DOCSLIB.ORG

The Georgia Peach Stumped by the Storyteller

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
The Georgia Peach Stumped by the Storyteller The Georgia Peach Stumped by the Storyteller WILLIAM R. COBB INTRODUCTION provide new insights into other myths about Georgia’s In his December 29, 2005, Internet blog, John Thorn, most famous baseball player—where they began and the noted baseball author and SABR member, men- how they grew. This investigation also demonstrates tioned that the shotgun that killed Ty Cobb’s father in that new information to be found in the realm of high- 1905 had been part of the famous Barry Halper col- end baseball memorabilia, often well known among lection of baseball memorabilia—an incredible, if not collectors and authenticators but not widely publicized, unbelievable, assertion.1 How could such an artifact of can be highly relevant to the efforts of baseball re- tragedy have survived for 100 years to become part of searchers and historians. the most famous collection of baseball memorabilia ever assembled? And more importantly, why? THE SHOTGUN As a lifelong fan of Ty Cobb (but not a descendant The first step in my investigation was to review the or close relative) and a member of the Board of Advi- Sotheby’s catalog for the 1999 sale of the Barry Halper sors to the Ty Cobb Museum in Royston, Georgia, I Collection, which had netted something over twenty was fascinated by these questions when I discovered million dollars.4 This unindexed, three-volume set, Thorn’s blog in mid-2006. A discussion among the which provides descriptions, some photos, and the re- museum board members resulted in an e-mail to John alized prices of the auctioned items, is practically a Thorn, seeking further information about his assertion baseball history in itself and would be an interesting and about the relic itself. This exchange digressed read for any SABR member. My first perusal, however, quickly into a disagreement as to whether a pistol or yielded no information on the Cobb shotgun. a shotgun had actually been used in the incident that Recalling that I had once read that Major League took William Herschel Cobb’s life, and Thorn declined Baseball had purchased about twenty percent of the to discuss his statement further.2 Halper collection before the auction and donated it to A few months later, the Ty Cobb Museum received the Cooperstown Hall of Fame Museum, I asked friend a phone call from a representative of the New York and research director Tim Wiles if the Cobb shotgun Yankees organization, inquiring about the shotgun that was among the Halper items that had been received was used to kill Ty Cobb’s father.3 The caller, who by the Hall of Fame. His reply a few days later was that identified herself only as a member of the Yankees’ no such item was in their collection and that he and marketing department, wanted to know if the museum his colleagues could not imagine that the Hall of Fame had any information that could be used to confirm that Museum would ever accept such a sordid relic were it a shotgun, which the caller said was now held in the to be offered.5 collection of an undisclosed Yankee player, was actu- A subsequent e-mail exchange with Robert Lifson, ally the weapon that had been used in the shooting of the memorabilia expert who managed the auction of the W. H. Cobb. Halper collection for Sotheby’s, revealed that the John These two events inspired me to begin a thorough Thorn blog had indeed been correct.6 The Cobb shotgun investigation to review all of the information that could had been listed in the Sotheby’s auction catalog. This be located about the August 8, 1905, shooting of Ty discovery prompted my second review of the Halper Cobb’s father at the hand of Ty’s mother. I wanted, once catalogs, in which I found this description on page 439 and for all, to either confirm or disprove the shotgun of volume 1, with no accompanying photo: element of this tragic event in Ty Cobb’s life story. And, if disproved, I wanted to identify and understand the 1227 Ty Cobb’s Shotgun . source of this particularly distasteful part of the myth. “Tyrus R. Cobb” is engraved near the trigger An unintended result of this investigation has been to of this early twentieth-century double-barrel 84 COBB: The Georgia Peach shotgun. Cobb’s biographer Al Stump told Barry COLLECTION PERSONAL AUTHOR’S THE FROM Halper that this was the gun that Mrs. Cobb used to shoot Mr. Cobb, when Ty was still young. The younger Cobb kept the gun through- out his life and used it on many of his hunting expeditions.7 Lifson also replied that the shotgun originally was to be included in the auction and thus had been in- cluded in the catalog, but that ultimately it had been rejected because