Houston Sports - Tris Speaker

Tris Speaker

Born: April 4, 1888

Sport: Baseball (3-time World Series champion, MVP, Batting Title winner, 617-520 managerial record, Hall of Fame)

It is the very beginning of baseball season and the temperatures are on their way up, so we're returning to look at the boys of summer.  Just for fun, why don't we go way back in time and learn about one of the all-time greatest?  While he doesn't get as much recognition now and never played in an era where a major league team existed in the state of Texas, he is a native of the Lone Star State who came through Houston on his way up the minor league ladder.  He played the game 100 years ago but Tris Speaker still holds records that have never been matched, and in recognition of that fact he became the very first inductee into the Texas Sports Hall of Fame.  But that was just one of the many honors and achievements he received after a storied baseball career.  Let's find out more about the man known as the Gray Eagle. 

Earliest available view of the West End Park where Tris Speaker played for Houston's Buffaloes (1944)

Just 70 miles south of Dallas sits the town of Hubbard, Texas, which was the birthplace of Tristam Speaker, the youngest son of Archie and Nancy Speaker.  The couple had moved to Texas from Ohio shortly before the Civil War began, running a dry goods business and boarding house, and both had brothers who fought for the Confederacy.  Young Tris enjoyed riding horses and playing baseball, but a fall from the back of a bronco broke his arm when he was just 10 years old.  Naturally right-handed, he taught himself to throw from the left side and later he would also develop a left-handed batter's swing as well, both of which remained for the rest of his life.  After graduating from Hubbard High School, Speaker enrolled in Fort Worth Polytechnic Institute (later Texas Wesleyan University) and played one season of college baseball while earning extra money as a cowpoke and telegraph lineman.  Speaker also played for a semipro team in Corsicana but decided afterwards, in 1906, to write several professional teams in the hopes of earning a tryout.  His efforts were successful, and the Cleburne Railroaders gave him the shot he wanted while still just 18 years of age.  His mother objected, believing her son was selling himself "into slavery" and stating that she wanted him to go into either the cattle or oil business.  Tris refused.  Pitching did not work out, as he lost 6 straight games, but his hitting and defense was solid.  In 1907 the North Texas League consolidated with the South Texas League, and Speaker moved to Houston where he played 118 games while batting .314 and stealing 36 bases.  By the end of the season the Boston Americans purchased his contract, their scout apparently beating a competing offer from the St. Louis Browns by just half an hour, but after just seven games they decided he wasn't worth keeping on the roster.  He begged for another chance, paying his own way to attend training camp with the team in Arkansas and even reaching out to John McGraw of the New York Giants, but when 1908 started Speaker found himself back in the minor leagues.

Tris Speaker's second stint in the minor leagues took place with the Little Rock Travelers, who acquired the speedy center fielder from Boston as a payment for renting their field for training camp but only on the condition that if he improved they would have the right to purchase him back for $500.  Speaker responded by batting .350 in 127 games for Little Rock, and the Boston squad (which had changed their name to the Red Sox during the offseason) called him back up to the major leagues for their final 31 games.  Although he was still not performing well at the plate, his defense was good enough to convince the team to let him stay, and pitcher Cy Young frequently helped the rookie develop his skills.  Alongside fellow outfielders Harry Hooper and Duffy Lewis, Speaker was part of one of the great defensive outfields of all time, known as the "Million-Dollar Outfield".  Spectators were surprised at how shallow he played his position, but Speaker believed preventing singles was a better plan than giving up the occasional double or triple over his head.  Consequently, he was not only able to help cover second base, but he also stifled the running games of opponents.  During a period of baseball known as the Deadball Era, very few balls made it beyond the center fielder anyway.  Speaker finally came into his own as a hitter, but he was never as well-known as his contemporaries Ty Cobb and Babe Ruth, the latter of whom was a teammate for Boston for two years.  Speaker famously drove in the winning run in the 11th inning of Fenway Park's very first game, and he went on to earn the 1912 AL MVP and win two World Series titles with the Red Sox in 1912 and 1915.  Unfortunately, conflicts with other players and management resulted in him being traded to Cleveland following the second championship.  Clubhouses differences in religion created infighting, and the Protestant Speaker frequently clashed with catcher Bill Carrigan and left fielder Duffy Lewis, who were both Catholics.  The team's president, Joe Lannin, proposed cutting his pay due to declining productivity and an incensed Speaker decided to hold out.  Even after being traded to the Indians, he held his ground until Boston paid him $10,000 of the cash Cleveland had paid for his contract, despite his new $40,000 contract being the richest in all of baseball.  At the time, it was deemed by many to be a more damaging trade for the Red Sox than the sale of Babe Ruth to New York four years later.

