Today's Labor Quote: Ty Cobb

​“Sure, I fought. I had to fight all my life just to survive. They were all against me. Tried every dirty trick to cut me down, but I beat the bastards and left them in the ditch.”

On this date in 1912, in what may have been baseball’s first labor strike, the Detroit Tigers refused to play after team leader Ty Cobb was suspended: he went into the stands and beat a fan who had been heckling him. Cobb was reinstated and the Tigers went back to work after the team manager’s failed attempt to replace the players with a local college team: their pitcher gave up 24 runs.

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