the only provenance was Al Stump’s statement. There was also a question as to whether Sotheby’s was licensed to auction such a firearm.8 The shotgun, as lot 1227, did not appear in the published prices realized list, confirming Robert Lifson’s recol- lection that it had been pulled from the auction. According to the Sotheby’s catalog, the source of the shotgun in the Halper collection was sportswriter Al Stump, who had collaborated with Ty Cobb on his 1961 autobiography and during that process spent time with Cobb in the last year of his life. I was to later learn that Al Stump was very well known to experts and collectors of high-priced baseball memorabilia. But some obvious questions remained. Why would Ty Cobb, who according to all accounts had been deeply and permanently affected by the un- timely death of his beloved father at the hand of his mother, have kept the shotgun supposedly used in the tragedy for the rest of his life? Why would he have Exhibit 1. A copy of an excerpt from the August 11, 1905, Atlanta Journal used this weapon in many of his later hunting expedi- article quoting Amanda Cobb’s statement to the jury of the coroner’s tions? Indeed, why would he have had his own name inquest. Amanda testified that she fired two shots from a pistol that her inscribed on the weapon? husband had bought for her. No newspaper or court records have been found that dispute her testimony. She also testified that Clifford Ginn was first to assist her and made no mention of Joe Cunningham having been THE RECORD the first to arrive on the scene. The August 8, 1905, death of William Herschel Cobb, a former Georgia state senator, Franklin County school of Georgia Archives discovered numerous other board commissioner, and owner and editor of The newspaper articles available digitally and some legal Royston Record, was widely covered in newspapers documents from the Franklin County court records.10 throughout the state. All discovered contemporary The weekly Macon Telegraph carried this description of news articles that provided details of the shooting Amanda Cobb’s testimony on September 28, 1905: death of W. H. Cobb and the subsequent trial of his “According to a statement made by her soon after the wife, Amanda Cobb, referred to the weapon used in shooting she was roused in the night by someone at the shooting as a revolver or pistol. her window. She rose quickly, and with a revolver The August 11, 1905, Atlanta Constitution includes fired at a crouching form. Then she screamed.”11 this description of Amanda Cobb’s testimony before Several articles in The State (Columbia, South the coroner’s jury: “When she heard a noise at the Carolina), the Savannah Tribune, and the Augusta window during the night, she took a revolver from the Chronicle covered the 1905 coroner’s jury and the reading table where she had left it and fired two shots March 1906 trial but failed to mention the weapon at a figure crouching outside.” Mrs. Cobb’s full testi- used.12 mony before the coroner’s jury was included in the The Superior Court records found online at the same article (see exhibit 1).9 State of Georgia Archives include the 1905 criminal A diligent online search by researchers at the State docket, the 1905 application for bail, and the 1906 jury 85 THE NATIONAL PASTIME: BASEBALL IN THE PEACH STATE verdict, none of which make any reference to the record is the absence of any mention whatsoever of weapon used in the shooting. a shotgun in the press coverage or in the surviving In a 2004 SABR Deadball Committee e-mail group Superior Court records. To conclude as a result of this dialogue, some of these newspaper articles casting study that a handgun was used in the shooting death doubt on the shotgun theory were presented and dis- of W. H. Cobb, against the widely held belief that a cussed. From the ensuing e-mails, the consensus shotgun as used, would hardly be unreasonable. How- conclusion seemed to be that these documents were ever, as described above, it is doubtful that such a insufficient to dispel the well-known and long-ac- conclusion would be widely accepted, even among the cepted “fact” that a shotgun had been used in the SABR community. shooting death of W. H. Cobb. The principal argument To finally conclude that the shotgun story is false, was that press coverage would have been friendly, a more compelling piece of evidence is required. even lenient, toward Mrs. Cobb, due to the promi- Thanks to the research of Wesley Fricks, also a board nence of W.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Download Preview
