My Twenty Years in Baseball

By the time of his retirement in 1928, Ty Cobb had set ninety major league baseball records, many of which - including twelve batting titles and a .367 lifetime batting average - remain unsurpassed to this day. He was also a member of the first group of legends inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame. Fiercely competitive and aggressive in his play, Cobb attracted controversy throughout his career. In this memoir, he reflects on a tumultuous era in baseball history as he recounts highlights from his twenty seasons with the Detroit Tigers.The baseball legend offers observations and advice to players on hitting, stealing signs, base running, and other aspects of the game, along with assessments of his teammates and other contemporaries. Cobb's candid reminiscences address his reputation for spiking opponents on the base paths and his suspension for attacking an abusive fan, an incident that led to the first professional baseball strike and the formation of the earliest players' union. Unlike the usual ghostwritten sports autobiographies, this narrative consists of Cobb's own words. Each chapter originally appeared as part of a newspaper serial in 1925, while the author was an active player. A rediscovered gem of sports history, this edition is the first commercial publication of Cobb's recollections in book form.