TY COBB

Narrows, Georgia, 1886. The red clay gets in a man’s blood, and Ty Cobb got a full dose. He came up with Detroit in 1905, a skinny left-handed kid with spikes that never learned to pull up, and for twenty-four summers he made the Dead Ball era a living nightmare for any infielder who got between him and the bag. The man could hit .366 in his sleep — which he mostly did, because he was awake all night sharpening his edge.

He was the Georgia Peach, but there was nothing soft about him. Cobb choked up, slashed the ball through the infield, and when he reached first base, the pitcher had bigger problems than his windup. Eight hundred ninety-six stolen bases. Four thousand one hundred eighty-nine hits. He ran the bases like a man escaping a bank he just robbed, and the Detroit faithful loved every inch of it.

Then the ball got livelier, and the old Peach just kept right on feasting. He finished with a .512 slugging percentage and 1,944 ribbies, a number that still makes modern sluggers check their calculators. He played his last game in 1928, finishing up with the Philadelphia Athletics, but his home will always be Navin Field, where the dirt was his and the baseline belonged to him.

He died in 1961, but the record book still winces when his name comes up. The Peach. The terror. The standard.