    DETROIT TIGERS’ 4 GREATEST HITTERS Table of CONTENTS Contents Warm-Up, with a Side of Dedications ....................................................... 1 The Ty Cobb Birthplace Pilgrimage ......................................................... 9 1 Out of the Blocks—Into the Bleachers .............................................. 19 2 Quadruple Crown—Four’s Company, Five’s a Multitude ..................... 29 [Gates] Brown vs. Hot Dog .......................................................................................... 30 Prince Fielder Fields Macho Nacho ............................................................................. 30 Dangerfield Dangers .................................................................................................... 31 #1 Latino Hitters, Bar None ........................................................................................ 32 3 Hitting Prof Ted Williams, and the MACHO-METER ......................... 39 The MACHO-METER ..................................................................... 40 4 Miguel Cabrera, Knothole Kids, and the World’s Prettiest Girls ........... 47 Ty Cobb and the Presidential Passing Lane ................................................................. 49 The First Hammerin’ Hank—The Bronx’s Hank Greenberg ..................................... 50 Baseball and Heightism ............................................................................................... 53 One Amazing Baseball Record That Will Never Be Broken ......................................
    [Show full text]
  • Glenn Killinger, Service Football, and the Birth
    The Pennsylvania State University The Graduate School School of Humanities WAR SEASONS: GLENN KILLINGER, SERVICE FOOTBALL, AND THE BIRTH OF THE AMERICAN HERO IN POSTWAR AMERICAN CULTURE A Dissertation in American Studies by Todd M. Mealy © 2018 Todd M. Mealy Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy May 2018 ii This dissertation of Todd M. Mealy was reviewed and approved by the following: Charles P. Kupfer Associate Professor of American Studies Dissertation Adviser Chair of Committee Simon Bronner Distinguished Professor Emeritus of American Studies and Folklore Raffy Luquis Associate Professor of Health Education, Behavioral Science and Educaiton Program Peter Kareithi Special Member, Associate Professor of Communications, The Pennsylvania State University John Haddad Professor of American Studies and Chair, American Studies Program *Signatures are on file in the Graduate School iii ABSTRACT This dissertation examines Glenn Killinger’s career as a three-sport star at Penn State. The thrills and fascinations of his athletic exploits were chronicled by the mass media beginning in 1917 through the 1920s in a way that addressed the central themes of the mythic Great American Novel. Killinger’s personal and public life matched the cultural medley that defined the nation in the first quarter of the twentieth-century. His life plays outs as if it were a Horatio Alger novel, as the anxieties over turn-of-the- century immigration and urbanization, the uncertainty of commercializing formerly amateur sports, social unrest that challenged the status quo, and the resiliency of the individual confronting challenges of World War I, sport, and social alienation.
    [Show full text]
  • Witness to Glory, 1
    Witness to Glory, 1 WITNESS TO GLORY - The Grantland Rice Story & The Golden Age of Sports WRITTEN BY DIRK BURLINGAME FINAL FINAL EDITED DRAFT – DATED Oct. 3rd, 2013 WRITTEN BY DIRK L. BURLINGAME – CANAL INTERIORS INC. – 421 Leisure LN., COPPELL, TX 75019 PH: 972 956 0957 Concept & Play by Dirk L. Burlingame Contributor & Co-Author – Sidney L. Matthew Oct. 3rd, 2013 APPLICATION SUBMITTED TO FEDERAL COPYRIGHT OFFICE FOR COPYRIGHT CERTIFICATE VIA LEGALZOOM AUG. 17, 2009. Certificate of Registration effective date – Sept. 11, 2009 – Reg. No. PAu3-499-372. Witness to Glory, 2 Witness to Glory - The Grantland Rice Story ACT ONE FADE IN: EXT. POLO GROUNDS, N.Y., STADIUM - DAWN – OCT. 19, 1924 As dawn breaks over the stadium, We HEAR thundering hooves and manual typewriter SOUNDS. The words appear – Black on white, on a newsman’s copy sheet, a few letters at a time, being typed on a portable and well worn typewriter. SUPER – (typed words) - Outlined against a blue-gray October sky the Four Horsemen rode again. In dramatic lore they are known as famine, pestilence, destruction and death. These are only aliases. Their real names are: Stuhldreher, Miller, Crowley and Layden. WE SEE it getting lighter and lighter,in a layer of misty fog, and four Notre Dame football players on horseback. The horsemen are now visible through the grayish daylight as they come to a stop. Change color of super to be read over the scene. Change – Brilliant color shot of 20s Collage Football Game – site resembling Polo Grounds – 1924, including action of players, fans, including Army Cadets.
