Ty Cobb Statue Fate Still Uncertain
Photo courtesy: Fulton County Recreation Authority
Braves plan to leave Ty Cobb statue behind
An update on a story we told you about last week regarding the fate of the Ty Cobb statue at Turner Field in Atlanta.
Last week, WXIA-TV/11Alive in Atlanta ran a story that said the Braves had submitted a list to the Fulton County Recreation Authority office of hundreds of items they want to take with them from Turner Stadium to the new SunTrust stadium in Cobb County, but the Ty Cobb statue was not on that list.
Ty Cobb Museum director Julie Ridgeway and a number of volunteers and concerned citizens have been working since then to find out what will happen to the statue.
Ridgeway said Friday, they have since found out the Ty Cobb statue, along all of the other statues on Monument Row are not owned by the Atlanta Braves.
“The more people I talked to, I found there’s a number of statues that are not going to the new stadium,” Ridgeway said. “They (Braves) don’t own them. The City of Atlanta/Fulton County Recreation Authority owns those statues. They are the ones that own Turner Field. So I don’t know if they (Braves) have a say in what they can and cannot take, but they do not own those statues.”
Ridgeway said she’s not sure what will become of any of the statues once the Braves move to Cobb County in 2017.
Ridgeway said however, there is an effort afoot to make sure the Ty Cobb statue will be displayed properly somewhere.
“We really would like to see it stay in Atlanta at a baseball venue where more people can see it,” she said. “However, we do plan at some later date to put something in writing. I plan to get together with the Mayor of Royston to collaborate on a plan that says, ‘We would like for this to be an option if you do not have anything planned for the statue in the City of Atlanta.'”
Ridgeway says her biggest fear is the statue of Ty Cobb would be put somewhere where it would not be seen and appreciated.
“I have nightmares of the statue being put in a lot somewhere it’s ignored and ends up covered in kudzu,” she said.
Since the Braves will be playing ball one more season at Turner Field the statues will have a home there for another year.