At Home on the Road
“The relation of player to magnate is purely contractual and gives no basis for the principle of paternalism, which the magnates now attempt to inject into it.”
In arguably the most infamous case of barnstormers being penalized, New York Yankees teammates Babe Ruth, Bob Meusel and Bill Piercy, coming off an American League pennant in 1921, were fined their World Series shares and suspended until May 20 of the 1922 season by Baseball Commissioner Kenesaw Landis for participating in exhibition games following the ’21 Fall Classic.
Ruth and the others had defied Section 8B of Article 4 of the Major League code, which took effect the previous February: “Both teams that contest in the world’s series are required to disband immediately after its close and the members thereof are forbidden to participate as individuals or as a team in exhibition games during the year in which that world’s championship was decided.”
Landis, who was still dealing with the unsavory aspects of the Black Sox Scandal, made it crystal clear who baseball’s boss was.
“I did not write the rule against barnstorming, but I am the enforcement officer of that rule and I am a stickler for obedience in such cases. To violate the rule is to challenge the authority of the Commissioner. Disregarding the personal side of entirely, this case resolves itself into the question of who is the biggest man in baseball, the Commissioner or the player who makes the most home runs. It may have to be decided whether one man is bigger than baseball.”
“Baseball gives the player every possible protection during the regular season,” Harridge said. “The players are provided with the best of everything – food, hotels, railroads and playing fields. And then, as soon as the season ends, many of them immediately rush off to play exhibition games on poor fields, with poor accommodations and without proper supervision.
“Injuries are apt to result and often do. In many cases, antics of ‘wildcat’ promoters, whose interest naturally is not in baseball, but in their personal pocketbooks, give the game a bad name. The magnate has an undeniable property right in the player’s career, which the player, by barnstorming, places in jeopardy without any compensation for the magnate.”
Barnstorming Timeline
To the top- 1860: Brooklyn Excelsior tour NY state
- Red Stockings and Athletics tour Great Britian
- 1875: Blondes vs. Brunettes, first female barnstorming tour
- 1878: New Bedford, MA team pulls out of International League to barnstorm
- 1888-89: Albert Spalding takes Major Leaguers on world tour
- c.1890s: Bloomer Girls teams begin touring
- 1913-14: New York Giants and Chicago White Sox tour the world
- 1915: First House of David barnstorming tours
- 1921: Babe Ruth and Yankees barnstorm, violating MLB rules
- 1927: Bustin’ Babes and Larrupin’ Lous tour America
- 1929: Kansas City Monarchs tour with portable lighting system
- 1931-1935: Pete Alexander pitches for and manages a House of David team
- 1934: Major Leaguers with Babe Ruth tour Japan
- 1946: Bob Feller’s All-Stars tour against Satchel Paige’s Negro All-Stars
- 1962: Willie Mays-led tour cancelled after four games
- 1986-present: Bi-annual Major League All-Stars vs. Japanese All-Stars in Japan
- 1994-1997: Colorado Silver Bullets womens team tour against men
- 2010: Los Angeles Dodgers go to Taiwan in goodwill tour
Related Hall of Famers
To the top
Fred Clarke

Dizzy Dean

Barney Dreyfuss

Bob Feller

Jimmie Foxx

Will Harridge

Lou Gehrig

Ban Johnson

Kenesaw Landis

Satchel Paige

Jackie Robinson

Babe Ruth
