Spring training is underway so I thought I would share my very favorite baseball story. Whether it is true or not, I do not know. I hope to hell it is. I read about this in the Bill James Historical baseball abstract and it has always stuck with me. I may have a couple of minor details wrong, but this is the gist of it:
Back in the nineteen-teens, the Detroit Tiger's manager got a cable from some farm kid saying that he was a great pitcher and that he could strike out Ty Cobb on 3 pitches, guaranteed. He wrote a couple of times a month, always saying he could strike out Cobb on 3 straight pitches. Since the Tigers needed pitching, the manager decided he would send for the kid, knowing that the worst that could happen was he would have wasted money on the cost of a train ticket.
The kid shows up before a game and the Tigers' manager lets him get ready and informs Cobb of the situation. Finally the kid is ready to go and Cobb steps up to the plate for the showdown. The first pitch is right down the middle and Cobb smacks it down the 1st base line. The 2nd pitch is hit nearly to the outfield wall (and Cobb was a slap hitter in the dead-ball era) and the 3rd is right back up the middle and knocks the kid off of his feet.
The Tigers' manager is clearly disgusted and he walks to the mound shaking his head. "Well kid, what do you have to say for yourself?"
The kid considers just for a moment and then points toward home plate. "You know," he says, "I don't think that's Ty Cobb."
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