Ty Cobb lives on…on the Coastside

Half Moon Bay resident Norm Coleman plays Ty Cobb in a one-man show in Pacifica next month, reports the Tribune.

Coleman’s love of theatre and baseball led to the development of his one-man show based on the life and times of Detroit Tiger Hall of Fame outfielder Ty Cobb So why Ty Cobb?

"As a child, I had a vivid imagination and always played and fantasized myself playing a famous person," said Coleman, who debuted his show two years ago. "Sometimes a general leading his Army to victory, sometimes a Presidents running the country, but usually I was a ball player. I imagined I was the best player on the Brooklyn Dodgers; sometimes the best hitter and other times the best pitcher."

"Now, as an adult, an actor, why not play the greatest player that every played the game?" said Coleman, who migrated to California from New York years ago.

The show captures Cobb from his youth in the South under the thumb of a demanding father, to his playing days, as an Army Captain in World War I, to his days as a manger of the Tigers, to his days amassing a multi-million dollar fortune derived largely from Coca Cola stock and making charitable contributions after his baseball career, to his days as a sick former player near the end of his life in the early 1960s.