    [Show full text]
  • Former FWAA President Sittler Named 39Th Winner of Bert Mcgrane Award
    Former FWAA president Sittler named 39th winner February 2012 Vol. 50, No. 1 of Bert McGrane Award Inside this issue: Dave Sittler, a staple of journalism braska and Oklahoma from Nebraska President’s column 2 in the Oklahoma and Nebraska areas coach Bob Devaney to Oklahoma for more than a half century, has been coach Bob Stoops. th named the 39 winner of the FWAA’s Sittler began his career at the Lin- Alabama wins SEC’s Bert McGrane Award. coln-Journal sixth consecutive 3 The Bert McGrane Award, symbolic State in 1971 Grantland Rice Trophy of the association's Hall of Fame, is and moved over from FWAA presented to an FWAA member who to the Omaha has performed great service to the or- World-Herald in Photos from presenta- ganization and/or the writing profes- 1978 and stayed tion of FWAA/Eddie Robinson Coach of the sion. It is named after McGrane, a Des until 1985. From 4-5 Moines, Iowa, writer who was the exec- there he went to Year Trophy to Okla- utive secretary of the FWAA from the Tulsa, where he homa State Coach early 1940s until 1973. worked for The Mike Gundy Sittler, the 2001 FWAA president Tribune from Michigan State’s Ar- and a member since 1973, first pro- 1985 to 1992. thur Ray Jr. wins posed the idea of the Volney Meece Sittler spent sev- Discover Orange 6 Scholarship (named after the FWAA’s Dave Sittler en years at The Bowl/FWAA Courage late executive director) in the mid- Oklahoman be- Award 1990s.
    [Show full text]
  • National Pastime a REVIEW of BASEBALL HISTORY
    THE National Pastime A REVIEW OF BASEBALL HISTORY CONTENTS The Chicago Cubs' College of Coaches Richard J. Puerzer ................. 3 Dizzy Dean, Brownie for a Day Ronnie Joyner. .................. .. 18 The '62 Mets Keith Olbermann ................ .. 23 Professional Baseball and Football Brian McKenna. ................ •.. 26 Wallace Goldsmith, Sports Cartoonist '.' . Ed Brackett ..................... .. 33 About the Boston Pilgrims Bill Nowlin. ..................... .. 40 Danny Gardella and the Reserve Clause David Mandell, ,................. .. 41 Bringing Home the Bacon Jacob Pomrenke ................. .. 45 "Why, They'll Bet on a Foul Ball" Warren Corbett. ................. .. 54 Clemente's Entry into Organized Baseball Stew Thornley. ................. 61 The Winning Team Rob Edelman. ................... .. 72 Fascinating Aspects About Detroit Tiger Uniform Numbers Herm Krabbenhoft. .............. .. 77 Crossing Red River: Spring Training in Texas Frank Jackson ................... .. 85 The Windowbreakers: The 1947 Giants Steve Treder. .................... .. 92 Marathon Men: Rube and Cy Go the Distance Dan O'Brien .................... .. 95 I'm a Faster Man Than You Are, Heinie Zim Richard A. Smiley. ............... .. 97 Twilight at Ebbets Field Rory Costello 104 Was Roy Cullenbine a Better Batter than Joe DiMaggio? Walter Dunn Tucker 110 The 1945 All-Star Game Bill Nowlin 111 The First Unknown Soldier Bob Bailey 115 This Is Your Sport on Cocaine Steve Beitler 119 Sound BITES Darryl Brock 123 Death in the Ohio State League Craig
    [Show full text]
