Researching Ty Cobb-Two theater performances

Following my debut in Inherit The Wind, February 3, 2006,  I spent the year reading many books about Cobb and learning how to use a computer. Of all the things I learned this year, one was not to listen to the many naysayers who told me I couldn't write a script because I had never acted and I never wrote anything but business letters. I started collecting positive mental quotes such as:

Dale Carnegie: "Believe that you will succeed and you will."
Walt Disney: "Dream it, believe it, do it."
James Allen: "Dream lofty dreams and as you dream, so shall you become."
Ty Cobb: "I clearly saw myself playing baseball in those Northern ballparks, and I saw myself a success'"

That was my approach as I continued researching and writing the script. As I wrote and started to memorize the words, I visualized myself on stage, as Cobb in front of an audience.

I kept detailed notes about this complex man. From the time Ty was a young lad growing up in Royston, Georgia, he dreamed and pictured himself playing Major League baseball when he grew up.

Plaque at Hall of Fame, Cooperstown, NY

Of course, lots of boy do as I did as a kid growing up in Brooklyn, New York. I was the best hitter on the Dodgers, in my fantasy.  In those days, the Dodgers  had stars like Duke Snider, Roy Campenella, Carl Furillo, Gil Hodges, Pee Wee Reese and of course Jackie Robinson. Little did I know that in the future, I would play, on stage the greatest player that ever played the game.

I was an award winning professional photographer with a successful portrait/wedding studio located in downtown San Mateo, California. I was an entrepreneur,  a business man who eventually operated four businesses. Weddings were my specialty. From the day I opened the studio in August 1965, I always saw my self as a successful photographer. The other business's
were a frame shop, wedding show producer and bridal magazine publisher, an annual publication.

Cobb;s famous hands way apart swing

An entrepreneur is defined as someone who can visualize something and when he visualizes it, he can see exactly how to make it happen. I discovered I had the ability to capture beautiful brides, handsome grooms and capture the events occurring during the course of the wedding in an artistic, professional manner without annoying the brideby taking her away from her party. This smooth professional approach led  affluent clients to seek my services.

Not only did I read books about Cobb, but books about Babe Ruth, Joe DiMaggio, Ted Williams and Shoeless Joe Jackson. 

Adding music to the show, twenty-four pieces all together. introduced the following scene. All of the music was in the computer so it fell to Mr. Clay Beatty, my assistant to coordinate his cue, the last line of the previous scene with the new scene. The music lasted about twenty to thirty seconds giving me my cue, and an opportunity for me to relax, drink some cold water and wipe my brow as the show takes place on a hot humid evening in July in Atlanta, GA. The coordination between Clay and I had to be flawless to create a perfect flow from scene to scene. We practiced this over and over again until it was immaculate.

There is a scene where Ty calls Joe and the music is Diamonds are a girl's best friend from the film Gentlemen Prefer Blonds that Marilyn stared in.

Joe married Marilyn in Saint Peter's and Paul Catholic church San Francisco. I learned Joe and Ty were friends so Ty calls Joe as any friend would to congratulate him on his upcoming marriage. But this was no ordinary marriage. This made headlines across the country.  Joe was marrying  America's sweetheart, America's darling.                                                                                                            

Ty dialed Joe on a princess phone a friend gave me. The audience hears Ty speak, not joe. Cobb, who proffered hitting and financial advice to The Yankee Clipper was not shy to offer marital advice too. Ty advises Joe to give Marilyn diamonds, lots of diamonds. "Women love diamonds" he tell him. Joe should have accepted Ty's advice as the marriage failed six months later. Not because Joe did not give his beautiful wife diamonds. He gave her plenty. They had other issues.  

In early September, I auditioned for a part in Inherit The Wind, this time playing at The Hillbarn Theater in Foster City, California. Now a veteran stage actor with one show under my belt, I bravely read for two roles and landed them both; a citizen in the small town and a juror once again. The show opened October 19th and also received rave reviews from the local theater critic.

Our director, Virginia Abascal had her vision on how to direct the cast, totally different from the approach in Half Moon Bay. This was a lesson for me how two directors can work with the same script but have totally different approaches to tell the same story. I made many friends in the cast including actress Wendy Wood who I regaled with stories about my Cobb show. Not a baseball fan, she asked me "who was he"? But, she was impressed with my performance and several years later, she interviewed me for her magazine that she published in Florida, Forever Cincuenta.

