when Cobb was stealing a base. Crawford learned about the letter in 1946 and accused Cobb of being a "cheapskate" who never helped his teammates. He said that Cobb had not been a very good fielder, "so he blamed me." Crawford denied intentionally trying to deprive Cobb of stolen bases, insisting that Cobb had "dreamed that up." When asked about the feud, Cobb attributed it to envy. He felt that Crawford was "a hell of a good player," but he was "second best" on the Tigers and "hated to be an also ran." Cobb biographer Richard Bak noted that the two "only barely tolerated each other" and agreed with Cobb that Crawford's attitude was driven by Cobb's having stolen Crawford's thunder. Although they may not have spoken to each other, Cobb and Crawford developed an ability to communicate non-verbally with looks and nods on the base paths. They became one of the most successful double steal pairings in baseball history. Regular season statistics Cobb has the highest batting average in major league history, .366. In Cobb's time, major league records were kept very well, but not with the absolute accuracy seen later and since. Thus, for many years, Cobb's lifetime batting average was reported as .367, but rigorous research of source documents late 20th century found that this is wrong, as some games had been reported wrongly: All sources with standing agree that Cobb's lifetime batting average is .366 (except MLB.com, see below); some show slightly different numbers for at-bats and hits, but all devolve to .366. SABR (the Society for American Baseball Research) (seconded by John Thorn and Pete Palmer, among others), the Baseball Almanac, and ESPN credit Cobb with 4,189 hits in 11,434 at-bats. Retrosheet gives Cobb the same number of hits in five more at-bats (11,439), and Baseball Reference and the Baseball Hall of Fame add one more at-bat (11,440). All of these round to .366. MLB.com lists Cobb's lifetime average as .367 (4,191 hits in 11,429 at-bats), the number that had been reported and believed true from Cobb's retirement until the late 20th century. (Other pages on the website do give the correct value.) According to former Baseball Commissioner Bowie Kuhn, Major League Baseball continues and will continue to report the incorrect value on the basis of it being grandfathered in ("The passage of 70 years, in our judgment, constitutes a certain statute of limitation as