Tris Speaker The Rough-and-tumble Life of a Baseball Legend

2006 Seymour Medal Finalist Tris Speaker compiled a career batting average of .345 (4th all-time) and struck more doubles (792) than anyone in history. But he was so much more than a Hall of Fame hitter. As baseball historian Richard Johnson says, "Speaker was Willie Mays before there was a Willie Mays." Regarded by his peers as the greatest centerfielder of all-time, his glove was known as the place "where triples go to die," and he still holds career records for assists, double plays, and unassisted double plays by an outfielder. Speaker led the Boston Red Sox to two World Series championships, and then as a player-manager in Cleveland, he carried the Indians to their first-ever World Series title while also revolutionizing the game by popularizing the platoon system and the infield rotation play. Tris Speaker tells the story of one of baseball's true legends, offering an honest look at Speaker's roughshod, frontier-forged personality. As Bill Moyers once said, "Speaker was a Texan. If his flaws were large, so were his virtues." Born deep in the heart of Texas, the young Speaker would fabricate stories about his father being a Confederate hero. Yet one day, Speaker would find himself tutoring Larry Doby, the American League's first black player, on the art of playing centerfield. This long-overdue book ranks among the best in baseball biographies and in literature in the history of the game.Gay, Timothy M. is the author of 'Tris Speaker The Rough-and-tumble Life of a Baseball Legend', published 2007 under ISBN 9781599211114 and ISBN 1599211114.