Many scholars of baseball and American sports have focused on Ty Cobb as an integral and controversial character in the history of baseball. However, scholars have ignored the ways in which the story of Ty Cobb intersects with ideas of turn-of-the-century masculinity and honor. Steve Tripp in his new book Ty Cobb, Baseball, and American Manhood (Rowman and Littlefield, 2016) explores the ways in which Cobb proved to be an interesting case study in the role that manhood played in the lives of men that found themselves in a changing American landscape. Tripp argues that the men in Cobb’s life and the values they embodied–honor, personal autonomy, nerve, and will–played an integral role in Cobb’s formation of his own masculinity. Not only does Tripp focus on Cobb, but the people that granted him fame and disdain: the fans of turn-of-the-century baseball. Steve Tripp is currently Professor of History at Grand Valley State University.

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