Charles Leerhsen is a former executive editor at Sports Illustrated. He has written for Rolling Stone, Esquire and The New York Times. His books include Crazy Good: The True Story of Dan Patch, the Most Famous Horse in America and Blood and Smoke: A True Tale of Mystery, Mayhem, and the Birth of the Indy 500. He is the winner of the SABR Baseball Research Award. He lives in Brooklyn with his wife, the writer Sarah Saffian.Visit him at CharlesLeerhsen.com.
"Leerhsen wraps his penetrating profile of Cobb in gripping
play-by-play rundowns and a colorful portrait of the anarchic
'dead-ball' era, when players played drunk and fans chased
offending umpires from the field. This is a stimulating evocation
of baseball's rambunctious youth and the man who epitomized
it."--Publishers Weekly
"Leerhsen's magisterial reexamination presents a detailed view of
Cobb culled from actual research rather than hearsay. . . . Thanks
to exhaustive research, we now have a more realistic and
sympathetic view of Cobb. . . . This is an important work for
baseball and American historians as Cobb was one of the country's
first true superstars."--Library Journal
"Now Cobb has an advocate, one who's actually read all the old
newspaper clippings (some of which flatly contradict common
"knowledge"), visited the terrain, and interviewed as many relevant
people as he could find. Cobb was indeed a bruised peach but, as
the author shows convincingly, not a thoroughly rotten
one."--Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"Charles Leerhsen has done baseball aficionados a great mercy by
bringing to life Ty Cobb, the man and the ballplayer--warts and
all, some might say. . . . And even more, Leerhsen summons up the
days when baseball was young and innocent and, one thinks, filled
with a kind of raw vitality that is missing today. . . . They don't
make them like that--or like Cobb--anymore. And the real Cobb is
more compelling than the one of legend and film."--Geoffrey Norman
"The Weekly Standard "
"Not only the best work ever written on this American sports
legend: It's a major reconsideration of a reputation unfairly
maligned for decades."--Allen Barra "The Boston Globe "
"A clear-eyed portrayal of Cobb not as a tyrant and not as a saint.
It showcases Cobb as a flawed and vulnerable human being who, after
suffering a nervous breakdown his second season, came back to
fearlessly embrace his talent in an era that was just discovering
what it meant to love baseball."--Anna Clark "Detroit Free Press
"
"Ground-breaking, thorough and compelling. . . . The most complete,
well-researched and thorough treatment of Cobb that has ever been
written."--Bob D'Angelo "Tampa Tribune "
"No matter what you think of Ty Cobb, you'll want to read Charles
Leerhsen's fascinating biography, as he dispels rumors, exposes
frauds, and challenges everything you thought you knew about the
most controversial individual ever to play the great game of
baseball."--Kevin Baker, author of Sometimes You See It Coming
"Superbly reported, wonderfully written and often quite funny,
Charles Leerhsen's Ty Cobb: A Terrible Beauty, is a highly
enlightening and highly enjoyable book. A new Cobb
emerges--many-faced and passionate--in this important, original
view of a figure well installed in baseball lore. This is a
first-rate book by a first-rate writer."--Kostya Kennedy, author of
56: Joe DiMaggio and the Last Magic Number in Sports
"Surprise! It wasn't the Georgia Peach who was prejudiced
(especially), it was us, against him. Leerhsen's feat of research
brings the real Cobb home at last."--Roy Blount Jr., author of
Alphabet Juice
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