Rating: 
Summary: Tough book to put down especially if a baseball fan.
Review: I originally picked up this book because I heard of Ty Cobb as the villian. I heard this not only in sports stories but also my father stating that my grandfather never cared for the man because of his tatics. As you read through the book the characther of Cobb comes out and you are amazed that all the things said about him (good or bad) are actually true. Then they're are stories and metioning of other ballplayers who you heard about and now see them through Cobb's eyes. Most of the time it's quite different fom the stories you heard from any old time baseball fans. Cobb is a wildman and makes for a great read. This is truly one of the best books I ever read in any category.
Rating: 
Summary: Good reading but largely unsatisfying
Review: I was disappointed with this book. Perhaps because I am a big fan of Charles Alexanders' book "Ty Cobb", which is very different than Stump's. Where Alexander is precise and well-researched, Stump appears to be vague. Alexander presents facts and let the reader go from there; Stump colors our interpretation of Cobb by asserting unsubstantiated rumors or hearsay as fact.Nonetheless, this is an entertaining book. The reader does get a feel for what a complex and driven person Ty Cobb was, and what a great player he was. Stump's book does have the benefit in that the author reveals his personal interactions with Cobb, which really gives a feel for what interacting with Cobb was like. However, the end result is not nearly as satisfying as I had hoped it would be.
Rating: 
Summary: importance of this life-time work
Review: In 1984, my step father and mentor, Al Stump was very ill and had only one request: That he be able to tell the true story of his life with Ty Cobb. My mother and I helped him write this over the next three years. When movie producer Ron Shelton was growing up in Santa Barbara, CA, and very involved in sports (Bull Durham, Tin Cup, etc., are big movies of his), one of his sports heros was Al Stump, who also lived there. A most fitting tribute, the movie. Look towards the end of the movie. You will see my dad, sitting with his famous hat, at the bar, as Robert Wuhl, playing Al in the movie, walks by. Notice the young lady serving. That is my daughter Jennifer, and Al's granddaughter. Al died soon after this movie was made, finally at peace that the truth was told. (Minus some dramatic flairs not quite accurate in the movie). He wrote -- we wrote -- many other stories, some still being published. At his funeral, Ron Shelton and I, along with friends and family, gave honor to a man who changed the course of writing about sports in America. We now know that the story of Ty Cobb and others have just begun. Look for the sequel soon.
Rating:
Summary: A most for any baseball fan
Review: Learn how the game changed due to one man; Ty Cobb. To read about what made him the player and human he was is gripping. I could not put this book down. And kudos to Stump for a very readable book. The words just flow off the page and into your imagination. This book is not for 'stat' fans, it is for lovers of the history of the game and one of the men who helped shape it.
Rating:
Summary: AN AMAZING ACCOMPLISHMENT
Review: Never before in my history of reading biographies have I been more impressed than with Al Stump's COBB. Certainly a must read for any baseball fanatic, certainly a must read for anyone that enjoys learning what motivates and creates such greats as T.R. Cobb. Stump took me on a fantastic roller coaster ride from the beginnning to the end, a characteristic that I believe all good books should certainly possess. I found that at times I was loving Cobb, then hating him, but always desiring to know him more; Stump definately did this. Stump has helped me to realize that Cobb was the best of the best, even though his shrewd and often time malicious ways of achieving this status are questionable. Mr. Stumps insights as to why Cobb was the way he was leaves one at times in the dark, yet remains in my opinion not only one of the best baseball biographies ever written, but one of the BEST biographies of any sort written. A must read, again A MUST READ!!!!!
Rating: 
Summary: The Greatest Baseball Player of All Time Lived at Extremes
Review: Not much of a shock for that. So did Ruth. So do all the greats. It is inevitable. I read the original Stump biography in 1962, when I was twelve, before I'd even had the opportunity to steal a base (Little League rules might as well make this illegal) or given much thought to the mental aspect of baseball. That book did exactly what Cobb intended: teach people how baseball should be played, and note his own variations - like holding the bat with hands separated. He did attempt to whitewash his past with that book, but the main goal was to present a study of baseball. A book by Cobb on how to play was important because only he really could excel at all aspects of the game (pitching aside.) Ted Williams wrote a great book on the science of hitting, but to my knowledge he stole a base very few times, and never analyzed fielding with any depth or effectiveness. I was able to put the information in the original biography to use the next summer, and found Cobb's ideas and methods (split grip aside) to be a tremendous resource. I wasn't using the psychotic attitude but just the techniques and approaches that he had detailed. There were times when it was simply magic: to take what he had written and use it! Cobb had noted that on a long fly ball, it is possible to turn your back and run toward the place where you expect the ball to be... and catch it over the shoulder rather than looking over the shoulder constantly (which slows the pursuit) and I did that. He taught how to watch pitchers and note when they were going to make a move to a base, or simply pitch... and I used that (let me tell you, there is NOTHING like stealing second and third against a 15 year old pitcher when you are 13 - and about a foot shorter.) He taught how to tell what a pitcher was likely to throw my little mannerisms associated with certain pitches and I used that. He taught how to bunt, how to analyze the grass length and the gradient of the third/first base line, how to note the direction a pitcher comes off the mound to make a bunt more successful, how to hold the bat and make contact. He talked about how to run around the bases (using the inside of the bases to shorten the distance AND as a way to plant the foot while making a turn.) If the timing was right, I could kick a ball out of a baseman's glove with an ease - due totoally to reading