  • With a Combination of Speed, Daring and Brains, Ty Cobb Is Surely the Terror of the Opposing Infield.” – 1912 Hassan Cigarettes Tobacco Card
    Ty Cobb By Jimmy Keenan “With a combination of speed, daring and brains, Ty Cobb is surely the terror of the opposing infield.” – 1912 Hassan Cigarettes tobacco card. “Rogers Hornsby could run like anything but not like this kid. Ty Cobb was the fastest I ever saw for being sensational on the bases." – Hall of Fame manager Casey Stengel. 1 “The Babe was a great ballplayer, sure, but Ty Cobb was even greater. Babe Ruth could knock your brains out, but Cobb would drive you crazy." – Hall of Fame outfielder Tris Speaker. 2 "The greatness of Ty Cobb was something that had to be seen, and to see him was to remember him forever." – Hall of Fame first baseman George Sisler. 3 Ty Cobb made his mark in baseball during the first three decades of the 20 th century. To this day, the mere mention of his name resonates baseball excellence. Cobb was credited with setting 90 individual records during his 24-year major league career. He played with the Detroit Tigers from (1905- 26) and the Philadelphia A's from (1927-28). He was the player-manager of the Tigers from 1921-26. Cobb hit over .400 three times (1911, 1912, 1922). He currently holds the highest lifetime batting average (.366) of any major league player. During his tenure in the bigs, he was credited with 12 American League batting titles, nine of them in a row. An error regarding Cobb’s 1910 hitting statistics was discovered in 1978. This correction led to him losing a point on his lifetime average as well as the 1910 batting crown.
    [Show full text]
  • Grantland Rice
    Grantland Rice Grantland Rice was one of America’s best- loved sportswriters. He had a vast knowledge of many sports, and his ability to write eloquently about them was uncanny. But, what distinguished Rice from other sportswriters was the way he reported sports. He believed that good sportsmanship could lift people to morally greater heights. His philosophy of life became evident in his writing. Rice was a columnist, a poet, and an author. He was also a film producer, a family man, a war veteran, and a skillful golfer. His personal accomplishments in over 50 years of sports writing were amazing. Through the eyes of Grantland Rice, good athletes became American heroes. He made household names of athletes like Jack Dempsey, Ty Cobb, Jim Thorpe, Red Grange, and Bill Tilden. He wrote about Gene Tunney, Babe Didrikson Zaharias, Babe Ruth, Christy Mathewson, and the “Four Horsemen” of Notre Dame. Grantland Rice honed the craft of sportswriting. Rice often used poetry in his columns. One example was “Game Called,” a poem he wrote on the date of Babe Ruth’s death. Rice’s most famous quotation came from his poem “Alumnus Football.” The last two lines of that poem are: “For when the One Great Scorer comes to mark against your name, He writes—not that you won or lost—but how you played the Game.” His death in 1954 was mourned across the United States, but Grantland Rice has not been forgotten. Since 1954, the Grantland Rice Trophy has been awarded to the national champions in college football. 10 © Rainbow Bridge Publishing Reading Comprehension • RB-904058 Reading Comprehension 1.
