Show MILLIONS ILLIONS of those who follow baseball on the field or through the sporting pages of the count country ry have become steamed up over the stretch batting baiting battle between ted williams of the boston red sox and joe dimaggio of the new york yankees here are the tw two 0 great modern hitters the ranking c lass class of 1941 with 40 0 or thereabouts set as the winning winnin goal they deserve all the plaudits pl audits and the hoarse buzzas of those who follow the base hit from the single to the home run but if a few of these millions dont mind id like to take them back in into to a younger country and tell them the story of 0 f three major hitting contests that I 1 believe overshadow williams and dimaggio grantland Grantlan dRice rice y it may be the encroaching cro aching years it may be the humidity but ill stand on the figures and the class as the multitudes of 1911 1941 stifle a laugh Cobb Jackson 1911 when the american league season of 1911 opened ty cobb the georgia peach had led his league four successive seasons at the age of 25 he was just coming to his peak that same year a tall lanky entry from brandon mills S C had reported to cleveland from new orleans his name was shoeless joe jackson the carolina crash smith picked by cobb ruth and speaker as the greatest natural hitter that ever lived 0 the brave song his black bat sung as shoeless joe stepped into the ball cobb on his way then to nine straight batting championships and a run of 12 league leading years out of 13 in a row kept waiting tor for the carolina rookie to break cobb started above and he kept above but he shake 44 off the gangling ty py cobb challenger with the freewheeling free wheeling and effective swing and those were the days when ed walsh was spinning his famous 11 through when they were using emery balls and every type of fazz fuzz to make the ball dip and skid and duck and slide about jackson who was this rookie who could neither read nor write who had gone shoeless in most of his earlier games to challenge the great cobb connie mack had turned him back in 1908 and 1909 cleveland had turned him back to new orleans in 1910 why well never know for his lowest average in those years had been even a blind man could sense the lyrical smoothness of his swing that year shoeless joe carried ty cobb to the wire ty finished at jackson the rookie at ty needed his greatest year to beat jackson out was shoeless joe merely a fluke A year later cobb found himself down the stretch again batting above with jackson now in the lead jackson was it was here that ty applying winning psychology ch refused to speak to jackson in a detroit cleveland series and shoeless joe wondering what he had done to offend a friend tell fell into a brief slump at least this is the story of those days day in any event ty went on to win with an average of against jacksons in those two seasons the shoeless swinger had averaged for his first two years in the majors yet he lead the league cobb and speaker cobb had run into a close call years before against larry lajoie the most graceful ball player of all time and one of the games great hitters but he came to the campaign of 1916 for his tenth consecutive shot at the batting championship today they rave about one year at the top here was his chance to lead his league 10 straight t years cobb went into a tailspin tails pm lie he batted only as speaker finished at he had been facing such pitching stars as cy young walter john son ed walsh addie joss P R ube be waddell eddie plank chief bender jack coombs smoky joe wood an amazing galaxy except for this one year interlude cobb would have led the bi big g parade 13 straight years As it was he ca came me back to make it 12 out of 13 a and rid to finish with a 24 year average around jobu we are removing no credit from the extremely able hitting of ted williams and joe dimaggio we are merely y offering them a target at which they can shoot cobb jackson lajoie speaker they were far away and long ago but they could lather that whirling apple dont tet let anyone tell you differently |