Ty Cobb's Quotes & Sayings

Walter Johnson's fastball looked about the size of a watermelon seed and it hissed at you as it passed. — Ty Cobb

That boy Mantle is a good one. — Ty Cobb

When I began playing the game, baseball was about as gentlemanly as a kick in the crotch. — Ty Cobb

The longer I live, the longer I realize that batting is more a mental matter than it is physical. The ability to grasp the bat, swing at the proper time, take a proper stance; all these are elemental. Batting is rather a study in psychology, a sizing up of a pitcher and catcher and observing little details that are of immense importance. It's like the study of crime, the work of a detective as he picks up clues. — Ty Cobb

The crowd makes the ballgame. — Ty Cobb

The best recommendation for an umpire in the old days was: He licked somebody in the Three-I League. He ought to do. — Ty Cobb

Don't come home a failure. — Ty Cobb

Most collisions out on the fields are needless. — Ty Cobb

I never could stand losing. Second place didn't interest me. I had a fire in my belly. — Ty Cobb

Baseball was one-hundred percent of my life. — Ty Cobb

I had to fight all my life to survive. They were all against me ... but I beat the bastards and left them in the ditch. — Ty Cobb

I would much rather read a book about Ty Cobb, who was quite possibly a sociopath. It makes for more interesting copy. Some of the most memorable characters in literature were villains. — Jonathan Weeks

Ty Cobb was still fighting the Civil War, and as far as he was concerned, we were all damn Yankees. But who knows, if he hadn't had that terrible persecution complex, he never would have been about the best ballplayer who ever lived. — Sam Crawford

I'm coming down on the next pitch, Krauthead. — Ty Cobb

Every man in the game, from the minors on up, is not only fighting against the other side, but he's trying to hold onto his own job against those on his own bench who'd love to take it away. Why deny this? Why minimize it? Why not boldly admit it? — Ty Cobb

When two doctors pass each other on the street they wink at each other. — Ty Cobb

He was the strangest of all our national sports idols. But not even his disagreeable character could destroy the image of his greatness as a ballplayer. Ty Cobb was the best. That seemed to be all he wanted. — Jimmy Cannon

The great trouble with baseball today is that most of the players are in the game for the money and that's it, not for the love of it, the excitement of it, the thrill of it. — Ty Cobb

I may have been fierce, but never low or underhand. — Ty Cobb

The most important part of a player's body is above his shoulders. — Ty Cobb

I regret to this day that I never went to college. I feel I should have been a doctor. — Ty Cobb

At Tiger Stadium, the dugouts are so low that you walk in and hit your head on the ceiling. People would say, 'Don't feel bad. Ty Cobb did the same thing.' — Harmon Killebrew

The way those clubs shift against Ted Williams, I can't understand how he can be so stupid not to accept the challenge to him and hit to left field. — Ty Cobb

Was Ty Cobb psychotic throughout his playing career? The answer is yes. — Al Stump

A ball bat is a wondrous weapon. — Ty Cobb

I never saw anyone like Ty Cobb. No one even close to him as the greatest all-time ballplayer. That guy was superhuman, amazing. — Casey Stengel

No man has ever been a perfect ballplayer. Stan Musial, however, is the closest to being perfect in the game today. — Ty Cobb

To get along with me, don't increase my tension. — Ty Cobb

I have heard of managers who encourage players not to slide hard for fear they will get hurt and be lost from the lineup for a time. That is why you occasionally see a player go into second base on a double-play ball and not even bother to slide. I wonder, could Ty Cobb
sit though plays like that and hold his lunch? — Frank Robinson

(Rogers) Hornsby could run like anything but not like this kid. (Ty) Cobb was the fastest I ever saw for being sensational on the bases ... — Casey Stengel

When I played ball, I didn't play for fun ... It's no pink tea, and mollycoddles had better stay out. It's a contest and everything that implies, a struggle for supremacy, a survival of the fittest. — Ty Cobb

President Dwight Eisenhower was a frequent and favored guest at Augusta National. One afternoon, Ike and some of his pals who were playing a leisurely round, were on the 15th green preparing to putt when a ball suddenly sailed into their midst. Moments later, an elderly man walked briskly onto the green, informed the President and his friends that he was playing through, then proceeded to sink his putt and depart - without another word. The rude intruder was baseball legend and Georgia native Ty Cobb. — Jim Hawkins

I know everything about Ty Cobb except the size of his hat. — Pete Rose

I broke in with four hits, and the writers promptly declared they had seen the new Ty Cobb. It took me only a few days to correct that impression. — Casey Stengel

I have observed that baseball is not unlike a war, and when you come right down to it, we batters are the heavy artillery. — Ty Cobb

The base paths belonged to me, the runner. The rules gave me the right. I always went into a bag full speed, feet first. I had sharp spikes on my shoes. If the baseman stood where he had no business to be and got hurt, that was his fault. — Ty Cobb

Every great batter works on the theory that the pitcher is more afraid of him than he is of the pitcher. — Ty Cobb

Just speed, raw speed, blinding speed, too much speed. — Ty Cobb

I've got to be first. ALL the time. — Ty Cobb

The first time I faced him I watched him take that easy windup and then something went past me that made me flinch. The thing just hissed with danger. We couldn't touch him ... Every one of us knew we'd met the most powerful arm ever turned loose in a ball park. — Ty Cobb

When I came to Detroit I was just a mild-mannered Sunday-school boy. — Ty Cobb

Claire Hodgson, born Clara Mae Merritt, was the daughter of a prominent Georgia attorney who had once represented Ty Cobb. She was still a teenager when she married Frank Hodgson, a gentleman caller nearly twice her age. — Jane Leavy

Speed is a great asset; but it's greater when it's combined with quickness - and there's a big difference. — Ty Cobb

The great American game should be an unrelenting war of nerves. — Ty Cobb

I've been called one of the hardest bargainers who ever held out, and I'm proud of it. — Ty Cobb

The greatness of Ty Cobb was something that had to be seen, and to see him was to remember him forever. — George Sisler