4-2-15-Ty Cobb

Thursday, April 2, 2015

We received this story from Fred in response to our April Fool’s Day 365 posting:

My wife was taking her two sons to the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y. because they loved baseball. As they were packing for the trip in April, Kit’s brother, Mike, stopped by. They boys told him how excited they were.

 He responded, “Didn’t you know about the fire in the Baseball Hall of Fame? It’s been on the news all morning. The museum lost a lot of the valuable artifacts”.After much questioning, no one could dispute the story. (This was before 24-7 news coverage and Google.) The boys were beside themselves and calmed down only after a lot of tears were shed. As Mike was leaving several hours later, his parting words were, “April fool.”

This anecdote got us thinking about the origins of the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York. The idea of a baseball museum was conceived in 1935 as a way of increasing local post-depression tourism. The museum was opened in January 1936 with the induction of five charter members: Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth, Honus Wagner, Christy Mathewson (posthumously), and Walt Johnson. The athletes were selected by the Baseball Writers’ Association of America (BBWAA). Today the BBWAA and the Baseball Hall of Fame Committee on Baseball Veterans select the honorees. The following Detroit Tigers have been inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame:

Player Years Manager Years
Earl Averill 1939-1940 Sparky Anderson 1979-1995
Jim Bunning 1955-1963 Ed Barrow** 1903-1904
Ty Cobb 1905-1926 Ty Cobb** 1921-1926
Mickey Cochrane 1934-1937 Mickey Cochrane** 1934-1938
Sam Crawford 1903-1917 Bucky Harris 1929-1933, 1955-1956
Larry Doby 1959 Hughie Jennings 1912-1920
Charlie Gehringer 1924-1942  
Goose Goslin 1934-1937 ** Elected to Hall of Fame as player
Hank Greenberg 1930, 1933-1941, 1945-1946    
Bucky Harris* 1929, 1931    
Harry Heilmann 1914, 1916-1930    
Waite Hoyt 1930-1931    
Hughie Jennings* 1907, 1909, 1912, 1918    
Al Kaline 1953-1974    
George Kell 1946-1952    
Heinie Manush 1923-1927    
Eddie Mathews 1967-1968    
Hal Newhouser 1939-1953    
Al Simmons 1936    
Sam Thompson 1906    
Bold indicates played more games with Detroit than any other team
* Elected to Hall of Fame as manager
 

 

https://detroit.tigers.mlb.com/det/history/hall_of_famers.jsp

 

Photo: Ty Cobb, First player inducted to the Hall of Fame was a Detroit Tiger

 


To commemorate the City of Troy’s 60th Anniversary in 2015, we will publish a different story each day that highlights a person, discovery, or event that occurred locally, regionally, nationally, or even globally between 1955 and 2015 and that helped shape our lives and our community. We will try to post stories on important anniversary dates, but we also realize that dates are less critical than content and context. We will include the facts related to controversial stories, allowing our readers to form their own opinions. We invite you to read and comment on the stories. Your suggestions for topics are also welcome and can be posted on our Facebook page, www.facebook.com/TroyHistoricVillage. You can also email stories or ideas to the 365 Story Editor at ed@thvmail.org.

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