Customer Reviews

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

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A few years ago David McCullough brought John Adams out from the shadows of such better-known patriots as Jefferson, Washington, and Franklin. In much the same way Timothy M. Gay has cast a brilliant light on Tris Speaker, who has, unfortunately, languished in obscurity behind such greats as Cobb, Ruth, and even Shoeless Joe Jackson. In his chapters on Tris's playing days, Gay's language captures perfectly the voice of the early 20th century sports pages, and his well-researched and lively account of the gambling cloud that hovered over our National Pastime in its early years makes it clear that the Black Sox were just the tip of a corrupt iceberg. While he appropriately glorifies Tris's exploits on the field and at the plate, Gay's book is no hagiography. He brings important new research to the scandal that drove Speaker and Ty Cobb out of managing in the big leagues. He also addresses Speaker's undisguised jealousy of such younger stars as Babe Ruth and Joe Dimaggio. Gay not only gives us Speaker the player, he give us Tris Speaker the man, with all his contradictions. Gay explores how Tris's upbringing in a Texas town that revered its Confederate forefathers shaped his views on race and religion, leading to membership in the Klan and open warfare with his Irish-Catholic Red Sox teammates. Yet Speaker married an Irish Catholic girl and served as a mentor to Larry Doby, the American League's first African-American player. Whether you are a lover of baseball or a lover of American history, Timothy M. Gay's "Tris Speaker" will pull you in the way Spoke himself pulled in fly balls to center field.

A biography of Tris Speaker has been long overdue. However, the wait has been worth it. Autor Timothy Gay has provided us with the definitive biograhy of one of baseball's immortals. Speaker's best years were spent chasing down fly balls for the Boston Red Sox and the Cleveland Indians. The phrase "where triples go to die" was originally written regarding Speaker and later attributed to Willie Mays of the Giants. As were many ball players at the turn of the 20th century Speaker was a product of his environment and times. Many players such as Cobb, Hornsby, and Speaker were from the south and displayed attitudes that were anti-African American. To his credit Speaker served as a defensive tutor to the American League's first black player, Larry Doby of the Cleveland Indians. The author does a thorough job in covering the unfortunate death in 1920 of Ray Chapman, Speaker's teammate when player/manager Speaker led the Tribe to the pennant and World Championship over the Brooklyn Dodgers. In 1919 Speaker, teammate Joe Wood, along with Ty Cobb and "Dutch" Leonard of the Tigers met under the stands at Navin Field supposedly to discuss letting the Tigers win a game that would ensure the Tigers of third place money. Since Leonard refused to face those he accused Commissioner Landis dismissed the case although both Cobb and Speaker were to retire quietly to avoid any controversy and not serve as either a player or coach of any major league team. Both Cobb and Speaker did later play one forgettable year together with Connie Mack's Athletics in 1928 when both players missed several games due to injuries. Based on what is known and what will never be known, author Timothy Gay does a great job in wading through this incident along with other scandals that were festering throughout the major leagues during this period and were complicated by antagonistic attitudes between Landis, American League President Ban Johnson, and White Sox owner Charles Comiskey. I did find one minor mistake on page 215 in which former Indians' teammate Jack Graney is referred to as "Jack Grady" when Speaker had a fistfight with Steve O'Neill and Jack Graney regarding a matter involving the death of Ray Chapman. The incorrect name of "Jack Grady" is also listed in the index in the back of the book. Baseball has more books written about it than any other sport, and many of them are valuable as historical references. This book is one of them.

Timothy Gay has cracked the code on how to write a good baseball biography. He blends the right amoung of baseball and personal life of his subject, who happens to be an interesting character, as well as one of baseball's greatest. Moreover, Gay has writing skills that put him at the top of the class for this genre of book.

Even having read many other bios of Spoke's contemporaries, and the classics like Glory of Their Times, I've never encountered much about Speaker's personality or background. Gay brings Spoke to life in all his glory (a champion rodeo rider as well as an initial Hall of Famer).

Maybe it helps that Gay has few axes to grind in choosing to write this book, unlike many whose purpose is to promote their subject into the HOF. He does go a bit over the top in blackguarding Ban Johnson. After all, Ban tried to cover up baseball's dirt, but punish the guilty, regardless of how famous they were (Cobb and Speaker's thrown game scandal). It was Landis who, to shame Johnson, made the scandal public until he suddenly realized he was harming the game. Then he diminished the punishment to scuff the ball that showed the crime (pardon the Tim Gay-like baseball phrasing).

I could have actually liked a few stories of Spoke's greatest games, but the World Series games he played in are almost the only ones described in detail. Still, I am grateful that Gay does not write his book from box scores. Notes: Chick Stahl committed suicide in Spring training, not mid-season (he couldn't bear the prospect of managing the Red Sox through another campaign), and Ray Chapman was a regular shortstop before Speaker arrived. 1916 was the only season he was shifted around the infield. Finally, Ruth's attempted steal in the seventh game of the '24 World Series is hardly as shady as Gay makes it. The game situation, Ruth's eleven steals during the regular season, as well as his having the only Yankee stolen base heretofore in that Series, argue that it was a mis-calculated gamble.

