 This is Jimmy Powers, and happy to be coming your way with another Grantland Rice story. Hi there, this is Jimmy Powers with another chapter from the colorful life of the late and great Granny Rice. So once again, with a sincere bow to the spirit of Grantland Rice, I continue in first person the tumult and the shouting. It was in 1895 that I first saw my first professional baseball game in my hometown of Nashville, Tennessee. George Stallings brought his black uniform to Gusta team to town. That was 60 years ago. Since then, I've seen the entire parade go by, including the greatest of them all, that is the greatest competitor of them all, Ty Cobb. My first introduction to this ambitious youngster came from messages that deluge my sport desk during the spring of 1904. They were meaty. Keep your eye on Ty Cobb. He is perhaps the finest hitter I've seen. Watch Cobb of Aniston. He's sure to be a sensation. Have you seen Ty Cobb play ball? He's the fastest mover ever. These and dozens like them signed Brown, Smith, Jackson and Holmes. They showered in from all points of minor league circuits in Georgia and Alabama. Intrigued, I finally journeyed to Augusta, Georgia, where Cobb was playing and talked to this lad six years younger than I. I've been hearing about you, I said. My name is Rice. I write baseball for the Atlanta Journal. Is that so? He replied. I've heard of you, too. I found Cobb to be an extremely peculiar soul, brooding and bubbling with violence, belligerent all the way. Frequent and violent explosions with teammates and the enemy alike were the rule. When in 1905 Detroit purchased Cobb, the rookie outfielder, he was thrown in with other rookies, but quite soon Cobb was living by himself a hermit. Having to live alone, Ty told me, I spent all my time thinking baseball, of plays I could make, tricks I could try. Here's an example. I recall that in 1904, working on a tip, I persuaded Atlanta's manager Ab Powell to sign a long, loose-jointed fireballer known as Happy Harry Hale from Happy Hollow, Tennessee. Cobb was then with Augusta. Because I'd made considerable copy of Hale, Cobb got permission to come over to Atlanta and study Happy Harry's debut. Built like a tuning fork, six feet six and all up, my discovery was gorgeous, for four innings his long, lean arm blurred that ball by the enemy. Then in the fifth inning, some joker bonded. Happy Harry had never seen a bunt. By the time he'd unraveled his frame, the runner was on first, another safe bunt. When the third man bonded, Hale, nearly burning with embarrassment, crashed in, arms and legs a Kimbo, tried to scoop up the ball and spiked his own hand. Well, that was the finish of Happy Harry Hale and Granny's discovery. That was 1904. Three years later in Washington, a country pitcher from Idaho by the name of Walter Johnson was mowing down the Tigers along with Cobb. Then Ty recalled the episode he'd seen with Happy Hale. He told Huey Jennings, the tiger manager. The tiger started bunting on the young raw bone smokeballer and that finished Walter Johnson for that day, but it never worked again. But that typifies Cobb the schemer. I'd sometimes figure out a play or a weakness and then have to wait a month or a year before the chance came to use it, reflected Cobb. Cobb was a master psychologist, jealous of his own records and particularly his terrific batting average. Cobb was the first player that I can recall who sensed the great change that hit baseball in 1920, and he was blunt about it. Well, the old game is gone, he said one day in 1924. We were watching Babe Ruth rock at batting practice pitches into the bleachers of the house that Ruth built, the new Yankee Stadium. Babe Ruth has changed baseball, Ty continued. I guess more people would rather see him hit homers than see me steal second. I feel bad about it, for it isn't the game I like to see or play. The old game was one of skill, speed, and quick thinking. This game is all power, but there'll never be another power man like this fellow. Just watch the ball next year. They'll start juicing it up like a tennis ball because Ruth has made the home run fashionable. But they'll ruin more sluggers than they'll make. A lot of these kids, in place of learning the true science of hitting or base running, are trying to knock every pitch out of the park. For every home run hitter developed, three or four potential 300 hitters will be ruined. Mark my word. Cobb of course was right. Cobb always hated the charge that he was a dirty base runner, a slashing killer with spikes sharpened like razor blades. From the start I concentrated and worked hours on a new form of sliding. This was to send my