In an age of instant access news (and gossip), it is all too easy to be in the position of having to discern what is truth and what is either lies or half-truths. Combined with the powerful sense of disassociation that comes from viewing famous figures as larger-than-life titans rather than flesh-and-blood people, society tends to be fed on a diet of information made up to fit a pre-constructed narrative, rather than pure, hard facts. In such a situation, people and events can be misunderstood and beaten into a shape that best fits the archetype presented by the reteller, instead of in its true form.<\/span><\/p>\n While this may seem to be a phenomenon unique to modern society, the sad fact is that this is not so, as such was the sad posthumous fate of Tyrus Richmond Cobb. A well-regarded baseball player in the early years of the 20th Century, Ty Cobb\u2019s name became besmirched through the actions and writings of Al Stump, a would-be journalist. Ty Cobb’s story provides modern storytellers (and yes, that includes news reporters or anyone involved in communication) with both a warning and a reminder to pursue truth itself as the goal. When truth becomes something that is swept away in order to create a ‘successful story’ that sells books or advertising on the web, journalism suffers…and then we all suffer.<\/span><\/p>\n First of all, one must understand the caricature that has been presented as the real Ty Cobb ever since Al Stump’s scribbles were published in the early 1960s. This version, Stump presents Ty Cobb as a raging maniac, a man who thought nothing of killing another person in a fit of rage, a volcano constantly waiting to erupt. This Cobb would beat attempted muggers to a faceless pulp or try to assault helpless women, and was all-in-all a reprehensible human being. Stump’s attention to truth and detail extended to his presentation of other aspects of the baseball player’s life, such as casting the story of the tragic demise of his father as an act of revenge by his mother and of creating tales about Cobb’s mannerisms and actions during a period when Stump reportedly lived with him.<\/span><\/p>\n Because he was dead, Ty Cobb was unable to refute the\u00a0posthumous caricature that Stump created of him, and the baseball player was forever tarnished in the media as a supremely dishonorable and rather reprehensible individual. Stump took advantage of the public trust he was given as a reporter, and told his readers lies when they expected the truth. So when Hollywood made a movie that featured Cobb as the moral monster of Stump’s fictions, most moviegoers never questioned this Cobb legend.<\/span><\/p>\n