Baseball legend Ty Cobb asks sportswriter Al Stump to write his biography. Cobb lives down his reputation as an extremely difficult person. While driving across country to a banquet at the Baseball Hall of Fame, Cobb tells Stump about his life but his gun wielding, drinking and drug use get them into many scrapes along the way. Stump writes both the version Cobb dictates to him and the version he himself sees, but he only publishes Cobb's version.