If Irvin Cobb had ever been a ball player he would have been more of an all-around player than Tyrus R. Cobb by about twenty-two inches.
—Grantland Rice
“I CAN’T THINK OF ANY REASON
WHY I SHOULDN’T SAY I LIKE
THE GERMANS, BECAUSE I DO
LIKE THEM, VERY MUCH!”
BY FREDERICK DORR STEELE
I have been asked to write “an appreciation” of Irvin S. Cobb. I appreciate Cobb, but if I appreciate him too much he will raise his prices, and if I appreciate him too little he will seek an editor who understands the artistic temperament, so I appreciate him just enough. I appreciate him because he makes laughter; because he makes tears; and because he makes circulation. But most of all I appreciate him because he is the only man writing for the magazines who was not discovered by Robert Harding Davis. As Editor of the Paducah Bugle, Cobb was the first man to discover and appreciate Irvin S. Cobb. To-night he sits among us a monumental example of apt appreciation’s artless aid.
—George Horace Lorimer