Ty Cobb’s Mom Was A Killer

We all know about Ty Cobb's baseball accolades. 

He is widely credited with setting 90 MLB records, and the man won NINE batting titles in a row from 1907 - 1915. 

Even though the title in 1910 is debatable. 

There are also a lot of terrible stories about him. 

Many believe he was a racist lunatic who sharpened his cleats to intentionally hurt opposing players and even killed a man hours before a game. 

Most of the far-fetched myths about him have been debunked, but one thing is pretty clear; Ty Cobb appears to have been one mean son of a bitch.

But in life, there's usually a reason for everything, and Cobb definitely had his reasons to be mad at the world. 

For one, his dad was murdered. 

But not by a stranger or one of his enemies. 

William Cobb was murdered by his own wife, Cobb's mother.

How tf did that happen?? 

On August 9, 1905 Cobb received a telegram from a long-time friend. 

"COME AT ONCE. YOUR FATHER DEAD IN SHOOTING ACCIDENT. HURRY." 

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Ty was playing for the Augusta Tourists at the time, and was devastated by the news, but he hadn't even heard the worst part. 

His friends didn't have the heart to tell him the person on the other end of the trigger was his own mother.

Word around town was that Amanda Cobb was cheating on her husband.

Papa Cobb got ahold of this info and devised a plan to catch her in the act - he told her that he was going out to their farm and wouldn't be back that night. 

He parked his buggy out of sight, and around midnight, secretly returned to the house armed with a pistol. 

William climbed up onto the porch and approached the bedroom window. 

Exactly what happened next is still murky, but Amanda Cobb pulled the trigger and put two bullets in her husband, killing him instantly. 

She claimed to have mistaken William for a burglar, but the evidence didn’t support her story.

A coroner's inquest ordered her arrest on the charge of manslaughter, but she was acquitted in March, 1906. 

It's interesting to imagine how this would've played out if DNA was available at the time of the crime, but we'll never know the whole truth. 

Less than a month after the incident, Ty Cobb became a major leaguer. 

Looking back on it, he said there was little to celebrate in that moment since his father would never know. 

Cobb was only 18 when all this went down, and it undoubtedly affected him for the rest of his life. 

He described his father as “the best man he ever knew."