Barnstorming

A blast from the past.

Satchell Paige and Dizzy Dean, two of the most prolific barnstormers of the era.

My grandfather was my first introduction to sports history. Well, him and the books I tended to pick up at the annual school book fairs. Most of my allowance went towards posters of Ferraris and books on Super Bowl history and baseball stats. In my free time, I’d bone up on the ’85 Bears or Ty Cobb’s dominance at the plate, in between rounds of Nintendo and compulsive movie watching. Yes, it should come as no surprise that I struggled to transition into dating when I reached my teenage years.

But my grandpa gave sports history a personal touch, and his firsthand stories made the old days come alive in way they never quite did on the page. He knew I was a massive Notre Dame football fan, and as a WWII vet, he took a special joy in telling me how Army used to beat up on the Irish behind Mr. Inside (Doc Blanchard) and Mr. Outside (Glenn Davis). He even bragged up Navy’s efforts against the Golden Domers in the old days, despite rooting against them in the annual Army-Navy game.

The idea of Army or Navy being a football powerhouse was about as realistic to me as a kid as The Lord of the Rings. They were cupcakes on Notre Dame’s schedule, but I always thought it was cool when something from his heyday came around again, and he was on my mind as both Army and Navy put together outstanding seasons in 2024. To be fair, neither is going to be playing for a national championship anytime soon, and the Irish obliterated them both, but it was fun to watch anyway.

He taught me a lot about baseball too. During Braves games on TBS, he talked about Hank Aaron, and he was my gateway to other great players like Willie Mays and Stan Musial. My grandpa told me about Joe DiMaggio and his legendary 56-game hit streak, and that knowledge only added to my appreciation of Paul Molitor’s pursuit of that streak in 1987. But there’s one element of his sports experience that isn’t likely to come back around again, and that’s barnstorming.

Barnstorming was basically baseball with a WWE approach. MLB players formed teams and tours of their own and traveled across the country in the offseason, selling tickets and showcasing their talents to crowds who weren’t normally able to watch them. Wildly popular during the first half of the twentieth century, barnstorming played an integral role in my grandfather’s baseball experience.

Like me, he grew up in a small northeast Kansas town about an hour north of Kansas City. He was born in 1924, and the westernmost teams in major league baseball at that time were the Cardinals and Browns, both of whom played in St. Louis. That’s a three-and-a-half-hour drive in the modern day, and considerably longer and more inconvenient back then. The Browns moved to Baltimore in 1953, but Kansas City finally got its own team when the A’s moved in for the 1955 season. Three years later, the Dodgers and Giants finally brought baseball to the west coast, but one look at today’s standings shows it’s been a gradual process filling in all that open space.

A lot of those communities between Kansas City and the Pacific Ocean had minor league teams, and many of those franchises were beloved and well-regarded, but it wasn’t the same as seeing the major league stars they read about in the newspapers and saw in newsreels at the movies in person. The only way to do that was when they came to town as part of a barnstorming tour, and that was no small thing. For many of those places that normally existed as little more than a stop on the railroad, the barnstormers coming to town was bigger than the circus, a political rally, a Taylor Swift concert, and the Fourth of July all rolled into one.

It's hard for us today to wrap our heads around how much of a big deal it must have been. To be fair, barnstorming does still exist in some variations. The WWE, which I mentioned earlier, is maybe the best comparison. The traveling shows are their main gig, not a side hustle, and though it’s not an actual sporting competition, the nomadic business model is similar to how barnstormers operated. Then there’s the Harlem Globetrotters, and even in baseball, the Savannah Bananas. But as entertaining as the Bananas are, it’s also a gimmick-based show, not a legitimate game. That wasn’t the case with barnstorming.

These were real games with the biggest stars in the sport. Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Satchel Paige, and Josh Gibson, just to name a few, all barnstormed. These were the best of the best, and in an age when the game was segregated, it was the only place fans could see the greatest black and white athletes play against each other, or sometimes with each other. Unlike the racist team owners who were set on keeping the game white, many of MLB’s elite players believed African-Americans deserved a chance to play in the Show because they had seen their capabilities firsthand, and often came out on the losing end against them.

