Although often overshadowed in baseball history by Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb is considered by many sports enthusiasts to be the greatest player to ever play the game of baseball. Tyrus Raymond Cobb, was born December 18, 1886 in Banks County in Narrows, Georgia. He quickly gained much notoriety for his great skill in baseball and eventually earned a position with the Detroit Tigers at the age of nineteen, after playing for several semi-pro and Sally league teams. Cobb compiled twelve batting titles, a .367 career average, and totaled 4191 hits (second all-time) in a career that spanned twenty-two years (1905-1928). With these and other superb achievements, Ty was inducted as the first member of the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1936, receiving more votes the Babe Ruth and Honus Wagner. As Cobb aged, his physical condition worsened and he developed terminal cancer. He eventually died July 17, 1961 in Atlanta, Georgia at the age of seventy-four. The greatness cannot begin to be quantified in statistics and numbers. Ty Cobb redefined the words hard work and determination by stretching his limited God-given ability to the maximum, and making himself into a baseball legend. Cobb throughout his lifetime insisted that he was "not a super athlete, rather he had a great desire to win." Thus, Ty Cobbs motivation and determination to excel created a pathway to his success. Much of what made Ty Cobb so successful was his great work ethic. Cobb displays this desire best in what could be considered his epithet: "Ive got to be first all the time- in everything." This work ethic was instilled in him from the moment that he was born. Ty always wanted to play the game he fell in love with from an early age, but his father always aspired for his son to make something worthwhile out of himself. He wished for Ty to study in college to perhaps become a doctor or lawyer, but the seventeen year old teenager had different plans. Young Ty decided to defy his f...
