Just a Real Son of a Bitch
I recently
have been watching Ken Burns Baseball that was originally produced for PBS on
the MLB channel. I have seen bits and
pieces of it before but this is the first time I have watched the show in
sequence.
The first
three programs deal will the early days of baseball. Some say when it was a game and it mostly
deals with the dead ball era (the era before the ball was wound and stitched
very tight and when this occurred home runs became the thing).
It was an
era of hitters and also of players who had a bit more personality than the
ballplayers of today (really after the 70’s personalities seem like they are just
not the same).
Baseball
has had its share of villains over the years and Ty Cobb is one that is
probably always at the top of the list.
Let’s face it, he was a bad person.
Racist in nature, hated by his own teammates and described by one
teammate as “Just a Real Son of A Bitch”.
If you remember in the movie Field of Dreams Ray Liotta’s Joe Jackson
character made a reference to Ty Cobb wanting to come and play and he referred
to the fact that none of them could stand him when he was playing so they told
him to go screw himself.
The Biblical meaning of the name Tyrus is: Strength; rock; sharp. As pointed out in Ken Burns Baseball the name
is also synonymous with the Siege of Tyre
which was a city that refused to surrender to Alexander the Great. Cobb’s drive and demeanor on the field pretty
much matched the origins of his name.
Cobb was
one of the, if not the greatest hitter of all time. Just look at his career stats:
Ty Cobb's Career
Batting Statistics
G
|
AB
|
R
|
H
|
2B
|
3B
|
HR
|
RBI
|
BB
|
SO
|
SB
|
AVG
|
SLG
|
3033
|
11429
|
2245
|
4191
|
724
|
297
|
117
|
1938
|
1249
|
357
|
892
|
.367
|
.513
|
His career average will never
be matched and his numbers for hits and stolen bases will likely always be in
the top five. I doubt anyone will ever
win twelve batting titles either and for sure not twelve consecutive batting
titles. There are other records that say
he struck out 600 times instead of 357 but pretty amazing feat either way.
Cobb was not just a great
player but a great competitor. One of
the most competitive men to ever play a professional sport period based what I
have learned about him over the years.
What motivated Cobb? Per a story covered by Ken Burns Baseball on
the road Cobb was always the first one back to his room, before his traveling
roommate, and first in the tub. Once
when his roommate made it back before him and was in the tub first. Cobb,
upon arriving in his room, went in and yanked the teammate out of the tub, while
yelling, “I have to be first! I have to
be first in everything I do!”
Cobb was motivated by his
father. A father who told him when he
left to go play baseball professional in a lower level league to not come back
a failure. Tremendous pressure put on a
young kid who idolized his dad.
Cobb was an immediate success
and two weeks before the Tigers purchased him to play in Detroit Cobb’s father
was tragically killed by his own mother.
Cobb was quoted in later years that he was driven by his father’s
challenge and even more driven by the fact his father never got to see his
success.
I look at other great athletes
who were driven like no others, Larry Bird and Ben Hogan come to mind, who had
motivation and drive that came, like Cobb, from tragic losses of their fathers. The great ones are usually driven like no one
else for some reason. There are some who
do it on talent alone but that usually runs out on them much quicker than those
who do it with drive and hard work.
Nicklaus, Jones, Tiger and
Mickelson also come to mind who were not driven by tragedy related to their
fathers but by fathers who motivated them to become the champions they were and
are on the golf course.
Love him or hate him Ty Cobb is one of the
greatest athletes sports has ever known.
Even as much of a Son of A Bitch as Cobb was he also did
some great things in his life with his wealth that rarely garner any recognition
and is really more of his legacy than what he did on the baseball field.
He donated $100,000 in his parents' name for his hometown to
build a modern 24-bed hospital, Cobb
Memorial Hospital, which today is part
of the Ty Cobb
Healthcare System in the State of
Georgia today. He also established the Cobb Educational Fund,
which awarded scholarships to needy Georgia students bound for college, by
endowing it with a $100,000 donation in 1953 (of Coca Cola Stock) and that
endowment still exists today.
Ty
Cobb the ballplayer, one of best ever, Ty Cobb the person, pretty much a rotten
guy but in the end Ty Cobb showed he had some heart and did care about more
than just himself.
I
think I have allot of Cobb in me because I am very much motivated like he, Bird
and Hogan were for sure. I also think as
you grow older you think about your legacy and what will your legacy be and I
think that is why Cobb did some of the good things he did later in his life. Not everyone will have a legacy like a Ty
Cobb from the sense of how famous his legacy is, what it has done and will be
for years to come but everyone can leave a legacy.
Thinking about your legacy and what you legacy means and how it could be carried on his healthy thinking and something that people should take time to reflect upon. Understanding legacy and what that means has also given a big boost to my career because I have established things at work that will be my legacy for years to come that will benefit people and my organization
Read more on Cobb here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ty_Cobb
Cracking the Code
I
recently finished reading Paul Azinger’s book Cracking the Code which is the
story of how he put together his team for the 2008 Ryder Cup and led the team
to a successful Cup performance.
I
have to say now I understand what Mickelson was saying at the close of the 2014
event and why the European Team has an advantage before the matches even
start.
We
had all heard about the pod system but the book goes into some fascinating
detail of where Azinger got the idea, how the idea evolved with input from
allot of people and how in the end he had three pods of three people and he let
each pod decide what player to add to their pod and the team.
He
created some ownership in the process and truly built a team from the
Pods. So when Watson said it is not Pods
it is a team of 16 people he had it half right but the Pods are important.
The
book also gave me some great ideas for work also. My direct reports lead teams and our projects
are team based with all team members dependent on each other. There is some pretty cool stuff that we are
talking about incorporating that Azinger used in his process and execution.
Lesson
Learned! I need to read more books
because you never know where the next great idea can come from.