Cobb

A New York Times Notable Book; Spitball Award for Best Baseball Book of 1994; Basis for a major Hollywood motion picture. Now in paperback, the biography that baseball fans all across the country have been talking about. Al Stump redefined America’s perception of one of its most famous sports heroes with this gripping look at a man who walked the line between greatness and psychosis. Based on Stump’s interviews with Ty Cobb while ghostwriting the Hall-of-Famer’s 1961 autobiography, this award-winning new account of Cobb’s life and times reveals both the darkness and the brilliance of the “Georgia Peach.” “The most powerful baseball biography I have read.”–Roger Kahn, author of THE BOYS OF SUMMER

Al Stump (1916-1995) was born in Colorado Springs, Colorado. During World War II, he was a war correspondent, and afterward he worked as a sportswriter for national and regional publications, including Esquire, The Saturday Evening Post, True Magazine, American Heritage, Los Angeles Magazine, and Sports Illustrated. He wrote—both independently and in collaboration with famous athletes—six books, including Ty Cobb’s My Life in Baseball, Sam Snead’s Education of a Golfer, Champions Against Odds, and The Champion Breed. His article, "Ty Cobb’s Wild 10-Month Fight to Live," written for True Magazine, won the Best American Sport Story award of 1962. It was the basis for the 1994 motion picture Cobb, directed by Ron Shelton.