IMDb RATING
6.4/10
7.7K
YOUR RATING
A reporter hired to write the 'official' biography of Ty Cobb discovers just how dark the baseball legend's real story is.A reporter hired to write the 'official' biography of Ty Cobb discovers just how dark the baseball legend's real story is.A reporter hired to write the 'official' biography of Ty Cobb discovers just how dark the baseball legend's real story is.
IMDb RATING
6.4/10
7.7K
YOUR RATING
- Director
- Writers
- Al Stump(article Ty Cobb's Wild Ten Month Fight to Live)
- Ron Shelton(screenplay)
- Stars
Top credits
- Director
- Writers
- Al Stump(article Ty Cobb's Wild Ten Month Fight to Live)
- Ron Shelton(screenplay)
- Stars
- Awards
- 1 nomination
Videos1
Gary Morris
- Baptist Ministeras Baptist Minister
- (as Reverend Gary Morris)
- Director
- Writers
- Al Stump(article Ty Cobb's Wild Ten Month Fight to Live) (book "Cobb: A Biography")
- Ron Shelton(screenplay)
- Production, box office & more at IMDbPro
- All cast & crew
Storyline
Al Stump is a famous sports-writer chosen by Ty Cobb to co-write his official, authorized 'autobiography' before his death. Cobb, widely feared and despised, feels misunderstood and wants to set the record straight about 'the greatest ball-player ever,' in his words. However, when Stump spends time with Cobb, interviewing him and beginning to write, he realizes that the general public opinion is largely correct. In Stump's presence, Cobb is angry, violent, racist, misogynistic, and incorrigibly abusive to everyone around him. Torn between printing the truth by plumbing the depths of Cobb's dark soul and grim childhood, and succumbing to Cobb's pressure for a whitewash of his character and a simple baseball tale of his greatness, Stump writes two different books. One book is for Cobb, the other for the public. —Tad Dibbern <DIBBERN_D@a1.mscf.upenn.edu>
- Taglines
- Everyone hated this baseball legend. And he loved it.
- Genres
- Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)
- Rated R for strong language, and for scenes of nudity and violent behavior
- Parents guide
Did you know
- TriviaMuch of how Cobb was portrayed in this film has now been widely recognized as inaccurate. Al Stump's books and magazine articles on Cobb have now been widely discredited, and serious baseball historians give Stump's account of the later years of Cobb's life very little credence. Charles Leerhsen's biography, "Ty Cobb, A Terrible Beauty," sets the record straight. Cobb did NOT attempt to have sex with the cocktail waitress in Las Vegas and then attempt to pay her off (Stump fabricated this), and many other alleged darker aspects of Cobb's life are just plain not true. Several serious baseball historians have labeled this film highly inaccurate.
- GoofsCobb is seen being treated by a black nurse at Emory University Hospital shortly before his death. In 1961, Georgia hospitals and their staff were still strictly segregated.
- Crazy creditsThe latter half of the credits has a voiceover by Jones, narrating as Cobb, regarding the finer points of batting and other aspects of baseball, and how he regretted not going to college, and should have been a doctor.
- SoundtracksTheme from A Summer Place
Written by Max Steiner
Top review
athlete-hero as sonofabitch
If this movie exaggerates the nastiness of Ty Cobb, his descendants could sue. Then again if the movie is accurate, his descendants clearly despise him as much as anyone else. The weirdly symbiotic relationship between Cobb and his hapless biographer Aaron Stump is engrossing to watch, but it is Tommy Lee Jones' performance that makes the movie. The performance borders on chewing up the scenery, but it's mesmerizing.
helpful•1212
- rupie
- Jun 2, 1999
Details
Box office
- Gross US & Canada
- $1,007,583
- Opening weekend US & Canada
- $63,786
- Dec 4, 1994
- Gross worldwide
- $1,007,583
- Runtime2 hours 8 minutes
- Color
- Sound mix
- Aspect ratio
- 2.35 : 1
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