Forget the babe, baseball's best is named Tyrus Raymond Cobb

Although his lifetime average of .367 and 12 batting titles have never even been approached, his pervasive image is that "of a brutal, bigoted, friendless, haunted creature, a free-swinging, bourbon-guzzling ogre who presumably tortured small animals when he wasn't gleefully using his sharpened spikes to saw milk-drinking infielders in half."

ALTHOUGH 100 YEARS have gone by since his major league debut and more than 75 seasons have passed since he last laced up his spikes, Ty Cobb arguably remains the greatest player in the history of baseball. Certainly, the Detroit Tigers outfielder is the sport's most controversial figure. Cobb hit .367 over 24 seasons, won a dozen batting titles, and was the first man elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame. His blowtorch intensity and mercurial personality set the "Georgia Peach" apart from all others.

On Aug. 19, 1905, Charles D. Cart, the Augusta Tourists' club president, announced the sale of the 18-year old Cobb to the Tigers. This event occurred just days after his mother had shot and killed his father. Two weeks later, Tyrus Raymond Cobb launched a career that would make him a baseball legend and Detroit icon.

It proved to be a strange and tragic summer for Cobb, one in which events were moving almost too fast. Just four months earlier, he had startled the same Tiger ballclub with his wild base-running and fielding antics during spring training exhibition games between Augusta and Detroit. "He's the craziest ballplayer I ever saw," remarked the Tigers' resident loon, Herman "Germany" Schaefer. At the time of Cobb's sale to Detroit, Augusta--a team that boasted several future major leaguers, including infielder Clyde Engle and pitchers Eddie Cicotte and Nap Rucker--had gone into a funk that left the team floundering near the bottom of the standings and its talented but immature left fielder counting the days until the end of the season. Away from the park, Cobb had fallen in with a fast crowd. He was introduced to hard liquor, women, and the horsetrack and found them all to his liking. At the park, he became so nonchalant that, during one game, he missed a fly ball because he was munching on a bag of popcorn. That particular episode cost the Tourists a run and caused Cicotte--later to gain notoriety as one of the Black Sox players to throw the 1919 World Series--to punch Cobb during a dugout scuffle. The fight, just the latest of several confrontations involving Ty and his teammates, was judged a draw, but it prompted manager Andy Roth to sell the hot-headed hitter to Charleston for the insulting sum of $25. Team owners, however, recognized Cobb as a brilliant, if tempestuous, asset. They killed the deal and dumped Roth instead, causing the rest of the team to shun the disruptive youngster from Royston, Ga. "He was a strange bird; the whole ball club knew it," Rucker explained years later. "Say something to him and he was likely to give you a dirty look."

This was when a major influence in Cobb's life stepped forward. George Leidy, a career minor leaguer whose diamond smarts outweighed his skills, had been the Tourists' sorearmed outfielder and team captain when he was tapped to replace Roth. Leidy, whom Cobb described as "the type who tore into every play with all he had--a team man to the bone," had spent the best years of his life trying to make it to the majors. That Ty seemed intent on throwing away his own chance upset him deeply.

"The reason I made good in the majors was Leidy," Cobb later acknowledged. The paternalistic Leidy, nicknamed "Dad," took the young firebrand aside and, through lecture and instruction, turned his baseball career around. In the mornings before games, Leidy taught him the mechanics of the hit-and-run, drag bunt, double steal, and squeeze play. They worked on drawing the third baseman in on a fake bunt, then slapping the ball past him. Leidy had Cobb bunt into a sweater placed strategically on the diamond, in spots where an infielder had little or no chance to make a play. "I bunted until I was worn out," recalled Cobb.

The grueling hours of self-improvement paid off in the afternoon, as Cobb cut loose at bat and on the bases, using what he had just learned to upset and outthink opponents. Over evening meals and during postgame strolls through muggy Southern towns, Leidy counseled his young pupil on the rewards and recognition that came with being a big leaguer.

Then came the painful events of early August--his father's shooting, his mother's indictment for murder, and the rumors about her infidelity. Cobb's sudden promotion to the major leagues evoked only one melancholy thought, he later admitted: "Father won't know it."

Cobb's final game for Augusta was on Aug. 25, 1905. Play was stopped so fans could present him with a floral bouquet and a gold watch. Ty said thanks, shook hands, waved to the Warren Park crowd--and then struck out. "Let Detroit have him!" bellowed someone in the stands. Two subsequent singles produced Cobb's final batting mark of .326, which would prove good enough to lead the Sally League.