his book - that made it seem impossible that it was not accidental (deliberate was sometimes considered illegal, and an out.) That book was simply loaded with data which could be used to play the game. It gave me such a massive advantage while playing the game of baseball, I decided that books could be massively advantageous as a tool to learn about other fields as well. That book was the first connection I'd had between thinking about something - without a human teacher, or coach, or mentor - and applying those thoughts, at least in a direct way. Useful, applicable information existed in books AND you could progress at your own speed, rather than waiting for everyone in a class or on a team to catch up. It was a stunning revelation for someone of my age. In fact, in the late Fifties to mid-Sixties, my childhood, I did a lot of reading related to sports. The sports bios in those days were much more dense with sports information and stated very little about how much money a player made or how much sex they had or how well known they were. The focus was on the game, which is where boys - who were expected to be athletes by that society - wanted it. Our athletic heroes motivated us with their excellence on the field, not with extraneous garbage. In the process of reading about them and their sports, we became better readers and more thoughtful people. Still, I must admit, when I crushed a pitch thrown by a very fast pitcher - this was at age 15 - which looked the size of a golf ball, seemed to be moving around, and was HISSING at me... the feeling of power as it launched from my bat was enormous, just unbelievable. It was moving away from my bat like it had been launched by NASA. Unfortunately, age 15 was the year my baseball 'career' ended because my high school had no baseball team (although I would make that a part of my platform when I ran for student body president; a team was created two years later) and there was no other outlet for high school ball players in my area. The movie (based on this book) was not much of a shock to me. This book is well written, but without the original bio, you miss what truly made Ty Cobb the great baseball player: his brain. His motives might have been locked in the horror of his mother (or her 'lover') killing his father, or some weird desire to excel in a field which was radically far afield from those of his relatives, and it may have been fueled by all the twisted Southern hatreds that have filled plays and novels for the last 150 years... but it didn't affect his ability to play the game or to analyze it logically. "Cobb" without the original is "insufficient data." The original bio accomplished its goals more than Cobb himself would ever know, and I think this book (and the movie) accomplished its goals as well. This book does for Stump what he felt guilty about for thirty years; he needn't have bothered. He, too, accomplished more than he could have known.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent
Review: Stump brings to life Ty Cobb, the most interesting player in baseball history. Perfect companion to the more plain facts Charles Alexander biography of Cobb; Stump does a more thorough job explaining Cobb's unusual personality. Among other things, Cobb was neurotic, paranoid, egocentric and very selfish. Calling him prickly or sandpapery does no justice to explaining him. In an era in which most of his peers had at least a touch of bigotry, Cobb's hatred of blacks was unnerving to them and to others. Stump does a better job than Alexander in explaining the possible sources of Cobb's neurosis- his mother's "manslaughter" of his father when Cobb was 20 and about to go up to the Big Show in Detroit; the inordinately vicious hazing he received from the older Tiger players because he was Southern and they were Northerners and Midwesterners for the most part (Remember, Cobb joined the Tigers only 40 years after Appomattox. Even today, my experience with my Ohio father-in-law is one in which Midwesterners haughtily think Southrons like me to be low-lifes. We are not close.) Three positive things about Cobb come to mind in Stump's work. First, Cobb planted the seeds for the end of the pillar of sport's serfdom-the reserve clause-thus initiating free agency. Second, no player was more intelligent, on or off the field. Third, no player had more drive than Cobb. Ironically, he compares well to the equally driven Michael Jordan.
Rating:
Summary: This is the best biography *EVER*
Review: Stump gives the reader a more thorough understanding of Cobb and his peculiarly ferocious personality then any Cobb books I have read. I can't believe Cobb wasn't locked up for life As Babe Ruth put it: "He was the most agressive B**ch that ever played the game, he wanted to beat you on saturday and twice on Sunday, if he didn't he was miserable." Best book and baseball player I've heard of and read about. Who else can get a double on a bunt?? Who else can go from first to third on a sacrifice fly?? TY COBB that's who!
Rating:
Summary: Baseball hasn't seen anything like him since....
Review: Sure as hell no one in baseball was ever as driven as Ty Cobb. The stories and anecdotes contained in this book prove that. This is *the* penultimate baseball biography. Any true student of the game should have this on their bookshelf before any other.
Rating:
Summary: Safe at the Plate
Review: The author became a friend and confidant of Tyrus Cobb, towards the end of Ty's life, when the ballplayer, struggled with a variety of illnesses including cancer, but never wanted sorrow or pity from anyone.
The story of Cobb's life is presented in a straightforward style
interesting glimpses of Cobb's "take no prisoners" style are peppered throughout the book.
Praise is heaped upon Cobb's astronomical skill for hitting, running the bases, stealing bases and genuine baseball acumen.
Knowing that Cobb, played in a bygone era of baseball, with Model T's and horse drawn carriages only adds to the allure.
Some of the good deeds that Ty did for others are presented as well as tales of cruelty and rage.
Ty Cobb comes across as Ebenezer Scrooge, without being visited by the spirits, as he was forgotten by the baseball community at large at the time of his death.
Cobb amassed a vast fortune through shrewd investments, to show that he was a combination of brawns and smarts.
This raging fire of a baseball player keeps you glued to the pages and you will find yourself frequently rereading your favorite parts. Clark Kent went into a phone booth to become Superman. Ty Cobb went onto the ballfield to become one.
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