William Herschel Cobb

'Father'

William Herschel Cobb was a college graduate and schoolteacher who moved from town to town in northern Georgia until settling in Royston in the early 1890s. W.H. was well respected by the townspeople and aspired for the U.S. Congress, having held a seat in the Georgia State Senate.

In 1883, at age twenty, he married 12-year-old Amanda Chitwood. Due to her young age, she did not bear a child until December 18, 1886, when Tyrus Raymond was born. W.H. was to father two more children with Amanda—John Paul in 1888 and Florence Leslie in 1892.

W.H. eventually bought a 100-acre farm in Royston to supplement his teaching income. It was on this farm that he taught Ty the values of hard work and perseverance. It was also in those fields that Ty grew strong and developed his relationship with his father. When W.H. saw that Ty displayed a knack for farming and its economics, the two grew closer. "It was the sweetest thing in the world to be fully accepted by my father. All at once, he was willing to hear my ideas, discuss them, and even exchange opinions" (Cobb, 43).

When Ty was not working the farm for his father, he was honing his baseball skills. W.H. greatly disapproved of Ty playing baseball, fearing that his firstborn would become a drunken womanizer like the stereotypical big league ballplayers of the day. However, when Ty, at 17, approached his father to ask for his blessing to try out for the South Atlantic League (Sally League) team in Augusta, W.H. reluctantly acquiesced. He figured that it would be best for his son to get the baseball out of his system and return home to pursue a career as a doctor, lawyer, or military man.

The Death of W.H. Cobb

In the summer of 1905, with Ty off pursuing his baseball dreams, rumors began to circulate about the fidelity of Amanda. At 33, Amanda had already been married for more than 20 years and might have longed for a change. Apparently upset about the persistent rumors, W.H. devised a plan to determine once and for all the faithfulness of his wife.

On the night of August 8, 1905, he told her that he would be going out of town for a few days. That night, with Ty playing ball in Augusta and the other two children at friends' houses, Amanda locked the doors and windows. W.H. returned with a pistol. He climbed up the side of the house to the balcony outside his bedroom. He tried to open the window, but found it locked. Amanda heard the scratching outside, picked up the loaded double-barreled shotgun they kept in the bedroom, and pulled the trigger once. After a brief pause, she fired again, splattering her husband all over the balcony.

Ty had always loved and revered his father, claiming that he was the "only man who ever made me do his bidding" (Alexander, 233). Among the last things that Ty's father bid him to do was "Don't come home a failure." It is quite possible that his father's traumatic death spurred Cobb to play baseball the way he did. When Al Stump, the ghostwriter of Cobb's autobiography, asked Cobb why he fought so hard in baseball, Cobb answered:

I did it for my father, who was an exalted man. They killed him when he was still young. They blew his head off the same week I became a major-leaguer. He never got to see me play. Not one game, not an inning. But I knew he was watching me...and I never let him down. Never. (Stump, 27).

It is hard to imagine that an 18-year-old would bounce back easily from the news that his father had been shot and killed by his mother, surrounded by rumors of love triangles and murder. Cobb had been fiercely competitive even before this incident, but that had been primarily for his own success and benefit. Now and for the rest of his major league career and life, Cobb felt that he had to prove his worth to his father whom he both loved and feared, and who never got to see him play baseball.

I'm aware that such a psychological evaluation of Cobb is mostly conjecture and can never be proven or disproven. I'm also aware that such a theory is credible and explains much.