Tris Speaker

Tristram Edgar Speaker played 22 major league seasons, batted .345, and hit 792 doubles, more than any player in baseball history. He also collected 3,514 hits, 222 triples, and 1,882 runs. He won the American League batting title in 1916, the Chalmers Award (the era's equivalent of the MVP) in 1912, and three World Series rings. He played center field with a tactical intelligence that redefined the position, standing so shallow that he could catch line drives and beat baserunners back to second base, turning six unassisted double plays over his career. No other outfielder in major league history has more than two.

Hubbard, Texas

Speaker was born in Hubbard, Texas, a railroad town of about 500 people roughly 70 miles south of Dallas. His father Archie died when Tris was ten, and his mother Nancy Jane supported the family by running a boarding house. As a boy, he was right-handed. After breaking his right arm twice in falls from horses, he taught himself to throw left-handed and began batting from the left side as well.

He reached the Boston Red Sox in 1907, at age 19, and established himself as a regular by 1909. With Harry Hooper and Duffy Lewis, he formed the outfield that Boston fans called the "Golden Outfield," one of the best defensive units of the dead-ball era.

Boston and the World Series

Speaker's best season in Boston came in 1912. He hit .383 with 222 hits, 53 doubles, 10 home runs, 90 RBI, and 52 stolen bases. He led the American League in on-base percentage (.464) and set a record with three separate hitting streaks of 20 or more games in a single season. He won the Chalmers Award and helped lead the Red Sox to the 1912 World Series against the New York Giants.

In the decisive Game 8, Christy Mathewson held a 2-1 lead in the bottom of the tenth inning. Fred Snodgrass dropped a routine fly ball, putting a runner on second. Speaker then popped up a foul ball near first base that three Giants converged on but none caught, as catcher Chief Meyers, first baseman Fred Merkle, and pitcher Christy Mathewson let it drop between them. Given a second chance, he lined a single to tie the game, and Larry Gardner's sacrifice fly won it. Speaker hit .300 for the Series with 9 hits in 30 at-bats.

He played in the 1915 World Series as well, hitting .294 as the Red Sox beat the Philadelphia Phillies in five games.

Traded to Cleveland

Before the 1916 season, Red Sox owner Joe Lannin tried to cut Speaker's salary from $15,000 to $9,000. Speaker refused. Boston traded him to the Cleveland Indians for Sad Sam Jones, Fred Thomas, and $50,000. Speaker demanded and received $10,000 of the cash for himself.

He responded by winning the American League batting title, hitting .386 with 211 hits, the first time since 1910 that Ty Cobb did not win the crown. Speaker would spend eleven seasons in Cleveland, eight of them as player-manager.

1920 and Ray Chapman

Speaker became Cleveland's player-manager midway through the 1919 season. His greatest year as a manager came in 1920, when he led the Indians to their first pennant while hitting .388 with 214 hits and 50 doubles. The season was shadowed by tragedy. On August 16, shortstop Ray Chapman was struck in the head by a pitch from the Yankees' Carl Mays and died the following morning, the only on-field fatality in major league history. Chapman had been Speaker's close friend. "I can't say the things Ray Chapman deserves," Speaker told reporters. "I would not mind losing the pennant if it meant Ray was coming back next year."

Speaker rallied the grieving team. With rookie Joe Sewell replacing Chapman at shortstop, the Indians won the pennant by two games over the White Sox and defeated the Brooklyn Robins in the World Series, five games to two. Speaker hit .320 in the Series with eight hits, six runs scored, and an RBI triple in the deciding game.

The Scandal

In late 1926, former pitcher Hubert "Dutch" Leonard accused Speaker and Ty Cobb of conspiring to fix a game between Cleveland and Detroit on September 25, 1919, when neither team was in contention for the pennant. Leonard alleged that the Indians had agreed to let Detroit win to help the Tigers secure third place and the postseason money that came with it. He produced letters written by Cobb and by Smoky Joe Wood that referenced gambling on the game.

American League president Ban Johnson pressured both Speaker and Cobb to resign quietly. Speaker stepped down as Cleveland's manager, and Cobb stepped down in Detroit. Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis intervened and held a hearing. Leonard refused to appear and testify. On January 27, 1927, Landis declared the matter closed and cleared both players, citing insufficient evidence. Speaker signed with the Washington Senators for 1927 and joined Cobb on the Philadelphia Athletics for 1928, after which both retired.

The Grey Eagle

Speaker earned his nickname, "The Grey Eagle," from his prematurely grey hair and his graceful play in center field. He positioned himself far shallower than any predecessor, reasoning that he would save more games by cutting off singles than he would lose to occasional extra-base hits over his head. The strategy produced career records for outfield assists (449 or 450, depending on the source), outfield double plays (139), and unassisted double plays (six). He led American League center fielders in putouts seven times and assists eight times.

He was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1937, receiving 165 of 201 votes (82.1 percent), alongside Nap Lajoie and Cy Young. He died of a heart attack on December 8, 1958, at Lake Whitney, Texas, while pulling his boat onto a dock after a fishing trip. It was his second heart attack in four years. He was 70 years old and was buried in Fairview Cemetery in his hometown of Hubbard.