    [Show full text]
  • Play Ball! Sports As Paradigms of Masucline Performance In
    PLAY BALL! SPORTS AS PARADIGMS OF MASUCLINE PERFORMANCE IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY UNITED STATES by GEOFFREY AARON DOUGLAS (Under the Direction of DAVID SALTZ) ABSTRACT This study examines the culture of baseball and football as paradigms for masculine performativity. The goal is to establish a new way to examine the construction of masculine behavior in United State popular culture. After establishing how both baseball and football present distinct performative images of masculinity, a materialist reading of plays and films representing both sports will reveal how images of gender identity extend into the United States’ popular culture. INDEX WORDS: Gender, Masculinity, Performative Acts, Baseball, Football, Western, Film, Drama, Theatre, Babe Ruth, Grantland Rice, Jimmy Stewart, John Wayne, Walter Camp PLAY BALL! SPORTS AS PARADIGMS OF MASUCLINE PERFORMANCE IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY UNITED STATES by GEOFFREY AARON DOUGLAS BA, SAMFORD UNIVERSITY, 2006 MA, TEXAS STATE UNIVERSITY, 2011 A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of The University of Georgia in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY ATHENS, GEORGIA 2017 © 2017 GEOFFREY AARON DOUGLAS All Rights Reserved PLAY BALL! SPORTS AS PARADIGMS OF MASUCLINE PERFORMANCE IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY UNITED STATES by GEOFFREY AARON DOUGLAS Major Professor: David Saltz Committee: John Bray Jepkorir Rose Chepyator-Thompson Christopher Sieving Electronic Version Approved: Suzanne Barbour Dean of the Graduate School The University of Georgia May 2017 iv DEDICATION This work is dedicated to my parents, who encourage me to love an accept everyone. v ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS There are too many people, without whose support and expertise this study would not exist, to list.
    [Show full text]
  • Boosting the Game, and the Game by Dick Friedman
    Boosting the game, and The Game Dick Friedman ’73—proud alumnus of both Fair Harvard and Sports Illustrated, where he toiled for many years—covers contemporary Crim- son football for this magazine each fall, in lively, nuanced accounts resonant with the sport’s history (see page 28). Now he has dived deep into the glory days, a century and more ago, when big-time college football meant Harvard vs. Yale. In this excerpt from chapter eight of his new book, The Coach Who Strangled the Bulldog: How Harvard’s Percy Haughton Beat Yale and Reinvented Football, Friedman recalls the now unlike- ly-seeming origins of the industrial-strength “amateur” contests currently featured on campuses across the land (and national television broadcasts) each autumn and early winter. vThe Editors panning the Charles River from vard president Charles W. Eliot decreed that Boylston [now Kennedy] Street to Dick Friedman his school would no longer play major football the entrance of Soldiers Field, the Larz by games at neutral sites, but on campus only. Anderson Bridge opened in time for the 1913 season. Sup- Within 20 years the Big Three all would have colossal stadiums, planting a narrow, rickety, wooden drawbridge that had and game day had become a ritual, complete with spectacle, song, Sbeen a choked, dust-kicking trial on game days, the sturdy, paved and spirit. For good or for ill, these institutions set the pattern that structure made the march from Harvard Square to the stadium has been followed and refined by universities to this day. more tolerable, especially for the multitudes who trekked across There were many carpers, at Harvard and elsewhere.
    [Show full text]
  • Presents Pro Football Leagues: Past, Present and Future Football League from 2001-2008
    About the Lecturer A veteran of 21 years in the U.S. military, football historian Randy Snow The History of Football-101 is a one- lives in Kalamazoo, Michigan. He hour lecture with an accompanying attended his first professional football PowerPoint slideshows designed to game in 1975 at the age of 16 and has educate as well as entertain. There are been a fan of the game ever since. He three main parts to the lecture; attended USFL games in the 1980s and saw his first Canadian Football League Early Football History (1823-1906) game in person in 1994. Iconic Figures in Football History He was a season ticket holder of the Grand Rapids Rampage of the Arena Presents Pro Football Leagues: Past, Present and Future Football League from 2001-2008. Since 2011, Randy has been a member The iconic figures and pro football of the Professional Football leagues sections can also be presented The History of as stand-alone lectures at 20-30 Researchers Association as well as minutes each. There is also a separate Toastmasters International. Football - 101 20-30 minute lecture on African- American struggles for equality on the gridiron called; A unique “class” on the rich history of Gridiron Integration American football Explore the history behind some of the forgotten people and events that have Contact Us shaped football into the game we know today. E-mail: [email protected] If you love football, or if you love On The Web Since 2006 history, you will love these lectures! http://www.theworldoffootball.com The History of Pro Iconic Figures in Football Gridiron Integration Football Leagues History African-American Triumphs and Struggles for Equality in Football In this section, many past and current In this section, you will learn about This 30-minute lecture tell the stories professional football leagues will be many of the people who helped shape of several pioneering players who discussed, such as; the game in its early years.
