Casey Meets Cobb

He knocked on the door of my hotel in downtown San Diego. "Are you Casey?" He asked in a raspy voice. "Who the hell are you?" "Meet Ty Cobb! He bellowed loud enough for the entire maid staff to hear. And with that began my relationship with arguably the greatest baseball player of all time. Of course, I must explain. The character was all Cobb! The man was Norm Coleman of Half Moon Bay, California. Coleman has been playing Cobb on stage to audiences nationwide. He is 80 years old. He started ten years ago. He was once homeless, his life spinning out of control. He was an alcoholic, desperately lost in the sauce. He once was one of the leading photographers in the country. He was now sleeping on concrete. And then something happened. He dreamed about baseball and being a little boy again. At age 70, Norm Coleman began to write about the life of Ty Cobb with the idea that he would play the great man on stage someday. And now, despite those who told him he was an old fool, Norm has attracted wide interest and in fact, he connected with me and my portrayal of Casey at the Bat. I have been playing Casey since I was 15 years old and in 2016 completed the first theatrical play involving the saga of Casey at the Bat in 128 years. I included Ty Cobb as a character. I asked Norm to play the part. I call Norm a "national treasure." I think he likes that--a lot! We rehearsed in San Diego yesterday at the setting of the play--the US Grant Hotel in San Diego which opened in 1910 the year Cobb first met Casey. Yesterday, they met again after 106 years. Neither had changed. To learn the rest of the story you will gave to see the play! And its coming soon!