Unfortunately, MLB integration was a slow process, but barnstorming certainly played a role in knocking open that door. In some cases, directly. The Cleveland Indians became the first American League franchise to sign an African-American player in 1947 when they added Larry Doby to their roster. A year later, on their way to what is still their most recent World Series title, Cleveland added the legendary Satchel Paige to their pitching staff.

Paige was a wily veteran of the Negro Leagues, probably a little past his prime, but still effective. He was also a rock star, having established an almost mythic standing in the game with audiences of all races, due in large part to his eccentric personality and prolific barnstorming success. Two years earlier, Indians star pitcher Bob Feller had sought out Paige to join him on a barnstorming tour, essentially laying the groundwork for their collaboration in Cleveland.

That was not Feller’s intention. I’m not saying he was against it, because he certainly wasn’t, but I also don’t want to paint him as an enlightened saint working for a higher purpose. He wanted Paige because he knew they would sell tickets together. A series of head-to-head matchups between the best white pitcher and best black pitcher in the game was sure to be a box office smash.

Money was always the primary motivation for players when it came to barnstorming. This was an era before free agency and a powerful players union. The owners controlled baseball with an iron fist. By-and-large, they were cheap and more than willing to exploit the players to their benefit. Barnstorming was a chance for players to establish their own autonomy and keep all the profits for themselves.

Naturally, the owners attempted to undermine them at every step. They did have some legitimate concerns, however. After all, the owners saw it as their duty to protect the game. They didn’t want their star players getting hurt showing off for some hicks in Albuquerque, and they definitely didn’t want their all-stars losing to a team of scrubs in El Paso. The papers would have a field day with that sort of thing. Then there was the issue of gambling.

After the Black Sox scandal in 1919, MLB cracked down on gambling, but barnstorming was the Wild West. If a gambling scandal happened on tour, it technically wouldn’t have been on Major League Baseball’s watch, but the powers-that-be knew no one was likely to acknowledge that nuance. Owners insisted players get their approval to barnstorm, and while it would have been a PR nightmare to outright deny them, they did their best to limit the players.

No barnstorming was allowed before the end of the World Series, which was reasonable. They didn’t want their players competing with their biggest event. However, they were also not allowed to barnstorm after October 31. Of course, there were no playoffs back then. The best teams in the AL and NL met in the World Series immediately after the end of the regular season, so this provided more time than in later eras, but it was still a condensed window for players to hit the road.

On paper, this was done to protect players from themselves and keep them from burning themselves out during the offseason. Players weren’t buying that. They knew it was an effort to limit their earnings and keep them in check, and they recognized it for the missed opportunity it was. The players were out for a paycheck, but more than the owners, they seemed to understand barnstorming was a way to grow the game and reach new audiences. In that respect, I suppose it’s oddly comforting that even back then, MLB couldn’t get out of its own way when it came to promoting its product. Some things never change.

Eventually, regardless of who you believe was in the right, barnstorming ran its course and rendered the point moot. Westward expansion played a role, but technology was what really delivered the death knell for barnstorming. Radio, and especially television brought everyone into the fold, no matter where they lived.

For that reason alone, it’s hard to see barnstorming ever making a serious comeback. Not to mention that with the obscene amounts of money that both owners and players rake in today, there isn’t any real motivation to resurrect the practice. In a way, that’s too bad.

Barnstorming, in its original form, wouldn’t work today. But part of me thinks there are some things you could do in the spirit of barnstorming that could be fun and effectively promote the game, and in particular, its stars. I’m thinking more in terms of a supplement to the MLB season, a way to keep the game in the spotlight during the offseason and provide a platform for the sport’s most marketable faces and personalities. As I mentioned, MLB has often struggled with this concept.

Unfortunately, it comes back to the question of motivation again. Baseball, despite its flaws, is doing booming business, for both the owners and the players. And both sides appear to be content to take that success for granted and do nothing to get ahead of the problems coming down the line.

When it comes to showmanship, however, baseball could learn a thing or two from its past.

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Thanks for reading Powder Blue Nostalgia. What are your thoughts on barnstorming? Do you think something like it could work today? How would it look? Did you have a grandpa or someone like that who used to tell you about those days? Or are you a grandpa or grandma with stories of your own from that era? We’d love to hear your stories in the comments!