Don’t let the title fool you, the focus here is not simply concentrated on the great players who populate the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y. Some immortals surely appear in its pages, but obscure old-timers and journeymen are also in the mix of collected profiles of many of the game’s most colorful personalities, including rowdies and head-hunting pitchers.
Here's an excerpt from "The Cooperstown Chronicles":
“Another aspect of [Ty] Cobb’s life that is almost always ignored is the fact that in his second year with the Tigers, 1906, he was unmercifully hazed by a group of Tiger players, led by outfielder Matty McIntyre, a Staten Island-raised ‘Yankee’ who was both jealous of Ty’s talents, and paranoid about keeping his own job. McIntyre, along with Ed Seiver, Ed Killian, George Mullin, and a few other players, became part of what was later known as the anti-Cobb faction. When people look at the raw cruelty Ty was subjected to, they can better understand why he had to harden himself the way he did. From having his prized homemade ash bats destroyed to having his cleats nailed to the clubhouse floor, Cobb also underwent the humiliation of having his clothes soaked in water and tied up in knots, coupled with constant verbal abuse. This went beyond simple hazing and would never be tolerated in today’s media-driven world of 24-hour news cycles.”
