I'm a 19th century Americanist in terms of my specialty, but I'm a big baseball fan (and huge baseball history nerd), and Ty Cobb has always been one of my favorite people to read about. I haven't read Mr. Leerhsen's book yet, so maybe you can fill me in on two points that have always stuck with me about Ty Cobb and his racism. Perhaps Mr. Leerhsen dispels these historical recollections as apocryphal or exaggerated? If not, then I'd say it is a pretty open-and-shut case about Cobb being a racist.

First, the asphalt incident. In 1908, Cobb (already well-known at that point as a mean-spirited racist) attacked an African-American man who had complained that Cobb had stepped through freshly poured asphalt. Cobb beat the man on the spot, and was convicted of battery. I know there is some question about whether the spring training incident with the groundskeeper ("Bungy") in 1907 ever happened, but along with the 1908 incident, and the not-at-all-secret racist disposition of Cobb, it seems to paint a fairly bleak picture for him.

The second incident I would point to so as to confirm the legends of Cobb's racism would be his 1912 beating of fan Claude Lueker. Lueker reportedly called Cobb a number of things during a game filled with heckling, but it wasn't until he called Cobb a "half-N-word" that Cobb went into the stands and beat Lueker savagely.

Now, Cobb was generally believed to be a mean-spirited, nasty, humorless bastard, so the fact that he was racist as well might be explained away as "well, he hated EVERYBODY." Still, there seemed to be a special reservoir of racial animosity that flowed deep in the shadowy recesses of Cobb very being.

[Sources: Dan Holmes, 'Ty Cobb: An Biography'; Tim Hornbaker, 'War on the Basepaths']