Hometown of Tris Speaker

Tris Speaker's numbers outlast the legend. According to the Handbook of Texas, he played twenty-two seasons in the major leagues and finished with a lifetime .345 batting average. In 1920, as player-manager at $57,000, he led Cleveland to its first pennant. He was the seventh player named to the Baseball Hall of Fame, in 1937, and the first athlete in the Texas Sports Hall of Fame, in 1951. He married at thirty-six. He died of a heart attack on a fishing trip to Lake Whitney on December 8, 1958, and was buried in Fairview Cemetery in Hubbard.

What the plaque says

Hometown of Tris Speaker (1888 - 1958) A legend in his own time, Tris Speaker was born, educated and buried here. Known as the Grey Eagle, he was the first Texan named to National Baseball Hall of Fame. First man elevated to Texas Sports Hall of Fame. Was on Boston's 1912 and 1915 World Series winning teams. Managed Cleveland Indians in their first pennant win, 1920. At 18 began professional play at $50 a month. Became a smart, able business man. Never wasted big money of playing career. Always "came home" to Hubbard. Here he was lifetime member of volunteer fire department. (1964)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Blind Lemon Memorial Cemetery — 20 mi
  The Freestone County grave of the Texas blues singer Blind Lemon Jefferson, who recorded for Paramount in Chicago from 1926 and died there in December 1929.
• Confederate Reunion Grounds State Historic Site — 20 mi
  Where Limestone County Confederate veterans gathered each summer from 1888, later a water supplier in the Mexia oil boom, now a Texas Historical Commission site on the Navasota River.
• Hill County Courthouse — 23 mi
  Wesley C. Dodson's limestone Second Empire courthouse of 1890 on the Hillsboro square, gutted by fire on New Year's Day 1993 and rededicated in 1999 after a rebuilding that two Willie Nelson concerts helped pay for.
• Old Fort Parker — 24 mi
  A rebuilt 1830s family stockade near the Navasota River, where a May 1836 attack killed men of the Parker settlement and took five captives, among them nine-year-old Cynthia Ann Parker.

More markers nearby

• Hubbard — steps away
• Hubbard City News — steps away
• Hot Mineral Water Well — 0.3 mi
• Former Site of Liberty Hill Settlement — 3.7 mi