THE SIGNS HAVE

Though methods have changed, stealing signals not new in big leagues

The signal career of Ty Cobb began in 1905. He stole 892 bases in twenty-four regular seasons— it has been said he played twice as hard and thrice as long as the players of his generation—and loved especially to steal home and to show how good he was in what amounted to one-man shows. On July 22, 1909, for the first of four times in his career, Cobb stole second, third, and home in the seventh inning against the Red Sox.

On May 12, 1911, Cobb’s Tigers beat the Highlanders, 6–5, as Cobb scored from first on a short single to right field, scored from second on a wild pitch, and stole home with the winning run.

Even though he was very fast on the base paths—once timed running the one-hundred-yard dash in ten seconds—his genius was based on knowing when the pitcher was going to the plate and identifying any signal that the pitcher would throw over to first base. Cobb, who saw the ballpark as a book to be read, looked for mannerisms and tip- offs more than he tried to steal signs. He maintained that his secret against Cy Young, off whom he often stole, was that when the great pitcher was going to throw to first, he would stand on the mound with his arms slightly away from his body, but when his elbows were pulled in it meant he was going to pitch.

Cobb, whose many flaws included a belief in pseudoscience, claimed that his knowledge of phrenology told him that Walter Johnson was an even-tempered gentleman too timid to hit anyone with a ball. Cobb therefore crowded the plate, and Johnson, apparently not willing to harm Cobb, had to pitch him outside, where Cobb could hit the ball to the opposite field. In his sixty-seven career games against Johnson, Cobb hit .355 against the all-time shutout leader. Cobb also felt that Johnson was the easiest

pitcher to read. “Since he had all that speed, his catcher always signaled for a fast ball, never anything else,” Cobb noted after his playing days were over. “If Johnson shook off the signal, we knew the curve was on its way.”

If Cobb was the greatest reader of inadvertent tips, it is ironic that he could be read by others. Buck Crouse, catcher for the White Sox from 1923 to 1930 who was very effective at catching Cobb stealing, said in an interview after his playing days were over, “Cobb was a guy that when he took a big lead, he wouldn’t run. When he took a short lead, he was gone. So after I watched him just one time, I knew exactly what he was going to do.” In 1948 Arthur Daley of the New York Times told of a catcher— “unfortunately I disremember his name,” Daley wrote—who habitually pounced on bunts laid down by Cobb. Over time, Cobb became curious about this and in his twenty-third year in the game asked the catcher point-blank why he was so successful. “I suppose it’s safe to tell you now, Ty. You’re about at the end of your playing days. But I’ve noticed that just before you’re going to bunt, you wet your lower lip with your tongue.” Though Cobb was a master of reading other players’ mannerisms, he also benefited from a system that stole from opposing catchers routinely. When Cobb came up in 1905, and in the few years following, the spyglass era was in full swing. “At our Detroit park there was a fellow in center field with a pair of glasses strong enough to bring out the fillings in the catcher’s teeth,” he admitted in an article for Life magazine in 1952 titled “Tricks That Won Me Ball Games.” Near him was an advertisement on the fence that read THE DETROIT NEWS: BEST NEWSPAPER IN THE WEST. Cobb wrote, “If you watched the B in that advertisement closely, you would watch little slots open and close. If the slot was open in the top half of the B, our spotter had picked off the signal for a fast ball. If the slot in the bottom of the B opened we knew a curve was coming. I don’t know whether the ad sold any newspapers, but it was a great thing for the Detroit batting averages.”

On the other hand, Cobb had little interest in his own team’s signs. In 1905 at age eighteen, when Cobb joined the Tigers, he was offered the team’s signals by his new skipper, Bill Armour, but held up his hand and asked not to use them. “Can’t I play my own way?” he asked. “Suit yourself,” Armour replied.

Cobb apparently got over this aversion to managerial signs, but because of his toxic personality he had to make special arrangements to get them and to pass along the ones he initiated on his own. “I was one of Ty’s best friends when we were with the Tigers and one of his few friends among the players,” said Davy Jones to The Sporting News shortly after Cobb’s death in 1961.

• You could say that Wild Bill Donovan and I were about the only Tigers who were friendly with Cobb when we were winning pennants for Detroit in 1907– 09. He was kind of hard to get along with, but he was misunderstood too, and a lot of the abuse he had to take was uncalled for. I led off in those years; Donie Bush batted second, Cobb third and Sam Crawford fourth. Crawford and Bush wouldn’t speak to Cobb, or Ty to them. It got so bad that they wouldn’t tell each other when they changed signals, which was fre-quently in those days. So I became a