Tris Speaker: The Rough-and-Tumble Life of a Baseball Legend

It's a question that's dogged baseball fans for nearly 150 years – Who's the greatest center fielder? There have been many center fielders who have been merely outstanding, from Mantle to Mays to Griffey Jr., but there is probably only one true answer to whom is the greatest: Tris Speaker.

As one-third of one of the most talented outfields – Speaker, Hooper, and Lewis – this side of Murderer's Row, Speaker was truly a five-tool player: he hit for average, he hit for power, he was speedy, he was one of the best defensive center fielders, if not the best, and he had a cannon for an arm. He was also one of the most intelligent–and notorious–players in the game.

And he was a champion. He grew up professionally as part of the show more excellent Red Sox teams of the early 1900s, and after he was traded at the height of his prime to Cleveland, he led the Indians to another championship in 1920.

But telling the story of Tris Speaker means you have to tell the good with the bad: early in life Speaker was a member of the KKK. There is also convincing circumstantial evidence that he, along with Ty Cobb and Joe Wood, bet on major league baseball games. Gay's biography goes into these episodes in great detail, delivering the full measure of the man.

So why is Speaker important? A biography as rich and detailed as Gay's is important because Speaker was a product of his time, and yet his talent, though largely forgotten, is and will always be timeless. show less

Tris Speaker has been nearly forgotten by all but the baseball literati, but the author makes a very convincing case that he was a better outfielder than Joe DiMaggio, Shoeless Joe Jackson, Roberto Clemente, perhaps any of them save Willie Mays. He hailed from Texas, was a KKK member early in life but was able to grow and evolve to the point of one day tutoring Larry Doby, the AL's first black player. He had a career batting average of .345 (4th all-time) and ranks first in doubles hit. But he was even more renowned for his fielding, still holding career records for assists, double plays and unassisted double plays by an outfielder (this was because his uncanny sense of where the hit ball would go allowed him to play an extremely show more shallow center field. It was his glove that was known as the place "where triples go to die", although that saying was later somehow switched to Shoeless Joe Jackson. He was also a consummate base runner and stolen base man. He led the Boston Red Sox to two World Championships. Then when a gambling scandal sent him to Cleveland, he led the Indians as a player-manager to their first World Championship. He had many flaws as a human being (although he was a much better man than Ty Cobb), but his virtues were also many. The author does a fine job of humanizing an early baseball superstar whom I had barely heard of. show less