“He performed the greatest feats of everybody, by far. Babe Ruth took a lot of glamor with his home runs, but Ty was daring in all departments. His base stealing speaks for itself!”
RAY SCHALK PRAISES TY COBB AS GREATEST
In my book, Ty Cobb was the greatest of the great. He had the greatest determination of anybody.
He was determined to be better than Tris Speaker, or Eddie Collins, or anybody else. If they went out and stole a couple of bass, he’d go out and steal a couple and then a couple more.
He performed the greatest feats of everybody, by far. Babe Ruth took a lot of glamor with his home runs, but Ty was daring in all departments. His base stealing speaks for itself.
Toward the last he didn’t a Joe Di Maggio or Speaker arm, but he got rid of the ball. His whole record speaks for itself.
I’m a great Ty Cobb fan. He was the first guy who called me when I was enshrined in the Hall of Fame in 1955. He always stopped with Mrs. Schalk and me when he came to town, and all he wanted to do was talk baseball.
I knew he was in the hospital, but I didn’t know he was that sick. He took that trip to California for the opening of the Los Angeles Angels season much against his doctor’s orders.
Then when he came back he went back into the hospital. I called down there a few times, and an aide would answer the phone. He said Cobb was unable to speak to anybody.
I was driving home when I heard it on the radio. It made me stop and listen.