Ty Cobb, Sam Crawford, and Marty McIntyre were all Tiger
outfielders. Cobb was just 21, and had clearly established himself
as the American League's dominant hitter. Crawford was in the middle of a great
career. This was McIntyre's only really good season; he hung around
a couple more years, then was replaced by Bobby Veach. Crawford was
eventually replaced by Harry Heilman; the Tigers had
three outstanding outfielders for nearly all of the 22 years Cobb
played for them.Ty Cobb is the most famous player of the dead-ball era, and he recently had a movie made about him. There were other great players, like Wagner and Speaker and Collins, but Cobb is the one whom everyone has heard of. There are a couple of reasons why. The first is the Psycho Factor; society is fascinated with great athletes who are also a little nuts (i.e. Mike Tyson, John Rocker), and Cobb ranks among the worst of them. He also had the look of a psycho; if you have ever seen a picture of his face and his leering eyes, you will never forget it.
He also set a bunch of important records; every few decades, someone will break one of these records, and Cobb's name will get back in the news. He retired with 4189 lifetime hits, a record broken by Pete Rose in 1985. In 1915 he stole 96 bases (a record broken by Maury Wills in 1962) and in his career stole 891 bases (passed by Lou Brock in 1977). Cobb scored 2246 runs in his career, a record that was broken by Rickey Henderson in 2001. He also won twelve batting titles. One record that has not been approached is his career .366 batting average.
Fielder Jones was a pretty good player who lasted 15 years, and just missed getting 2000 hits. After a great rookie year with Brooklyn in 1896, he was a solid, unspectacular player. He also tried his hand at managing, and led the Chicago White Sox to the World Series in 1906 (he was also among the Hitless Wonders' better hitters). Jones' parents must have know that their boy was gonna be a baseball player; Fielder was his real name.