    [Show full text]
  • Item of the Week from the Long Island Collection
    Item of the Week from the Long Island Collection LONG ISLAND COLLECTION DIGITAL LONG ISLAND EAST HAMPTON STAR ARCHIVE Grantland Rice Residence, East Hampton, L.I. Whether or not you're familiar with Grantland Rice, it's safe to say you've heard the well-known phrase for which he's credited, "It's not whether you win or lose, it's how you play the game." Born Henry Grantland Rice in Murfreesboro, Tennessee in 1880, Rice was an American sportswriter known for his refined writing style that elevated his subjects beyond the earthly world of sports. He worked for a number of publications before syndicating his column "The Sportlight" in 1913. By the late 1920's, the column appeared in over 250 newspapers and Rice became the first nationally famous sportswriter in the country. In addition to his writing, he supervised Sportlight Films, which produced sports reels for Paramount between the 1920's and 1950's. He also helped voice the first radio broadcast of the World Series held at the Polo Grounds in Manhattan in 1922, where the N.Y. Giants beat the N.Y. Yankees in the best of five games. Interestingly enough, he's even responsible for the first movie to feature a professional baseball player. The silent film Somewhere in Georgia (1917), starring Ty Cobb, was based upon one of Rice's short stories. In 1927, Grantland Rice and some of his friends purchased land in East Hampton with the intention of having summer homes built. As such, Rice purchased four acres from Paul Salembier and subsequently hired contractor Edward M.
    [Show full text]
  • Football Legend Vince Lombardi Was Not Known to Toss Around Many
    ootball legend Vince Lombardi was not known to toss around many compliments, F so when he signed the back of a 1968 Dapper Dan Club dinner program “To Al Abrams, in high esteem, Vince Lombardi,” it was a huge compliment to the Post-Gazette The 1 By Richard “Pete” Peterson “Pete” Richard By sportswriter and longtime coordinator of the charity event. Aside from occasional fan mail and Golden Quill awards, sportswriters rarely receive accolades, yet they were and often still are a prime conduit between athletes and fans. During the age when newspapers were the main source for news and opinions about sports, Pittsburgh’s top sportswriters wrote daily columns, sponsored major charities, and became household names. They were routinely elected president of the Baseball Writers Association of America and of the National Football Writers Association.2 A few eventually received Hall of Fame recognition for their meritorious service to sports, including playing a leading role in the integration of baseball, and one became famous for creating the Terrible Towel.3 Pittsburgh’s newspaper archives are filled with bylines of The Golden Age of Pittsburgh’s Sportswriters sportswriters who wove the stories that helped transform the city’s championship teams and athletes into legends. Storytellers 28 WESTERN PENNSYLVANIA HISTORY | SUMMER 2010 Pirates Pitcher Deacon Phillippe. Library of Congress. There is no way of knowing who was Wagner’s signature, the American Tobacco Pittsburgh’s first sportswriter, but longtime Company stopped printing the Wagner card, Pittsburgh Press sports editor Chet Smith, but in 2007 one of the few still in circulation set writing in Pittsburgh and Western Pennsylvania a record by selling for $2.8 million.
    [Show full text]