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Interestingly, the story behind the book is far more raucous and compelling than the book itself. Cobb, as violent and demanding at the end of his life as he was in his playing heyday, virtually kidnapped Stump (one of the most honored sports writers of the late '50s and early '60s), subjecting almost every word and observation to Cobb's approval. Stump finally exacted his literary pound of flesh years later when he slid spikes high into Cobb's ghost with the publication of his marvelously rich--and real--accounting of Cobb's life in Cobb: A Biography. Stump not only nicked the fuzz off the Georgia Peach in that second effort, he recounted the harrowing circumstances behind the first. Together, the two books provide a fascinating prism into a man's life and legacy, the first volume bending the light to diffuse the truth, the second straightening it out to preserve it. --Jeff Silverman