At shows end, when the judge asked, "how say you" to the jury, I stood and loudly said, "guilty your honor".

"I believe youngsters all around the country will read baseball books and see my name and photos throughout those books and ask their daddies, who was Ty Cobb daddy? Their daddies will say, Cobb! He was the greatest player that ever played the game."

A line from the stage show.

A friend told me about a writers club at the Senior Center in Half Moon Bay. Every Thursday morning for many weeks I would bring a short piece to read, we were given ten minutes to read. Copies were given to all attendees to write their comments. The instructor was Ms. Susan Black, a published writer and poet who was extremly beneficial to me in her critique of the piece helping me put together a script that enabled me to become as successful as I did.

Cobb quotes - "I may have been fierce, but never low or underhand" Source: Baseball As I Have Known it. (Fred Lieb 1977)

Rehearse, rehearse, rehearse

Thirty actors showed up at the Coastal Repertory Theater early December, 2005  for a reading of the script for Inherit The Wind, scheduled to open February 3, 2006. We sat around a large room each reading our part led by our Director Roxane Ashe. I played Mr. Bannister, a juror.

The play opened on Broadway, New York in the mid-fifties. The movie premiered July 7, 1960 in London and in November in the USA and was based on the Scopes  "Monkey Trial" that took place in the 1920's. A Tennessee schoolteacher was put on trial for violating the Butler Act, a state law that prohibited public school teachers from teaching evolution instead of creationism.       

Drawing intense national attention in the media, a reporter, played by Gene Kelly reports two of the nations leading lawyers battle head to head. William Harrison Brady, stage name: (In life, William Jennings Bryan,  a three time nomnee for the Presidency, a staunch foe of Darwinism and a biblical scholar. Mr. Bryan was one of America's most renowned public speakers) was played by Frederick March in the film. For the defense, Henry Drummond, stage name: (in life, Clarence Darrow, a controversial, highly successful attorney and friend of Mr. Bryan) was played by Spencer Tracy in the film.

Famous 3 bats on shoulder pose

The play derived it's name from Proverbs 11:29 "he that troubleth his own house, shall inherit the wind."

I immersed myself in the character and intensely studied the twenty lines I was to say.  My fear was that I would forget my lines and make a fool of myself so I rehearsed repeatedly.  I recorded the lines on my tape recorder and played it over and over again, in my car and at night before going to sleep.                                              

Having been a professional photographer for close to thirty years, I was used to working alone.  The experience of working with a team, a group of talented, experienced actors including two accomplished youngsters was a new experience for me. I was becoming part of the theater family. 

Cobb won this luxurious car for
winning the batting title in 1911 with a 420 BAV.

Our first day off script the cast was expected to rehearse on stage sans script. This made me nervous. I knew my lines but did not know what to do or where to go on stage as we rehearsed a picnic scene. With twenty actors on the set, filling our plates with food (potato salad) and tasty grapes that rolled around on the paper plates we were given.

 Holding a plastic glass with lemonade and the plate with grapes made me nervous and fearful I would spill the grapes on the stage. I ate the potato salad fast, following the directors instructions to eat, eat, she said, you're at a picnic. I was fearful of having to say a line with potato salad in my mouth.

Inexperienced as I was, I was lost and in a hazy fog as I walked aimlessly around the stage. Fortunately, our director, Roxane Ashe, a beautiful blond woman with years of experience behind her as actor and director told me politely but firmly "not to wonder like a lost soul around the stage, stay with Don, go where he goes" and I did.

Roxane, the rest of the cast family including the two young boys all knew that I was inexperienced and in over my head. With their understanding as well as Roxanne's, all went well. I loved being a part of the theater family and fell in love with performing on stage.

I asked Paul Smith, the lead actor in the cast how he memorized hundreds of lines. 
"By driving my wife crazy" he said, "walking around the house repeating my lines. Repetition, repetition, repetition is the key", he said.

I asked the two young lads, one ten, the other twelve if this was their first show. The two young veterans of the stage laughed at me. One said it was his seventh and the other said it was his thirteenth performance, he thought. I asked them for their advice as they were so experienced. They both said, "have fun and study your lines, repetition, repetition, repetition", they advised.

The show opened on Friday evening February 3, 2006 to a sold out house.  We received a standing ovation from the appreciative audience. Stacy Trevenon, theater critic for the local newspaper wrote of the show, "The best elements of direction, done right, an outstanding cast and an eye for detail helped do justice to a timely story out of American social and legal history."

