In researching 20th-century newspaper reportage for the stories of the great all-time athletes (thus far Jim Thorpe, Babe Didrikson Zaharias and Angelo Mosca), it is becoming pointedly obvious that much sports journalism was not subject to, likesay, very rigorous editorial scrutiny.
As an example, check out the below story published in the Evening Star newspaper of Washington, D.C., following Thorpe’s incredible success at the 1912 Olympic Games.
Continue reading “A completely fictional story about Jim Thorpe that thankfully disappeared”