Tris Speaker

Early life

Speaker was born on April 4, 1888, in Hubbard, Texas, to Archie and Nancy Poer Speaker. After falling from a horse as a youth, he broke his arm and became left-handed. He played college baseball for Fort Worth Polytechnic Institute in 1905. Newspaper reports claimed he suffered a football injury that nearly led to arm amputation, a story biographer Timothy Gay said Speaker never dispelled.

He worked on a ranch before turning professional. Doak Roberts, owner of the Cleburne Railroaders of the Texas League, signed Speaker. After losing several games as a pitcher, Speaker became an outfielder to replace a player hit in the head by a pitch; he batted .318 for Cleburne.

His mother opposed his major league participation, likening it to slavery, but eventually relented. Speaker played for the Houston Buffaloes in 1907, then was sold to the Boston Americans for $750 or $800. He appeared in seven games that year, collecting three hits in 19 at-bats (.158). In 1908, Boston traded him to the Little Rock Travelers of the Southern League for spring training facility use; he batted .350 and was repurchased by the Red Sox, hitting .224 in 116 at-bats.

Major league career

Speaker became Boston's regular center fielder in 1909 after Denny Sullivan was sold to Cleveland. He hit .309 in 143 games, leading outfielders in double plays (12) and posting a .973 fielding percentage. Speaker played so shallow that he effectively gave Boston a fifth infielder. In 1912, his best season, he led the American League in doubles (53) and home runs (10), set career highs in hits (222), runs (136), at-bats (580), and stolen bases (52), and batted .383 with a .567 slugging percentage.

He set a major league record with three hitting streaks of 20 or more games (30, 23, 22) and became the first player to hit 50 doubles and steal 50 bases in a season. In Fenway Park's first game, he drove in the winning run in the 11th inning. Speaker led the Red Sox to World Series championships in 1912 and 1915.

After his average dropped to .322 in 1915, he refused a pay cut and was traded to Cleveland, where as player-manager he led the team to its first World Series title. In seven of eleven seasons with Cleveland, he batted above .350. He resigned as manager in 1926 after game-fixing allegations with Ty Cobb; both were later cleared. Speaker introduced the platoon system in the major leagues during his Cleveland tenure.

Later life

Speaker replaced Walter Johnson as manager of the Newark Bears of the International League in 1929. Over two seasons, he appeared in 59 games as a player; the Bears finished sixth in 1929 and were in seventh place when he resigned. In January 1933, he became part owner and manager of the Kansas City Blues, but was replaced as manager by May, remaining secretary until selling his share by 1936. He was voted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1937 and honored at the first induction ceremony in 1939.

After baseball, Speaker ran a wholesale liquor business, worked as a state sales representative for a steel company, and chaired Cleveland's boxing commission from 1936 to 1943. He recruited new officials, implemented protections against fight fixing, and ensured payouts went directly to boxers. In 1940, he resolved a scheduling conflict for a Teddy Yarosz fight that drew over 8,300 spectators. In 1937, Speaker fell 16 feet from a second-story window while working on a flower box, suffering a skull fracture, broken arm, and possible internal injuries; he underwent facial surgery and recovered.

Legacy

After Speaker's death, the baseball field at Cleburne, Texas, city park was renamed in his honor. The Tris Speaker Memorial Award was created in 1961 by the Baseball Writers' Association of America for outstanding contributions to baseball. In 1999, he ranked 27th on the Sporting News list of the 100 Greatest Baseball Players and was named to the Major League Baseball All-Century Team. Ogden Nash's poem "Line-Up for Yesterday" mentions Speaker.

In 2008, former players' union chief Marvin Miller argued that Speaker should be removed from the Hall of Fame due to alleged membership in the Ku Klux Klan, saying the Hall contained "villains." Speaker-Cobb-Rogers Hornsby biographer Charles C. Alexander told author Marty Appel that it was possible Speaker, Cobb, and Hornsby were briefly in the Klan, which was strong in Texas and recruited prominent native-born, Protestant, white men. Baseball historian Bill James does not dispute the claim but notes the Klan had toned down its racism in the 1920s and attracted hundreds of thousands of men, including Hugo Black. James adds that Speaker staunchly supported Larry Doby when Doby broke the American League color barrier, working long hours with him on outfield play.

Did You Know?

• Speaker died of a heart attack at age 70 while pulling his boat into the dock after a fishing trip at Lake Whitney, Texas; it was his second heart attack in four years.
• Speaker was buried at Fairview Cemetery in Hubbard, Texas.