It seemed to me that all of this appeared to be part of a master plan preparing me, providing me with the experience i would require to play Mr. Ty Cobb in the coming nine years.

Cobb quotes:  Every great batter works on the theory that the pitcher is more afraid of him than he is of the pitcher." Source: The Tiger Wore Spikes (John McCallum, 1956)

In the beginning, research, writing and acting

I have gently joshed with a few librarians about the mis-filing of the book I took home with me along with the Robinson book. It was Ty Cobb by Charles C. Alexander. As a long time baseball fan, I was aware of the name Ty Cobb but knew nothing about the man. 

Alexander introduced me to the volatile, proud, intelligent, fierce, complex man who was determined to be the best player in the game. He allowed no-one to get in his way, opponents or teammates. I devoured the book and read two more by a man named Al Stump:  Ty Cobb, My Life in Baseball and Cobb. I was hooked on Cobb and read some more. 

Stump had a reputation for being one of America's most famous sports writers and Cobb hired him to write his autobiography. Over time, Stump's reputation took a hit and he fell from grace. Ted Williams of the Boston Red Sox and a friend of Mr. Cobb and Ron Cobb, baseball historian among others questioned the veracity of Stump's stories about Cobb.

Oil Painting by Dick Perez

                                                            DickPerezImmortals.com


The movie Cobb with one of my favorite actors Tommy Lee Jones came out in 1994 based on the Stump books. Jones was great as Cobb but the film was a stinker and presented Cobb as a devil in spikes, a monster wearing a Tigers uniform. The film had several scenes in it that were not based on fact, some of this due to misinformation Stump wrote about Cobb and some based on the Hollywood script writer that made Cobb look like a savage beast. It was a financial disaster at the box office.

When I decided after reading a few more books and speaking with a Cobb historian at the Hall of Fame, I convinced myself Cobb's story could make a fascinating one-man show. I was intent on showing all sides of the man. He may not have been a saint, but he was not an unredeemed sinner, lots of shades of grey as is the case with most people. He was a complex and misunderstood man, with a negative press, particularly among more modern sports-writers and I wanted to show all sides of him, worts and all.

The gentleman at the Hall, also a Cobb historian suggested I join SABR, Society of American Baseball Research located in Cleveland, Ohio. It was there I was told for an annual fee of $40, they would provide me with about a dozen Cobb historians around the country. I am still an active member of SABR.

I had lunch several times with a Cobb historian from Mt. View, CA who was helpful but the man who would become my mentor, was most accommodating and supportive was Mr. Wesley Fricks from Tampa Bay, FL. We are friends until this day and I owe my success to Wesley.  More about him later.   

In famed wide stance-hands apart

It was around this time, early December 2005 that I had a wild and crazy idea to auditione for a part in a play called Inherit The Wind, scheduled to open at the Coastal Reportory Theater on Main St. in Half Moon Bay in February, 2006. I had never acted a day in my life and didn't know stage left from stage right, but I could read.  I went to the audition that Saturday morning. I was one of about twenty men who showed up to read.

Young Ty 1907

I had been an award winning professional photographer, entrepreneur for the previous thirty years, had never written anything but business letters and had never been on the stage. Talk about thinking out of the box. My thought was, what was the worst that could happen at the audition? I would read a few lines, they might say thank you, next, and I would go home.

That is what happened. But on the following Wednesday, a nice lady from the theater called and asked if I would return on Saturday to read for a small part. I went, I read, and was told, somebody from the theater would call in a few days. Someone did call, and I was accepted.
I was stunned, but delighted. Little did I know my life was about to change.

Chapter 1 Cobb's early life, growing up in Georgia

Signing autographs for the kids

                             MY TRAVELS WITH TY COBB

                                          By Norm Coleman

CHAPTER ONE  Cobb’s early life, growing up in Georgia.

“Challenges are what make life interesting and overcoming them is what makes life meaningful.”

A philosopher, James Allen wrote in one of his books an entire chapter to beginnings.

 He writes, "Most beginnings are small, and appear trivial and insignificant, but in reality they are the most important things in life."

Without a beginning you could have the greatest idea and the greatest plan in the world and you would still fail.  

                                                                                                                               Whereas a modest idea and an incomplete plan often produces success when accompanied by even an "insignificant" beginning.

"Beginning" is just another way to describe the most powerful six-letter word in the vocabulary of achievers: A-C-T-I-O-N.

 But, you say, "I already knew that. I already knew I had to take action to be successful.”

