Remembering Legendary Batsmen Speaker and Wagner

Posted on November 24, 2011 by admin

December marks the anniversary of the passing of two legendary major league batters — Tris Speaker (Dec. 8, 1958) and Honus Wagner (Dec. 6, 1955).  Speaker is fifth on the all-time hits list with 3,514, while Wagner is seventh with 3,420 (or 3,415, depending on which source you choose).

We thought we’d dedicate this blog to remembering these champion hitters of a bygone era.  Users of The Hitting Jack-It™ System could learn a thing or two from these masters of the plate.

Tris Speaker

Tristram E. Speaker, born April 4, 1888, is considered one of the best offensive and defensive center fielders in the history of Major League Baseball.  Nicknamed “Spoke” and “The Grey Eagle,” he compiled a career batting average of .345 (fourth all-time), and still holds the record of 792 career doubles.

Defensively, Speaker’s career records for assists, double plays, and unassisted double plays by an outfielder still stand as well.  His fielding glove was known as the place “where triples go to die.”

Speaker led the Boston Red Sox to two World Series championships, and then carried the Cleveland Indians, as player-manager, to that team’s first-ever World Series title. His innovations, most notably the platoon system and the infield rotation play, revolutionized the game. He was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in its second year of voting, 1937.

Almost six feet tall and a sturdy 193 pounds, Speaker batted from a left-handed crouch and stood deep in the batter’s box. He held his bat low, moving it up and down slowly (“like the lazy twitching of a cat’s tail,” according to an admirer) and taking a full stride at impact.

“I don’t find any particular ball easy to hit,” Speaker said. “I have no rule for batting. I keep my eye on the ball and when it nears me make ready to swing.”  Nevertheless, “I cut my drives between the first baseman and the line and that is my favorite alley for my doubles.”

To read Speaker’s full bio, click here.

Honus Wagner

Johannes Peter “Honus” Wagner was born February 24, 1874.  Nicknamed “The Flying Dutchman” due to his superb speed and German heritage (“Dutch” in this instance being an alteration of “Deutsch”), Wagner played shortstop in the National League from 1897 to 1917, almost entirely for the Pittsburgh Pirates. Wagner won eight batting titles, tied for the most in NL history with Tony Gwynn. He also led the league in slugging six times, and in stolen bases five times.

In 1936, the Baseball Hall of Fame inducted Wagner as one of the first five members. He received the second-highest vote total, behind Ty Cobb and tied with Babe Ruth.

Although Cobb is frequently cited as the greatest player of the dead-ball era, some contemporaries regarded Wagner as the better all-around player, and most baseball historians consider Wagner to be the greatest shortstop ever. Cobb himself called Wagner “maybe the greatest star ever to take the diamond.”

Seeing Wagner at bat, standing straight up waiting for the pitch, was to witness raw power. He held his heavy bat (well over 40 ounces) with his hands several inches apart, a grip that allowed him to slap an outside pitch to right at the last moment or slide his hands together and pull an inside pitch down the left field line. Now obsolete, the split-handed grip was relatively popular in the early part of the century. Wagner and Ty Cobb used it, winning twenty batting titles and accumulating about 7,600 hits between them.

To read Wagner’s full bio, click here.

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