It may have come off that way, but wasn't my intent. I was trying to make a point there to see if his bad deeds are as instanty recognizable as someone like Cobb's. I was genuinely curious whether people knew about those things. Too much legal and litigation reading lately, sorry about that. Unlike my usual adversaries who just love to egg me on? They know I have a short fuse.

Matt Holliday is about to be robbed tomorrow

http://www.suntimes.com/sports/baseball/cubs/655747,CST-SPT-cub18.article Then THIS DOOZY.... NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO Also....Jones was never an all-star, believe it or not folks.

Pretty much my central point regarding context. People are a product of how they are raised, and while this certainly doesn't excuse their actions, it should at the least put some of them into context. Do all inner city kids overcome their unfortunate unbringings? Of course he was a racist, but for modern viewers to single him out as if he deserves some "special bigot" status is too much I think, given his era and the actions of other baseball legends. Hell, Rogers Hornsby and Tris Speaker were admitted members of the KKK. Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis, the first commissioner of baseball, conspired for 25 years to keep blacks out of baseball. Again, I feel the many racial contradictions that existed in Cobb's life should be reiterated. In the 1920's, Cobb personally tried to get Billy Evans, a star negro league catcher, into the MLB by passing him off as a Cuban. Several negro leaguers reported that Cobb would go to their games and hang out in the dugout with them and talk baseball. Detroit Stars infielder Bobby Robinson "recalled that there wasn't a hint of prejudice in Cobb's attitude that day. They were just two ballplayers sharing stories." (Voices from the Pastime: Oral Histories of Surviving Major Leaguers, Negro Leaguers, Cuban Leaguers and Writers; 1920–1934, Nick C. Wilson, 2000, pp. 113). These types of things occurred many times throughout his life, and while they don't excuse his racist behavior that he exhibited in other places, they should serve to at least show that he wasn't this extra-exceptional white supremacist that he is made out to be. His bigoted behavior was nothing out of the ordinary for the time and as such, was rarely, if ever commented on by contemporary accounts. As baseball writer Bill Burgess suggested, his views progressed along with those of the rest of the country and especially the south. By the early 1950's, Cobb was saying that more blacks should be in the MLB and commenting to sportswriters that his favorite modern players were Hank Aaron and Willie Mays. The negative aspect of his personality that actually DID stick out at the time was his explosive and violent temper. Modern psychologists would likely look at how abruptly and violently his relationship to his father ended. His entire world revolved around impressing his father, who was a Georgia senator. His father disapproved of him playing ball, but gave him the chance and basically said "don't come back a failure." Having just turned 18, Cobb was called up to the Tigers and when he called back home to tell his father what he had accomplished he found out that his MOTHER had blown his father's head off with a shotgun. Couple this tragedy with the fact that he was hazed horrificly by some of the other Tigers outfielders who were scared of losing their jobs (they broke all of his bats that he had personally made, would destroy all of his clothes, toss his travel bag with all his belongings out the train window, etc), and you have a reciple for some serious brain malfunction to an 18 year old kid just up from the sticks. He was so disturbed by all of this that the Tigers sent him to a psychological institute for 3 months because he had a nervous breakdown. This all created in him a "me against the world" complex, which he credited with his baseball success, and while it might have given him baseball success, it made him a complete jackass, and at times, completely intolerable to be around.

Hmmmm If a poster had made a joke where they showed a bottle of Beck's beer, I wouldn't blame them for taking it personal if someone commented: