What is barnstorming in baseball ? The players, weary from striking but eager to upstage their replacements, would arrive in the middle of the week. There would be workouts, youth clinics, autograph sessions, home run derbies, all for free. Then on Friday night the main event would begin, a weekend slate of games featuring teams stocked from a pool of perennial All-Stars and a dozen future Hall of Famers. In one city one weekend, Barry Bonds, Kirby Puckett and Paul O’Neill might share the same outfield, while squaring off against Roger Clemens. In another town on another weekend, it might be Pedro Martinez’s turn to stare down a lineup anchored by Frank Thomas, Larry Walker and Cal Ripken Jr.

It was fantasy baseball brought to life. The combinations were endless, and all of them superior to the slop being offered by the owners, who in their hubris had slapped uniforms on has-beens, never-weres and other assorted rejects, then presented them to the public as big leaguers. The fans knew better. They would come to watch the real thing, and proceeds would be funneled to charities. This idea is what the players clung to as they concocted their response to the unthinkable.

If the owners followed through with their threat to begin the 1995 season with replacements, the established players figured they couldn’t sit around and take it. They needed to answer. So, they reached deep into the history of the sport, borrowing a concept as ancient as paying ballplayers to play. This wouldn’t be just another barnstorming tour, union head Donald Fehr said at the time, “it could be something better.” In the background, acrimony had given rise to another radical idea: the players eventually launching a league of their own. Barnstorming might serve as a useful dress rehearsal. If all went well, if Reebok could be locked in as the sponsor, if CBS could be brought in as a broadcast partner, then anything was possible.

The tour was to begin in early May. The first stop was RFK Stadium in Washington, a decade before the Nationals brought major league baseball back to the District. It would pass through places without their own teams: the Hoosier Dome in Indianapolis, the Superdome in New Orleans and BC Place in Vancouver, and also minor league towns like Buffalo, Louisville and Portland. And, in a delicious twist for the players, it would pass through big league ballparks controlled by municipalities. This way, the owners couldn’t flex their muscles and force out the players. They’d already tried this once with the Florida site that had been leased to be used as a spring training site ahead of the barnstorming tour. They had failed.

The tour never happened, of course. Just days before the replacements were to start the regular season, and the players were to begin training for their renegade tour, future Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor effectively ended the work stoppage with an injunction issued by the U.S. District Court. The players’ league never got off the ground. It might have been the strangest season in the history of baseball until the arrival of COVID-19. Instead, it passed into the complicated realm of hazy recollections and grandeur fueled by nostalgia.

Barnstorming Baseball Definition

What is barnstorming in baseball? Barnstorming in baseball is touring or visiting different local towns for exhibition matches during the off-season.

The word “Barnstorming” rose from the old vaudeville days when the players were ready to play anywhere on the roads. The biggest fan of it was the legendary Babe Ruth.

Ruth used to earn a wealthy amount of money by traveling across the country, becoming the player to earn more money than other ballplayers would earn in a particular season.

It used to be a great way to earn money off-season for the players and also created opportunities for those fans who were unable to watch the MLB.

The first formal barnstorming tour happened in 1860 when Brooklyn Excelsior played the games around New York City. Later the league officials allowed barnstorming tours only for post-season and pre-season.

Barnstorming Baseball Babe Ruth

Babe Ruth suspended for barnstorming along with his teammates Bob Meusel and Bill Piercy. All three got suspended till May 20, 1992.

The suspension is the infamous case of Barnstormers, where Ruth and two mates were fined their World Series shares and faced suspension for exhibition games following the ’21 Fall Classic.

Following the 1921 World Series, Yankees slugger Ruth created a team of MLB All-Stars for brainstorming tours around America. The players agreed to work for the offseason as they needed the money.

Later Landis developed the rule which prevents the players from World Series participation from barnstorming. Ruth faces 39 days suspension for ignoring the rule.

Babe’s ignorance led to the tour in Buffalo, which Landis warned to stop five days later in Scranton. Due to Ruth’s unethical response, Landis fined Ruth and his mate Meusel $3362.26 each.

Despite the incident, Ruth was supported by the president of the United States. When the Yankees played their opening game of the 1922 season, he enjoyed his moments from the presidential box where he watched it.

After the incident, the tour could not make as much money as expected due to bad weather conditions. Some clubs feared Landis’s order and canceled the game, whereas the commissioner also cowed minor league teams avoiding using their ground.

The barnstorming rule in which Babe was suspended was removed by July 1922 but forced the players to gain the commissioner’s permission before joining the tour. Furthermore, those players have avoided participating in exhibition games since October 31.

Later the rule led to famous barnstorming tours of Ruth with his Yankees teammate Lou Gehrig in the mid-1920s.

Some barnstorming Baseball Teams

Barnstormers teams include the likes of the Colorado Silver Bullets, Brooklyn Royal Giants, and House of Davids. They travel to several locations to play exhibition matches.

Rather than playing in the well-managed professional league, barnstorming teams used to schedule their own games as they traveled across the country.

Colorado Bullets was a women’s baseball team who used to enjoy the tours due to the absence of a women’s baseball league in the 1990s.

They were the first team since the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League was established in 1954. Hope Beckham Inc. was the owner of the team.

The Bullets played 44 games in their first season in 1994. Later they had 195 games over four years by barnstorming the men’s all-star amateur and professional teams.

Many of the teams would play games in Mexico and Canadian cities. Those teams priorly used to play with professional teams, amateur local teams, industrial league teams, and Negro “League” teams.

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