The Pecan Park Eagle

Ty Cobb
“Let me show you what I can do!”
May 5, 1925

Before we take a brief look at Ty Cobb’s brief power show it is interesting to look at how top ten hitters for average in baseball history fare in home run power, relative to each other, and to all the great home run hitters, who are there, without regard to batting average figures.

• Only Babe Ruth qualified for the Top 10 Lists of Best Career BA and HR Hitters.

Summation

Only three of the all time batters for average were also sluggers — and only Ted Williams played as recently as 1960. Ruth, of course, easily takes the lead in a category load with early 20th century and a few 19th century players like Pete Browning and Billy Hamilton, two who unsurprisingly finish 9th and 10th on a list limited to the top ten dogs in the chase also for the game’s best career batting average of all time.

The more we do these little looks at the oil and water relationship between big power numbers and high batting averages, the more our appreciation grows for the rare talent who can do both consistently over time.

Probably no player saw this coming of power to baseball’s center stage in the 1920s via Ruth better than Ty Cobb. I figure it had to be something he felt every time his Tigers took the field against Ruth and the Yankees. He also knew that his ability to hit for an incredibly high average was at the expense of power he saved from homer chasing for the sake of hits, base running, and the like. Then, one day, he simply had to go out and make, at least, a one day correction — for the sake of the attention he hoped to draw to his message that he too (Cobb) could find the fences more often, if he so chose.

Cobb’s “I’ll show ’em my power today” game. The date was May 5, 1925. The Tigers were set to play the Browns in St. Louis and Cobb supposedly announced that he was going to show the world a sample of his own power on that date. He went out and had a 6 for 6 day at the plate that included 3 home runs, a double, 4 runs scored, and 5 RBI, leading Detroit to a 14-8 victory. The following day, Cobb led the Tigers to an 11-4 win over the Browns, hitting 2 more home runs, while scoring 2 runs and collecting 6 more RBI.

His two-day game totals from May 5th and 6th of 1925 were 9 hits in 12 tries at bat (.750), 6 runs scored, 11 runs batted in on 5 HR, 1 double, and 3 singles. The experience must have sated his need to prove anything further, because Ty Cobb never repeated the dramatic two-game showing elsewhere from there.

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Bill McCurdy

Principal Writer, Editor, Publisher

The Pecan Park Eagle