Ty Cobb: Inconvenient Truths
Leerhsen set out with the typical view of Ty Cobb, only to encounter scores of inconvenient truths missed or ignored by earlier biographers, whose work inspired the sick portrait in Ken Burns's documentary, Baseball. Cobb was no saint—Leerhsen documents his flaming temper and readiness for brawls—but most of the other allegations are either vastly exaggerated or demonstrably false.
Cobb was 180 degrees from the popular image of a racist, murdering, spike-flying, child-hating misanthrope, who steamed stamps off the envelopes kids sent him for his autograph.
