Occidental baseball coach Jason Hawkins still plans to see if he can talk Cobb into playing baseball too, but for now he’s a 6-foot-5 small forward only. As for what life is like as a teenager with a Hall of Famer’s name, particularly when that Hall of Fame had some not-so-wonderful moments chronicled in a movie?
People have given me a hard time about it because Ty Cobb had a tough reputation among a lot of people. They think he wasn’t a very good guy. Some people thought he was a jerk. I’ve had to defend him on more than one occasion. My dad knew him really well. My dad would tell fun stories about when he was young and interacting with Ty Cobb.
When my dad was about 12 my great-grandfather was in his late 60s or 70s. One day he had a fresh linen suit on and they were talking baseball and he decided to teach my dad how to hook-slide. So they go out in the backyard on the grass and Ty Cobb is in his fancy suit and he’s got the cuffs of his pants rolled up and one of his helper ladies came out and said, “Mr. Cobb, you can’t be doing that!” It kind of showed his competitiveness even into his twilight years.”
Maybe they can include that scene if Tommy Lee Jones and Robert Wuhl ever get together for a sequel.
