Tag Archives: Baseball Lies

Great Baseball Lies: The Number of Hits Ty Cobb Had

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On September 11, 1985, Pete Rose got his 4,192nd base hit, passing the immortal Ty Cobb for most hits in MLB history.

Except… he probably had already passed him a few days earlier, on September 8, 1985 at Wrigley Field. You see, earlier in the decade, somebody had found that, at one point, a game Ty Cobb had played in 1910 had been counted twice. However, the marketing machine and narrative about Rose was heating up, and the number of 4191 had such a nice ring to it and had been the established number for decades, so commissioner Bowie Kuhn declared that 4191 would remain the MLB record for hits (until Rose broke it, of course).
However, Baseball Reference says differently, as do most other non-MLB sources. Therefore, I am declaring Ty Cobb’s “4191” hit total one of baseball’s great lies.

Great Baseball Lies: “Keep your eye on the ball!”

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Baseball is full of lies. One of them is pounded into every Little Leaguer in America: you need to keep your eye on the ball from as soon as it leaves the pitcher’s hand until you are ready to swing the bat.

I was told it. You were told it. Everybody was told it. It also doesn’t help whatsoever. Mainly because, if the ball is going any faster than a beer league softball, you aren’t going to be able to see it for any long span of time, and certainly not all the way to the plate. The ball is just going too fast. This has been known for over half of a century.

So what, exactly, do baseball players who are successful actually do? Well, they basically guess and anticipate where the ball is going based on those split-seconds they have to see the ball. This is why a good change-up so fools a hitter if they’ve been getting lots of fastballs: they are expecting a 90+ MPH pitch, so time their swing based on that assumption.
So, remember kids: don’t keep your eye on the ball. Instead, take a quick glance and then guess where it’s going. I mean, I always kept my eye on the ball, and look at me: I washed out of baseball by the age of 11.