ROYSTON – Some in Ty Cobb’s hometown in northwest Georgia are ready to go to bat for the community’s favorite son, whose statue won’t be following the Atlanta Braves to the team’s new home in Cobb County.

The team plans to leave the statue of a sliding Cobb in Turner Field’s Monument Grove when it moves to the new SunTrust Park for the 2017 opening season.

Proud residents of Royston fret over what may come of it.

“I worry about it getting pushed to the corner of a vacant lot somewhere with kudzu growing all over it,” said Julie Ridgway, who married Cobb’s cousin and is director of the Ty Cobb Museum in this community near the South Carolina line. “That’s what I fear.”

The decision to ditch Cobb – uncovered by Atlanta’s WXIA this week through an open records request – has fueled speculation that the ballplayer’s reputation for racial intolerance played a role in the decision.

A Braves spokeswoman, however, says the team simply does not own the statue.

“As with many items here at Turner Field, the Ty Cobb statue isn’t owned by the Braves and therefore will be staying,” said Beth Marshall, senior director of public relations.

The ball club also added a bust of slugger Hank Aaron to the list of items that it won’t be taking to the new stadium. Marshall said the team has documentation to prove its ownership of statues of former Braves pitchers Warren Spahn and Phil Niekro.

That leaves ownership of the Cobb statue to the city of Atlanta, Marshall said.

It’s unclear at this point what the city plans to do with it.

Charles Leehrsen suspects there’s more to the story. He published a new book this year titled “Ty Cobb: A Terrible Beauty,” which contradicts a widely held perception of Cobb as a villain.

Even if the Braves don’t own the statue, they should be lobbying for its relocation to the new park, he said.

“If they had the right historical information, they would covet it,” Leehrsen said in an interview. “They wouldn’t want to see it sitting outside an empty ballpark or whatever’s going to happen to Turner Field now.”

Either way, leaving the statue behind is a “dis” to the greatest Georgian to play the game, Leehrsen said.

“And there’s no reason to dis Ty Cobb,” he added.

Cobb, who played and managed from 1905 until 1928, was among the first class of inductees into the National Baseball Hall of Fame, and he’s considered by many to be one of the greatest ballplayers of all time – if not the greatest.

He still has the highest lifetime batting average – .366 – and many of his other records still stand.

But Cobb has become just as well known for his personality off the field. As recently as last week, a comedian and Royston native, Caleb Synan, joked about “the racist baseball player from 1901” on Conan O’Brien’s late-night cable television talk show.

“Here’s how racist he was: They called him a racist in 1901,” he said.

But Leehrsen said he found this version of Cobb to be a “cartoon character” that was largely the result of a sensationalized biography published decades ago.

Back in Royston – where Cobb first played baseball as a kid a century ago – residents already knew this.

“If you upset Ty Cobb, he didn’t care what color your skin was. He would let you know that he didn’t appreciate you upsetting him,” said Ridgway, the museum director.

Cobb was born down the road, in an unincorporated community called Narrows, but grew up in Royston. He’s also buried there.

Known as the “Georgia Peach,” he started his professional career in Augusta before getting picked up by the Detroit Tigers. He also briefly played for the Philadelphia Athletics, before retiring in 1928.

He never played for the Braves or an Atlanta team.

Even so, Ridgway and others in Royston want to see the Cobb statue make the move to SunTrust Park, where it can stay in a place of prominence. It already moved once with the Braves – though not very far – from the old Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium to Turner Field.

If not, Roystonians say they have another idea: Send the statue home, where even the police cruisers proudly proclaim Royston as the “home of Ty Cobb.”

“We’d love it here,” said Mayor David Jordan.