Overview

Charles C. Alexander's fact-filled biography of Tris Speaker chronicles the twenty-two-year career of arguably the greatest centerfielder ever to play the position. It follows the colorful ballplayer through his years with the Boston Red Sox, the Cleveland Indians, the Washington Senators, and the Philadelphia Athletics, and on into his later years as manager of a professional ball club and promoter of the national pastime. Alexander examines both the highs and lows of Speaker's illustrious career, including his bitter contract dispute with the Red Sox in 1915, the death of his close friend Ray Chapman from a pitched ball in 1920, and the game-fixing scandal Speaker found himself embroiled in, along with Ty Cobb, late in his playing career. Despite the fact that Speaker was in the inaugural induction class when the National Baseball Hall of Fame opened in 1939, compiled a lifetime.345 batting average, and accumulated more doubles than anyone in baseball history, he is today not a household name like Ty Cobb or Babe Ruth, both of whom were Speaker's peers. Renowned baseball historian Alexander makes the case that Speaker, a fiery competitor and an immensely popular figure in his day, deserves to be known to a wider audience. Alexander details not only every significant major league game in which Speaker played, but also describes the careers of his teammates and opponents, the baseball of their day, and the way it changed within the context of the larger world around them. Tris Speaker's reputation receives new luster in Charles C. Alexander's even-handed biography of one of baseball's greats.

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9780870745171

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Reviews

Spoke is a first-rate biography of one of the most important and intriguing, but today largely overlooked, figures in baseball history. - C. Paul Rogers III

From baseball historian Alexander (Breaking the Slump: Baseball in the Depression Era, 2001, etc.), a detailed history of one of baseball's greatest centerfielders. Although Tris Speaker (aka Spoke and the Grey Eagle ) may not be known to many sports fans, he was for years one of the best players in the game. In a career that spanned more than 20 years, Speaker was one of the game's most consistent producers, eventually becoming baseball's career leader in doubles, and was in the top ten in career hits, triples and runs, eventually retiring after the 1928 season with an incredible .345 lifetime batting average (fifth best all-time). Speaker began his career with the Boston Red Sox, where he earned a reputation as a defensive standout with a strong arm and tremendous speed, an asset he also used to great advantage on the base paths. While never a prodigious power threat, Speaker was one of the best contact hitters in baseball. He won a batting title in 1916, briefly breaking Ty Cobb's stranglehold on the honor. His accomplishments weren't limited to individual accolades, however. Speaker won two World Series championships with the Red Sox before concerns about his age and salary led the team to sell his contract to the Cleveland Indians, where Speaker won another World Series title five years later. Despite his athletic success, Speaker was not a tremendously interesting figure. Alexander attempts to explain this away by saying that the private lives of ballplayers in his day generally remained private, a sentiment that fails to account for the fascinating private lives of Speaker's contemporaries Cobb and Babe Ruth. Although Speaker traveled with the notorious Cobb on off-season hunting trips, and faced controversy when he was forced to retire as a manager after being accused of fixing a game, Alexander is less interested in these episodes than in reciting the individual games and statistics that cemented Speaker's reputation as a member of the inaugural class of the National Baseball Hall of Fame.A comprehensive biography of one of the more accomplished, if unexciting, players in major-league history. (Kirkus Reviews)

Spoke is a first-rate biography of one of the most important and intriguing, but today largely overlooked, figures in baseball history. - C. Paul Rogers III

Author Information

CHARLES C. ALEXANDER, Distinguished Professor Emeritus of History at Ohio University, is the author of several important works of American intellectual and cultural history in addition to his other acclaimed baseball books - Ty Cobb, John McGraw, Our Game: An American Baseball History, Rogers Hornsby: A Biography, and Breaking the Slump: Baseball in the Depression Era.

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