[lex24]

A hall of fame without the best baseball player of my lifetime is not a hall of fame worth having. 

Not sure how him (allegedly) being a jagoff is relevant in any way to hall of fame credentials. Put the steroid stuff (for which he tested positive as often as anyone else in the era) on the plaque.

Agree. Leaving him out does more damage to the HOF than to Mr. Bonds.

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Both. Been around on the field when both were guilty of being an asshole. Add PEDS and you have two strikes. Maybe 2.99 strikes.

Now do Ty Cobb.

Cobb was a jerk.  No doubt.  But much of what we think we know about him may be false. A narrative created by a writer first run in “ True Detective “.  

A good read on this is “Ty Cobb: A Terrible Beauty.”  By Charles Leesheen.  Not an exoneration of Cobb. But a suggestion that he was a product of his times and in many ways no worse than his peers. Baseball was a game played by rough and tumble dudes back in that day.  

Also, Leeshen writes  that some of the most negative stories written on him are false.  Interesting read with some terrific stories and anecdotes about baseball around the turn of the 20th century.

Cobb as an 18 year old rookie was mercilessly hazed. (He also learned on his first day in MLB that his mother shot and killed his father.) In part because the players knew right from the start that he was much better than them. In part cause that’s what they did to rookies.

The first true superstar of baseball. No question, a jerk. But maybe not quite the monster he’s been made out to be.

His daughter, Shirley Cobb, had a very good bookstore in Menlo Park.

[lex24]

A hall of fame without the best baseball player of my lifetime is not a hall of fame worth having. 

Not sure how him (allegedly) being a jagoff is relevant in any way to hall of fame credentials. Put the steroid stuff (for which he tested positive as often as anyone else in the era) on the plaque.

Agree. Leaving him out does more damage to the HOF than to Mr. Bonds.

---

Both. Been around on the field when both were guilty of being an asshole. Add PEDS and you have two strikes. Maybe 2.99 strikes.

Now do Ty Cobb.

Cobb was a jerk.  No doubt.  But much of what we think we know about him may be false. A narrative created by a writer first run in “ True Detective “.  

A good read on this is “Ty Cobb: A Terrible Beauty.”  By Charles Leesheen.  Not an exoneration of Cobb. But a suggestion that he was a product of his times and in many ways no worse than his peers. Baseball was a game played by rough and tumble dudes back in that day.  

Also, Leeshen writes  that some of the most negative stories written on him are false.  Interesting read with some terrific stories and anecdotes about baseball around the turn of the 20th century.

Cobb as an 18 year old rookie was mercilessly hazed. (He also learned on his first day in MLB that his mother shot and killed his father.) In part because the players knew right from the start that he was much better than them. In part cause that’s what they did to rookies.

The first true superstar of baseball. No question, a jerk. But maybe not quite the monster he’s been made out to be.

His daughter, Shirley Cobb, had a very good bookstore in Menlo Park.