C is for Cobb, Who grew spikes and not corn, And made all the basemen Wish they weren't born.
He Was Aggressive Toward Players, Umpires, Fans and Total Strangers In 1909, he was arrested for assault in a Cleveland hotel. At 2:00 AM, he wanted an elevator operator to take him to another floor for a card game but was refused because of a rule that he could go only to the floor in which he was registered. A night watchman was called, and Cobb drew a pen knife and slashed the watchman across the hand. The watchman drew a gun and hit Cobb several times in his head. Cobb had to pay a $100 fine.
Still Competitive Long After he Retired In 1928, at age 42, he retired permanently from baseball. In 1941, at age 55, he beat Babe Ruth two out of three times in charity golf matches. In 1947 at age 61 in an Old-Timers' Day game in Yankee Stadium, he came to bat and told the catcher, Benny Bengough, behind him to stand back from the plate because he had not played in 20 years and he might hit him with his bat. Bengough, not wanting to be hit by Cobb's bat, stepped back and Cobb hit a perfect bunt and easily beat the throw from Bengough to first base.
His Aggression Carried Over to his Family In 1908, he married Charlotte Lombard who suffered from his constant anger. The couple had three sons and two daughters. His family found him to be very demanding and hostile. His wife put up with him for 39 years with on-and-off divorce filings until the final divorce in 1947. He demanded that his sons train to be championship athletes. His oldest son, Tyrus Raymond, Jr., left Princeton after his father went to the campus and beat him with a whip for flunking courses. After that, he enrolled at Yale where he was captain of the tennis team, but in 1930, he had to leave Yale after being arrested twice for public drunkenness. After that, father and son had little to do with each other. Tyrus Raymond, Jr., eventually earned an M.D. degree from the Medical College of South Carolina and practiced obstetrics and gynecology in Dublin, Georgia. He died from a brain tumor in 1952, never having made up with his father.
His Unhealthful Lifestyle and Death After his second divorce, he drank and smoked more than ever and it cost him dearly. He became overweight and developed diabetes that caused high blood pressure, that damaged his heart and kidneys. In 1959, he was diagnosed with prostate cancer and had it removed at Emory University Hospital in Atlanta. His anger had cost him all close friends. In 1961, he went to the hospital for the last time carrying a loaded gun and an envelope full of millions of dollars in securities. He died, having estranged so many people in baseball that only three ex-ball players, Ray Schalk, Mickey Cochrane and Nap Rucker, showed up at the funeral for one of the most gifted baseball players of all time.
Aggression in Athletes Goes Largely Unpunished It is absurd that Ty Cobb was allowed to break laws restricting violence so often without being punished. Professional athletes are involved in a high rate of violent crimes such as domestic violence primarily because of the factors that help make them great athletes and the coddling that they receive from the teams and fans that thrive on their athletic prowess. The same testosterone that helps both men and women grow large and strong muscles also makes them more aggressive both on and off the playing field.
Prostate Cancer Almost all North American men will develop prostate cancer if they live long enough, and more than 99 percent of these men are alive five years after they are diagnosed (National Cancer Institute). However, some men do die from the aggressive form of prostate cancer and lifestyle has a very strong influence on survival rates. An excellent review of the world's scientific research concludes: "Heart healthy equals prostate healthy . . . the best dietary advice for prostate cancer prevention or management seems to include: increasing fruits and vegetables, replacing refined carbohydrates with whole grains, reducing total and saturated fat, reducing overcooked meats and consuming a moderate amount of calories and reducing carbohydrates with a primary goal of obtaining and maintaining a healthy body weight" (BMC Medicine, January 8, 2015;13(3)).
How to Decrease Your Risk for Prostate Cancer • Eat a diet rich in fruits and vegetables because it is associated with reduced risk for suffering prostate cancer (Int J Urol, 2012, 19:134-141 and Asian Pac J Cancer Prev, 2014, 15:5223-5227). Eating a plant-based diet lowered risk for obesity-related cancers, including prostate cancer (Cancer Causes & Control, January 6, 2015). • Restrict red meat which is associated with increased risk both for prostate cancer (Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention, 08/04/2015) and for advanced type of prostate cancer that can kill (Am J Clin Nutr, 2010, 91:712-721), • Use liquids when you cook. Frying, grilling, broiling, baking and other dry cooking methods produce advanced glycation end products (AGES) and heterocyclic amines which are known carcinogens (Cancer Sci, April, 2004;95(4):290-9; Cancer Causes & Control, 2012, 23:405-420). • Avoid fried foods (Prostate, June, 2013;73(9):960-9). • Restrict alcohol: Limiting alcoholic drinks to no more than two per day for men and one per day for women was associated with reduced obesity-related cancers, and particularly breast, prostate, and colo-rectal cancers (Cancer Causes & Control, January 6, 2015). Data from the Nurses' Health Study and the Health Professionals Follow-up Study show that small amounts of alcohol increases prostate cancer risk in smokers (British Medical Journal, August 18, 2015). • Eat tomatoes. Consuming ten portions of tomatoes a week can lower the risk of prostate cancer (Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers and Prevention, July 13, 2014). Lycopene, an antioxidant found in tomatoes, lowered prostate cancer risk by 18 percent. Other sources of lycopene include apricots, guava, watermelon, papaya and grapefruit, although tomatoes have it in greater amounts. • Exercise and avoid being overweight. Lack of exercise and being overweight are associated with increased risk for the type of prostate cancer that kills (Cancer, June 2015; Cancer Prevention Research, May 19, 2015). An extensive review shows that exercise is associated with a lowered risk for prostate cancer and its recurrence (Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention, January 28, 2015). • Control blood sugar levels. Prostate cancer is associated with everything that involves high blood sugar levels: metabolic syndrome (pre-diabetes), diabetes, inflammation, obesity and weight gain (Cancer Causes and Control, 05/14/2014), lack of exercise (Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention, 04/02/2014), and lack of vitamin D. A high rise in blood sugar causes a marked increase in insulin and IGF-1, hormones that cause cells to multiply and grow to increase cancer risk. People who take in a lot of refined carbohydrates have high insulin and IGF-1 levels and are at increased risk for prostate cancer (Prostate, 2008, 68:11-19). • Avoid vitamin D deficiency. Men who have low blood levels of vitamin D are at increased risk for prostate cancer and specifically for the type of prostate cancer that kills (Clinical Cancer Research, May 1, 2014). Vitamin D plays several critical roles in how cells develop and grow. Vitamin D helps to regulate how stem cells change into prostate cells and the rate that normal cells turn into cancer cells. Adding vitamin D to prostate cells in a petri dish slows their rate of growth. Perhaps not having enough vitamin D can cause normal cells to become cancerous. Researchers found that almost all of 667 men referred for prostate biopsies because of high blood PSA tests or abnormal prostate exams had low levels of vitamin D. Their levels of hydroxy vitamin D were usually below 20ng/ml. Normal is 30 to 80. Furthermore, 44 percent of the men with prostate cancer had very low levels of vitamin D compared to 38 percent of those who tested negative. The lower the level of vitamin D, the more likely the cancer was to kill them.