In the spring of 1904, Ty earned himself a tryout with the Augusta Tourists of the Class C South Atlantic League (Sally League). The league had just been formed over the past winter, and had six teams spread across Georgia, South Carolina, and Florida. Con.
Strouthers, the Tourists' manager, was the only one who had replied to Cobb. Young Ty.
had to pay his own expenses and would be paid $50 a month if he made the team. .
He tried out with reckless abandon, playing just as he had for the Reds and would.
continue to do until 1928. He was wild, anxious, eager, and young. He flew around the.
ballpark during tryouts and earned himself a spot on the bench for all of the team's exhibition games, including one against the Detroit Tigers, who trained nearby.
Ty found himself in the lineup on opening day, 1904, for the time-honored reason of attrition. The team's first baseman was in a contract dispute, so Strouthers had to move the center fielder to first and put Cobb in center field. He batted seventh, went 2-for-4.
and scored twice in a losing effort. Cobb failed to get a hit the next day, and when the.
first baseman signed, Cobb was let go.
Luckily, another player who had just been released was going to Anniston, Alabama to tryout for a semipro team there, and invited Ty to come along. Ty was excited, but also afraid of what his father would say. He called home to ask his father's opinion. He would continue to play in the minors until later on he signed with his first major league team the Detroit Tigers.
Cobb spent twenty-two of his twenty-four years playing for the Detroit Tigers. In his twenty-four seasons of playing baseball he toped the .300 barrier twenty-three times. Cobb's first great season came in 1907, and the Tigers rode success all the way to the World Series. That season the centerfield's batting average was .350. Other league best include two hundred and twelve hits, one hundred and nineteen RBI's, and forty-nine stolen bases.