Once in Cleveland, Tris Speaker wasted no time endearing himself to a new fanbase as he led the league in hits and batting average, finally surpassing Ty Cobb.  Despite a wall that stood 460' from home plate to dead center, Speaker continued playing so shallow that he recorded an MLB-record six unassisted double plays from center field - catching batted balls on the fly and beating the runner back to the bag at second base.  His speed and prematurely gray hair had earned him the nickname Gray Eagle, and his career number of putouts ranks second only behind Willie Mays.  When the US entered World War I in 1917, he decided to enroll in an aviator training program and even though the hostilities ended before he finished Speaker served in the naval reserves for several years.  He was such an asset in the dugout that Cleveland manager Lee Fohl frequently consulted him and rarely made important decisions without consent.  During the 1919 season, however, Fohl misread a signal and brought in a different pitcher than Speaker intended - the center fielder didn't protest, but the new pitcher gave up the lead and cost the Indians the game.  Fohl resigned that very night and suddenly Speaker became the player-manager of the team, but he handled the final 61 games of the season well enough that the team kept the arrangement in place.  The trust was well-placed, as he guided the 1920 Indians to a World Series victory in spite of a late-season tragedy when popular teammate Ray Chapman was fatally struck in the head by a pitch.  As a manager Speaker has been credited with inventing the platoon system, matching up batters against opposing pitchers based on whether they were right- or left-handed.  On the field he continued to perform, leading all of baseball in doubles four straight years and seven years total.  In 1925 Speaker surpassed the 3,000 hit threshold, becoming only the second Cleveland Indian to reach that milestone.  He also finally got married that year, tying the knot with Mary Frances Cudahy, whom he had known for six years.  The irony of Speaker marrying an Irish Catholic girl in a Catholic ceremony was not lost on local newspaper writers, noting his history of religious strife had seemingly shifted.  The following year both Speaker and Ty Cobb stepped down as player-managers after a scandal broke accusing them of fixing games.  Although both players were cleared of wrongdoing, neither one returned to their teams.  Speaker signed with the Washington Senators and Cobb went to the Philadelphia Athletics.  After one season, Speaker played his final season in Philadelphia alongside his friend and rival before retiring.  The pair retired as the last players to have recorded 200 or more triples in their careers, and in addition to Speaker's 792 doubles remaining the all-time record he is also still in the top 10 hitters in batting average, hits, and runs.

In retirement, Tris Speaker remained connected to the game.  He managed the Newark Bears of the International League from 1929-30, replacing Walter Johnson and occasionally taking the field.  Three years later, after having a stint as a broadcaster, he spent five months managing the Kansas City Blues in the American Association, a league Speaker had invested in and tried to help establish.  By 1936 he had sold his share and transitioned to a new sport by becoming the chairman of the Cleveland Boxing and Wrestling Commission.  Speaker was elected to baseball's Hall of Fame in 1937, the second-ever induction class alongside Cy Young and Napoleon Lajoie, all three of whom had significant portions of their careers in Cleveland.  Yesterday, a likely future Hall of Famer playing for Cleveland by the name of Jose Ramirez joined Speaker and Lajoie as the franchise's third player to ever reach the 400 doubles plateau, briefly bringing those two legends back into the sports news cycle.  Speaker was involved in an alcohol wholesale business, steel, indoor baseball, and charity work for handicapped children.  Owner Bill Veeck asked Speaker in 1947, shortly after Jackie Robinson shattered the color barrier in baseball, to help a newly-signed player from the Negro Leagues by the name of Larry Doby as he tried to convert from second base to center field.  As Speaker had previously been accused of being a member of the KKK, his willingness to assist the second African American in his move to the MLB and serve as a goodwill ambassador was once again a sign to many that he was not the villain others had claimed.  In 1951 Speaker became the very first person elected into the Texas Sports Hall of Fame, and he was also a charter member of both the Cleveland Indians (now Guardians) and Boston Red Sox Halls of Fame.  After a series of serious injuries, conditions, and illnesses late in life, Speaker died of a heart attack at the age of 70 in late 1958 after a fishing trip on Texas' Lake Whitney.

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