Thus was the beginning of what came to be the one-man show I called, “Ty Cobb-The Greatest Player That Ever Played The Game.” This is the event that changed my life as I turned seventy. This was the challenge I set out for myself, the Sisyphus task I created for myself convinced I could reach the mountaintop successfully.

Let me state at the outset that in reality, I never met Tyrus Raymond (The Georgia Peach) Cobb, considered by many baseball experts to be one of the greatest players that ever played baseball and the greatest hitter of all-time due to his lifetime batting average of 367. This is still the best in Major League history along with the over 90 records he established prior to his retirement.

 He died in Atlanta, Georgia on July 17th, 1961 at the age of 75.   

 Ty Cobb’s Family –early life growing up in Royston

Ty Cobb’s father, William Herschel Cobb was born on February 23,1863. His mother, Amanda Chitwood was born on February 15, 1871.

Mr. Cobb, a rural school teacher married Amanda on February 11, 1886. He was twenty-three, she was fifteen.

Tyrus Raymond Cobb was born on December 18, 1886.

Ty had one brother, John Paul, born on February 23, 1889. Cobb’s sister, Florence Leslie was born October 29, 1892.

Born in the Narrows, Georgia, Ty was raised in Royston, Georgia.

He became fascinated with baseball at the age of six and was often seen playing a game called Cat. A player would throw a ball in the air, the batter would swing and run to first. The fielder would then throw the ball as hard as he could at the runner. This resulted in many bruises Ty would occur, but he learned to handle pain, without crying.

As Tom Hanks said, in the film, A League of their Own;  (1) “There’s no crying in baseball.”

A neighborly carpenter created the black ash bats Ty took to Augusta and then to Detroit made his first bats for him.

His first glove, like his first uniform was made by his mother. Ty, with friends were often seen searching for scrap metal that he sold to buy his first mitt.

Amanda noticed many times Ty throwing rocks in the air and hitting them with a branch. He would throw a ball against a wall and practiced fielding for hours.

He joined a local team called the Royston Rompers that consisted of boys aged from fifteen to twenty. Ty was twelve. At fourteen, he became the star of that team.

My connection with Cobb

I always did something I was a little not ready to do. I think that’s how you grow. There’s that moment of “Wow” I’m not really sure I can do this, but you push threw those moments, that’s when you have a breakthrough.

That’s what happened to me the day Ty Cobb came into my life. What I learned from him, and how he changed my life. I will reveal this as you read further.

I had a long successful career as an award winning professional photographer, but never acted a day in my life. I recreated my life at seventy and took to the stage becoming an actor, playwright and inspirational speaker. I have portrayed Cobb in venues around the country and Canada over the past nine years.

Cobb and I are at opposite poles of the universe in life and experience. He was born in Georgia twenty-three years after The War Between The States. He fell in love with baseball at the age of six and started playing serious baseball at age 14.

I grew up in mid-depression America, fell in love with baseball at ten and played stickball on the streets of Brooklyn, NY. I became an excellent handball player. That was a sport I excelled at. I wanted to be a sports writer and did so for my High School, Boys High in Brooklyn. Fifty years went by before I became a sports writer once again.

Why I related to Ty (The Georgia Peach) Cobb

You may have known some people who have had success, joy, and triumph, than a tumble into depression, despair or hopelessness. It was this experience that Cobb and I shared.

It was this interconnection that drew me to Ty as I had a similar painful experience detailed in the introduction to this book.

It was mid August 1905. Cobb was enjoying a successful season with the Augusta Tourists, a minor league team in Georgia when his contract was sold to the Detroit Tigers for $750.00 He was told to report to Detroit in a few days.

He was never so happy in his life as all he worked for and dreamed about was about to come to fruition. He invited his brother Paul, some of his friends to watch him play his last game in Georgia before joining the Tigers in Detroit.

He wanted nothing more than to share this momentous occasion with his daddy whom he worshipped and adored. His daddy was God as far as Ty was concerned.

“I worshipped the ground he walked on,” he would say. As fate would have it, this was not meant to be. He went from the height of happiness, to the depth of depression.

He received the sad news that his beloved father had been shot, murdered by his mother, driving him into a state of depression.

Ty reported to Detroit a few days later and got hits in his first two at bats, showing his powerful sense of concentration.

Seven months after this unfortunate tragedy, his mother, Amanda Chitwood Cobb went to trial for killing her husband. She was charged with 2^nd degree manslaughter but was found innocent by a jury of her peers.

