Sydelle Kramer - Ty Cobb: Bad Boy of Baseball

A NOTE TO PARENTS

When your children are ready to step into reading, giving them the right booksand lots of themis as crucial as giving them the right food to eat. Step into Reading Books present exciting stories and information reinforced with lively, colorful illustrations that make learning to read fun, satisfying, and worthwhile. They are priced so that acquiring an entire library of them is affordable. And they are beginning readers with an important differencetheyre written on four levels.

Step 1 Books, with their very large type and extremely simple vocabulary, have been created for the very youngest readers. Step 2 Books are both longer and slightly more difficult. Step 3 Books, written to mid-second-grade reading levels, are for the child who has acquired even greater reading skills. Step 4 Books offer exciting nonfiction for the increasingly proficient reader.

Children develop at different ages. Step into Reading Books, with their four levels of reading, are designed to help children become goodand interestedreaders faster. The grade levels assigned to the four stepspreschool through grade 1 for Step 1, grades 1 through 3 for Step 2, grades 2 and 3 for Step 3, and grades 2 through 4 for Step 4are intended only as guides. Some children move through all four steps very rapidly; others climb the steps over a period of several years. These books will help your child step into reading in style!

Photo credits: AP/Wide World Photos: ()

Copyright 1995 by S. A. Kramer
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Kramer, Sydelle.
Ty Cobb : bad boy of baseball / by S. A. Kramer.
p. cm. (Step into reading. A step 4 book)
eISBN: 978-0-307-80024-4
1. Cobb, Ty, 1886-1961Juvenile literature. 2. Baseball playersUnited StatesBiographyJuvenile literature. I. Title. II. Series: Step into reading. Step 4 book.
GV865.C6K73 1995
796.357092dc20
[B] 94-39675

STEP INTO READING is a trademark of Random House, Inc.

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Ball four! Ty Cobb walks. Suddenly the stadium crowd is excited. They know Ty will do anything to score. Only twenty-two years old, hes already baseballs smartestand trickiestplayer. Ty, the Detroit Tigers center fielder, is the games first superstar.

Its August 24, 1909. The Tigers are battling the Philadelphia Athletics. With Ty on first, the Athletics are nervous. They know hes fearless on the base paths, always daring fielders to throw him out. Its impossible to predict what hell do next.

Suddenly he takes off! He steals second base easily. Then, an instant later, he charges toward third.

This time the Athletics are ready. The catcher makes a perfect throw to third. But Ty isnt about to give up. He knows how to make it dangerous to tag him out.

Clenching his teeth, he slides hard into the bag. He kicks his right foot in the air, and aims his spikes at the third baseman. If the man tags him, Ty will hurt him. If he tries to dodge the spikes, Ty will be safe.

The third baseman doesnt back off. He tags Ty out. But Tys spikes cut his arm.

The Athletics are angry. They know Ty doesnt care if he injures somebody. Later, their manager calls Ty the dirtiest player in baseball.

It seems wherever Ty goes, trouble always follows. Still, if hes in the lineup, the game is sure to be exciting.

Who is this violent man fans flock to the ballpark to see? What makes baseballs biggest star so nasty?

The Narrows, Georgia, December 18, 1886. A baby boy is born in a white farmhouse built on rich red soil. His father names him after an ancient city called Tyre. Under attack by an enemy, the people of Tyre fought to the last. Little Tyrus Raymond Cobb seems to have that same fighting spirit.

Ty is born into a world thats different from ours. His father marries his mother when she is only twelve. Ty grows up among people who lived through the Civil War, when states from the North fought states from the South. As a Southerner, hes taught that Northerners cannot be trusted. From childhood, hes raised to believe that whites are better than blacks.

Ty Cobb in 1887, only a few months old.

Tys father is an important man. Hes the publisher of the newspaper and the head of all local schools. Ty, he dreams, will achieve even more. Hell be a doctor, a lawyer, or an army officer. The Professor, as Tys dad is nicknamed, feels education is the key to success.

Ty adores his father. But hes not sure the Professor loves him. No matter what Ty does, his father never seems satisfied. Ty grows up feeling he constantly has to prove his worth.

Even as a child, he has a temper. In fifth grade, a classmates goof costs Tys team the spelling bee. Ty is so furious that he beats the boy up. Ty may be very young, but he already hates to lose.

Despite his fathers hopes, Ty is not a top student. Still, there is something hes really good atbaseball. By the time hes fourteen, hes a local star. But the Professor isnt pleasedno game is as important as school.

When he was younger, all Ty wanted was his fathers blessing. But now he needs to play baseball more than anything. He sews his own glove and carves his own bats. Then, when hes seventeen, he asks minor-league teams for a tryout. He does it in secrethe knows the Professor wont approve.

One club, the Augusta Tourists, invites him to try out. Ty tells his father, I just have to go. The Professor is against it, yet allows Ty to leave home. But he warns Ty, Dont come home a failure.

Ty makes the team. Still, hes not good enough yet for the majors. So he practices hard and studies the game. He feels if he becomes the best, his father will accept him. He also believes that to be great, he cant be a nice guy.

By the time hes eighteen, Tys a top minor-league player. But he cant wait to reach the majors. So he writes letters praising himself to a famous sports reporter. He signs them with a fake name.

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