"Where Triples go to die..."

I couldn't remember exactly to whose glove this appellation was said to apply, and of course, as it turns out, it is several. Willie Mays for starters, although it didn't begin with him. Shoeless Joe Jackson wore the mitt back in the dead ball days when a triple really meant something, and home runs were few and far between. But apparently it originated with one-time Red Sox center fielder and later Cleveland Indians Player Manager Tris Speaker, who despite being overshadowed by Ty Cobb his entire career, in my mind is always better remembered as a hitter (with a lifetime batting average of .344), but was also apparently known as the greatest defensive center fielder of his day.

His nickname was "the Gray Eagle," and The Baseball Page has him ranked as the 6th greatest center fielder of all time, behind Willie Mays, Ty Cobb, Ken Griffey Jr., Joe DiMaggio and Mickey Mantle. According to BaseballLibrary.com, Speaker "is the all-time Major League leader in outfield assists (448) and double plays (139), as well as the AL leader in outfield putouts (6,706)." Although he played "only seven full seasons with Boston, he is second on the club all-time in both triples (106) and stolen bases (266), and is third behind Wade Boggs and Ted Williams in batting (.337)."

The triple-killing catch which inspired the comment may well have been one similar to the catch Speaker made off of a ball hit by his rival Shoeless Joe to win the pennant for the 1920 Indians in a season-ending game against the Chicago White Sox. According to Wikipedia, while moving at [a] "dead run, Speaker leaped with both feet off the ground" and "caught a screaming line drive hit to deep right-center field" before "crashing into a concrete wall." Although the impact knocked him unconscious, the Gray Eagle "still had a viselike grip on the ball."

As a former center fielder myself, I know well that indescribable thrill of running down a well-hit fly ball and turning it into an out. As a kid, I was like a terrier after a tennis ball; and it really didn't matter to me whether I was catching fungos, or shagging batting practice, or playing shallow in the late innings of a close game where cutting off a run at the plate meant everything, and a ball hit over my head was meaningless. I've admired Ken Griffey Jr. and Fred Lynn (whose injury-plagued careers in some ways resemble my own experience with Our National Pastime); I've seen film of Willie Mays in his prime, and wondered about Negro League players like Cool Papa Bell or Oscar Charleston; and of course I've read about Ty Cobb and Tris Speaker, Mickey Mantle and Joe DiMaggio, and wondered how contemporary players like Johnny Damon or Grady Sizemore would size up alongside these no-longer living legends.

A five-tool talent, who hits for power and average, has speed on the basepaths, a golden glove, and can run down anything hit his way. Tris Speaker was the prototype of this style of center fielder, and all these others...his good friend Ty Cobb included, mimic his exemplary excellence.