Tris Speaker might be the best player never mentioned among the listed baseball greats. If not for Willie Mays, he may have been the greatest center fielder to play the game. Speaker, or “Spoke” as many called him, was a defensive wizard (recording a record 449 career outfield assists), but was also deadly with the bat. He still holds the major league record with 792 career doubles. He finished his career with a remarkable .345 batting average.
However, off the field, “The Grey Eagle” was openly racist, and was allegedly a member of the Klu Klux Klan. He was a 32nd Degree Mason, and had strong religious convictions. As a baseball player, and later as a manger, Speaker often turned blue in heated arguments with the umpires. Author Timothy M. Gay chronicles his path from Texas, shortly removed from the “war of northern aggression, to becoming a World Series champion.
Speaker was a baseball natural, and wouldn’t allow an injury to break his stride. Following a horse related accident, “Spoke” taught himself to play baseball left handed. While in Boston, Speaker formed the golden outfield with Duffy Lewis and Harry Hooper. Speaker and Lewis didn’t get along. Speaker, being a staunch Protestant, resented Catholic players such as Lewis and catcher Bill Carrigan.
In 1913, Speaker went on a promotional world tour, with such stars of Sam Crawford and Jim Thorpe. They traveled 30,000 miles, visited 13 nations over a 4 month period, playing and promoting the game of baseball around the globe. Due to the emergence of a rival Federal baseball league, Speaker became the highest paid major league ballplayer. It would be the lucrative contract that made Boston management attempt to cut his salary, and when he refused, trade “Spoke” to Cleveland.
In Cleveland, Speaker helped to turn around the Indians, and lead them to the 1920 World Series championship. However, during the season, good friend Ray Chapman was struck in the head by a pitch, and would die from the damage to his brain. Chapman was only 29 years old.
It would be pitcher Dutch Leonard that presented game fixing charges against Speaker and Ty Cobb. The commissioner cleared both Speaker and Cobb of any wrongdoing. but both would step down as managers, and never manage again in the major leagues. Speaker was inducted into the baseball hall of fame, and despite his previous prejudices, mentored the talented Larry Doby, who became the first black in the American league.
©2005 Board of Regents of the University of Nebraska
By: Timothy M. Gay
Narrated by: Dale J Hubbard
Length: 14 hrs and 50 mins
Release date: 10-31-18
