cover image Tris Speaker: The Rough-And-Tumble Life of a Baseball Legend

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

Timothy Gay. University of Nebraska Press, $27.95 (314pp) ISBN 978-0-8032-2206-9

Tristam ""Spoke"" Speaker sits, statistically, alongside baseball's greatest sluggers and fielders, but his story and name have largely been forgotten. Gay, in his first book, has unearthed the colorful history of this ne'er say die Texas cowboy, giving baseball fans a fresh look at the Hall of Fame center fielder whose colorful personality and remarkable talent were overshadowed by contemporaries like Ty Cobb and Cy Young. (Even the Speaker-Cobb-Wood-Leonard betting affair of 1919 was eclipsed in disgrace by the Black Sox gambling scandal.) Speaker still holds the mark for most career doubles-792, as a member of the Boston Red Sox and Cleveland Indians-and the shallow position he occupied just behind second base revolutionized the way outfield was played. From 1910-15, Speaker centered Boston's Golden Outfield of Duffy Lewis and Cat Hooper, and nearly 30 years after their final game together (the Golden boys shared the Sox outfield for nearly six seasons), scribe Grantland Rice called the trio ""the greatest defensive outfield I ever saw."" The phrase ""where triples go to die"" was originally penned of Speaker's glove, but history somehow misplaced the attribution to Joe Jackson. Gay has insured the righting of history with this biography. A worthwhile read for any sports fan.