Longtime high school baseball coach Ralph Cobb remembered as a Bergen County 'staple'
Ralph Cobb coached high school baseball in North Jersey for nearly 40 years. He notched more than 500 wins, directed three sectional-title teams and mentored a trio of major-leaguers during his career.
About the only thing he didn’t do on the diamond was play “small ball.”
Cobb died last week at age 92, leaving behind a legacy of excellence and consistency at Old Tappan. He guided the Golden Knights’ first varsity baseball squad in 1963 and is one of only two coaches in program history – Tim Byron took over after Cobb retired following the 1995 season.
“I remember the first game I coached, we were playing Pascack Hills,” Bryon said. “And I think I sac-bunted three times, squeezed three times, and the opposing coach after the game said, ‘Coach, you bunted more today than coach Ralph Cobb bunted in 30 years.’
“Ralph was a power guy. I’m more of a small-ball, move-you-over coach… but yet, we shared the same ideals, the same principles and the same will to win.”
Byron’s first coaching job was at Ramapo in the late ’80s, when the Raiders were an NBIL rival of Old Tappan.
“Ralph, coach John Ponchak from Ramsey and also coach Hank Reese over at Indian Hills, they were like the three staples of that league,” Byron said. “They were the great coaches. And I remember, when I was the new guy on the block, they really took me in a bit – especially Ralph.”
“Ralph was a great competitor,” said Greg Butler, former baseball coach (1989-2000) and athletic director at Demarest. “As much as he wanted to win, he was always gracious in both victory and defeat. He showed great respect to his opposing coaches if he knew you respected the game.”
Besides being one of the coaching deans of the Northern Bergen Interscholastic League, Cobb spent time as president of the Bergen County Coaches Association. As the coach at Rutherford (1957-59), he was on the selection committee for the first Bergen County Tournament in 1959.
It was at Rutherford that Cobb coached future MLB players Brant Alyea and Bill Hands. After three years as a Demarest assistant (1960-62), the North Arlington native took over at Old Tappan, where eventual Yankees/White Sox outfielder Dan Pasqua was among his pupils.
“He was instrumental in furthering countless other players’ careers into college as well,” Cobb’s son Doug wrote in an email to The Record.
Ralph Cobb played baseball at Rutgers after graduating from North Arlington High School in 1948. The latter school’s yearbook, “Chrysalis”, listed him as a member of the baseball and football teams and noted, “‘Cobby’ could easily be called the senior with the best sense of humor.”
Cobb was the first Bergen County baseball coach to amass 500 wins, finishing with a record of 522-335-8 (including 494-303-8 at Old Tappan). That club now features eight others, with Byron among them.
“If you look at our sports here at Old Tappan, we have coaches that, No. 1, love to coach… and pretty much all of them have been here over 20 years,” Byron said. “That’s a reflection on the kids and also the school itself. And Ralph started it.”
This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: Ralph Cobb: Longtime Old Tappan, Rutherford baseball coach dies