This is a fine biography about great ballplayer unjustly neglected in baseball memory. Speaker was a contradictory figure, a son of the South, an unrecontructed reb in early 20th century Boston, who grew with the years. He was a KKK member, yet he eventually taught Negro League second baseman and pioneer American League African-American ballplayer Larry Doby the finer points of playing center field. His undoubted prejudices against Irish-Catholic teammates and Bostonians seemed to have been belied by his lifelong friendship with a Jewish merchant from his hometown of Hubbard, Texas, and his relationships with Catholic women. Speaker is not idealized in this study- he was on the fringes, and sometimes the center, of baseball scandals as troubling as the Black Sox episode. Yet he was a great ballplayer, and his name deserves mention in the same sentence with Cobb, Hornsby, Lajoie, and other stars of the ers.

My one complaint with the book is the paucity of photos. Numerous times the author gives a detailed description, sometimes it seems to the proverbial 1000 words, of a photo, but the reader attempting to find it in the photo section of the book will be disappointed. No doubt, as this is how these things work, the publisher cut these photos to save money. 'Tis a pity.

In the 20th century, only 2 players achieved the feat of hitting 50 doubles and stealing 50 bases in the same season.

What's really remarkable is that if you hit 50 doubles it is really statistically much more difficult to steal 3rd base.

A fantastic job by this author. This is a ballplayer who has really been ignored with the passage of time.

Trivia fans may also notice another seldom hyped baseball player is the only man in the last century to hit 50 doubles and steal 50 bases.

Craig Biggio.

I bought this because I had not seen a book on Tris Speaker before. Fans nowadays probably only know him from looking at the all time baseball records and wondered who was this guy. Simply put, Tris Speaker was the man in centerfield for the first part of the 20th century in baseball. No one will approach his defensive records or his career doubles mark. He was Willie Mays before there was a Willie Mays.

The author goes into great depth to uncover Speaker's character. I knew and read all about Ty Cobb's bigotry and hatred, but I was surprised at the underlying hatred in Speaker that still stemmed from the Civil War. His religious bigotry toward Catholics was intense, especially after his friend and shortstop, Ray Chapman was killed and his wife wanted to have the service in a Catholic church.

The book offers an excellent glimpse into the dark side of the early days of baseball. The Black Sox incident was not an isolated event and the author spends an entire chapter on the scandal that ruined Speaker's reputation.

I personally would have liked to have had more baseball stories, a la The Glory of Their Times by Lawrence Ritter. Plus, I love baseball stats and I thought the author should have included an appendix on Speaker's stats. Baseball fans will not be disappointed with the book.

Fascinating history of early 20th century baseball. There is a subtext of how baseball attitudes, indeed the attitudes of American society in general modified, if not particularly liberalised, over the course of the first half of that century. These changing attitudes are mirrored in Speaker's own evolving attitudes to the game and to his team mates. Highly recommended.

This is probably the best baseball bio I've read yet. Unlike many other bios of renowned players of the past that delve into the playing statistics of the subject, this one does it's share of that but also touches on the life of his subject outside of the game, the attitudes of the nation, city, and people of the time, and the evolvement of those attitudes during and after the course of the subject's career.

I recommend this book to anyone who may be interested in Speaker, the deadball era, or just baseball in general. Thumbs up from me.

Of course everyone has heard of Willie Mays, Joe Dimaggio, Duke Snyder and the great Mickey Mantle. Did anyone ever hear of Tris Speaker???
Probably not!! His fielding exploits are on par with the Say Hey Kid. Mr. Speaker played the shallowest centerfield in MLB history!! He leads the Major Leagues in Outfield Assists!!! His batting average is better than both Dimaggio and Mantle. His lifetime hitting of doubles will probably never be broken.
Tristium Speaker was born in 1888 in Texas. His first Major League club was the Boston Red Sox where he became a leading hitter and outfielder . While he was there he helped Boston to win 2 World Championships.
However, it was not until he was traded to Cleveland in 1916 that Mr. Speaker really became a legend. He played centerfield and later was asked to be Player-Manager of the Cleveland Indians. He directed the team in an extraordinary season in 1920 to become the World Series Champions. For you that don't know, please Google October 10, 1920.
Tris Speaker's life is well documented in this book. Please read it. You will learn that everything baseball does not reside in the Bronx!!!!

While reading this book, I felt as if I were sitting in the grandstands on a warm summer afternoon during the deadball era with a beer and a hotdog watching Speaker make unassisted double plays from centerfield. Tim Gay's work is a must-read for the lover of baseball nostalgia and history. It brings to life the game's earliest stars and personalities---warts and all.