In addition to this experience, Ty experienced a year of hazing and bullying from his teammates. That was common in those early days of baseball. Ty fought back earning him an undeserved reputation that he always fought with his teammates. His failure to be accepted by his mates, and the death of his father caused him to fall into a deep state of melancholia.

It was during the following season, 1906 that Ty disappeared from Detroit in late July causing him to miss a shade over 50 games. It was thought at first he suffered from “stomach trouble”.  Later, doctors reported it was not a hernia. The Tigers front office did not communicate to the press leaving the media to circulate rumors  concerning Cobb’s health.

Charles C. Alexander (1) in his book claimed Cobb suffered from, “some sort of emotional and physical collapse” but provided no additional information. Ty was on the edge of a nervous breakdown considering the death of his father and the mental abuse he suffered from his mates. He was showing signs of instability; his nervous system was breaking down.

Given his apparent nervous breakdown, the Tiger media did not report to the public that Ty was sent to a sanitarium in rural upstate Michigan for a period of rest and relaxation (2) He was given medication and had long resting periods of sleep, relaxation, and plenty of time to rest his anxious mind and body. He swam, fished and took long hikes in the nearby forest.

He was not allowed to read newspapers and the press was forbidden. The sanitarium (3) was located in Pontiac, Michigan and was leveled in 1972. Reports circulated in the Detroit Free Press that Cobb was resting at a home in the Northern part of Michigan and doctors there said he would be released before the end of the season.

Ty returned to the team in early September, his personality back, his eyes and skin bright thanks to the salubrious air, sun and rest he had during his period away from the team.

He wound up the season with a 316 batting average. He never discussed his disappearance with teammates or the press or in any books he wrote or were written about him. (4) It was as though the shame of that experience was to difficult for him to ever discuss.

During the remaining twenty-three years of his career, he never batted less then 300 and hit over 400 three times. He was the first player elected into the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York in 1936.

In reading his story, about his rise, fall and comeback, I related to his experience. Clearly, my story is not the same, but runs a similar path that I will write about that in the next chapter.

About the show.

The play takes place in Cobb’s hotel suite in Atlanta, Georgia on the evening of his death, July 17, 1961. A young reporter from the Atlanta Constitution questions him and takes notes. The audience is told this fact, though he is never seen.

Cobb reminisces about his life. Growing up in Georgia, playing baseball as a child, his brief minor league career and his playing days with the Detroit Tigers (1905-1926) ending with the Philadelphia Athletics (1927-28). He talks about his post baseball life, managing the Tigers (1921-26) and his biggest disappointment, never winning a World Series.

He spins anecdotes about various players he knew: Babe Ruth, Joe DiMaggio, Ted Williams, Shoeless Joe Jackson and Lefty O’Doul. Also about his friendships with many presidents he knew, how he became a multi-millionaire, the Educational Foundation he established in Georgia for poor bright, needy Georgia students. Ty strongly believed young students should have a college education that he did not have.

(1) America's stock of athletic young men is depleted during World War II, and a professional all-female baseball league springs up in the Midwest. Sentimental and light, but still thoroughly charming, A League of Their Own is buoyed by solid performances from a wonderful cast:  Tom Hanks, Geena Davis, Madonna and more.

(2) Ty Cobb by Charles Alexander 1984 - page 45 

(3) Peach By Richard Bak - Ty Cobb – In His Time and Ours – page 41

(4) Sanitarium in those days was an establishment for the medical treatment of people who were convalescing from a chronic illness.

Some people today refer to it as a “nuthouse”.

(5) Charles Leerhesen – Ty Cobb – A terrible Beauty

Cobb quotes: "Baseball is a red-blooded sport for red-blooded men. It's no pink tea, and mollycoddles had better stay out. It's a struggle for supremacy, a survival of the fittest."

Quotes about Cobb:  "(Ty) Cobb lived off the field as though he wished to live forever. He lived on the field as though it was his last day." - Branch Rickey, GM, Brooklyn Dodgers

Cobb batting tips:  “Don’t grip your bat at the very end; leave say an inch or two. Also leave about an inch or more between your hands;  that gives you balance and control of  the bat and also keeps your hands from interfering with each other during your swing.”

Show Testimonials: “I am glad that I had the opportunity to assist you in some ways. You have done a great job with your play and you have always done it with a great deal of passion.” David Dombrowski, President Baseball Operations Boston Red Sox.

Sliding into third

Cobb slides into third - Safe!