toe for the bag. I only gave them my toe to tag. It was exactly the opposite of crashing a man. I'll admit I used to run while on the base paths, continued Cobb, but I did it for a purpose. I wanted the other team to think I was a crazy base runner to establish mental hazards. One way to keep up the tension and win ball games. You recall earlier in this chapter how back in 1904 I kept getting mail about Ty Cobb the Phenom from all over Georgia? Well, this little anecdote is also revealing. It was in 1950. I'd landed at the airport in San Francisco with two pals, Gene Fowler and Henry Macklemore. Cobb met us in his car and was driving us to his home at Menlo Park. Fowler and I were in the back seat while Henry was co-pilot for Ty. He drives the car like he runs the base paths, full steam ahead. Also, he had a habit of turning his head to talk to you while driving that made me uncomfortable. Grant said, Ty, do you remember all that mail you received back in 1904 about the Phenom from Royston, Georgia? I sure do, Ty, I replied. And do you remember they were all signed by different names? I certainly do. Why? I sent you all those notices, Chuckle Cobb. It's taken you a few years to get around to telling me, I said, why did you do it? Because I was in a hurry, replied Cobb. We were both youngsters on the way up. I didn't know it then, but I was trying to put you onto your first big scoop. Self-confidence is the hallmark of a champion. Not only had Cobb that amazing quality at 18, more important he knew how to use it, something few can handle at any stage of life. Many members of Baseball's Hall of Fame bumped into this confidence of Cobb's. I was talking to Mickey Cochran, whom Ty puts on his all-time All-Star team, and Mickey said, Grant, there's no doubt about it, Cobb was the greatest of them all. He was such a bad loser he became a great winner. I admired him for his combativeness, his win at any cost attitude on the Diamond. Ty isn't aware of it, but as a small boy, I idolized him and tried to pattern my playing style after his. All the success I had in the game I owed to Cobb. Typical of Cobb's cockiness was the afternoon he was playing for Detroit, and Mickey Cochran was catching for the athletics. Ty walked up to the plate, turned to Cochran and said the hit and runs on. I'm going to hit the next pitch. Mickey, of course, was amazed to hear the great Cobb advertising his intentions so Cochran called for a pitch out. Despite Mickey's precautions Cobb reached across the plate and with one hand lashed the ball into left field, a perfect hit and run execution. Cochran just stood there in amazement, stepped in front of the plate and called down to Cobb standing on first base. Cobb, you're not even human. If I hadn't just seen it with my own eyes, I never would have believed it. Cobb's cradle essentially was this. Always test the other man's nerves. He generally left the other side's nerves strewn all over the field. Just where did Cobb get his confidence? Was it something inborn? Ty himself once answered it this way. It was more of a vying spirit than self-confidence. As a boy back at Royston, Georgia, all of my pals had it. If someone said, I can do it better than you, the contest was on. No matter what, we played to win whether it be marbles, foot racing, high jumping, spelling, or baseball. I remember that we used to string a rope from one building to another and try to walk it. I wasn't so hot at first, but I practiced so intensely that I got to be the best tightrope walker in town. I played to win everything and it was a spirit I carried with me all the way to the big leagues. Cobb holds more records than any player in the history of baseball. Yet he says setting records was not uppermost in his mind. The team came first. He remained loyal to the Tigers for 22 years and at the age of 42 was still going strong. Finishing out his incredible career with the athletics, he batted 320, fifth in the American league his last season and was still swiping a bushel basket of bases. No athlete in any sport punished his legs more than Cobb. Today at 68, Ty Cobb divides his time between Atherton, California, where he has lived since 1931, and Lake Tahoe, Nevada, where he has a hunting lodge. Age has mellowed him, but the old spark flares up in him when the talk turns to baseball. The good things of baseball, he says, are all but gone from the game. The beauty of the bunt, the hit and run, the sacrifice, the steel. The home run has replaced strategy. One thing they will never replace, however, is Tyrus Raymond Cobb. Well, that's it for today. Until next time then, this is Jimmy Powers transcribe saying so long.