Welcome to the Baseball History Podcast: Featuring This Week in Baseball History, baseball dictionary and a tour of baseball cities. I’m your game announcer Bob Wright.
This is game 19 of the 2008 baseball season
In the first inning let’s take a look at This Week in Baseball History for the 2 week of May.
May 2
1876 In Cincinnati against the Redlegs, Chicago’s Ross Barnes hits the first home run in the history of National League. The former National Association superstar also has, in addition to his inside-the-park homer, a single, a triple, two stolen bases and scores four runs.
Charles Roscoe Barnes was born May 8, 1850 in Mount Morris, New York.
The clever second baseman was the National League’s first batting leader, having already won two National Association titles. He specialized in “fair-foul” hits, squibbed bunts that landed fair, rolled foul, but remained in play under the rules of the time. However, when the rules were changed before the 1877 season his Batting Average plummeted.
He played for the dominant Boston Red Stockings teams of the early 1870s, along with Albert Spalding, Cal McVey, George Wright, Harry Wright, Jim O’Rourke, and Deacon White. Despite playing for these star-studded teams, many claim that Ross was the most valuable to his teams.
From 1868 to 1870, Ross starred for the Rockford Forest Citys, along with Albert Spalding, attaining professional status in the second year. When the National Association was formed in 1871, Harry Wright signed both men to his new team in Boston. He split time between second base and shortstop for the Boston Red Stockings of the new National Association and led the league with 66 runs scored and 91 total bases, finishing second in batting average at .401. In 1872 he led the Association with a .432 batting average.
The Red Stockings began a four-year dominance of the Association, with Barnes a key player each year. He again led the Association in 1873, hitting .425.
His .340 Batting Average in 1874 was only good enough for eighth in the league, while his .364 was good for second in 1875, while leading again in runs scored, base hits and on base percentage.
Before the 1875 season ended, Barnes and four other Boston players signed contracts with the Chicago White Stockings. When word leaked out in Boston before the end of the season, Barnes and his teammates were reviled by Boston fans, being called “seceders”, a strong epithet just a decade after the Civil War.
It was likely that the National Association would void the signing, but Chicago owner William Hulbert preempted the move by forming the National League, and causing the National Association to disband.
Barnes’ new team finished first in the National League’s first season with a 55-12 record. Ross led the League batting .429 while also leading in on base percentage, slugging, runs, hits, doubles, triples, and walks. In the 1876 season, Barnes also established the single-season record for runs per game at 1.91, a mark which still stands.
For those first six years of major league play, Barnes hit .397. However, 1876 was to be his last dominant season.
In 1877, he fell ill with what was then only described as an “ague” (fever), played only 22 games, and did not play well when he was in the lineup. The illness robbed Barnes of much of his strength and agility, and shortened his career. While many baseball histories originally blamed the change in rules that outlawed the “fair-foul” hit, of which Barnes was an acknowledged master, his illness has become a more widely accepted explanation for his loss of productivity.
The remainder of his career was an effort to return to glory ending in mediocrity. He played for the Tecumseh team in the International Association in 1878, returned to the National League with the Cincinnati club in 1879, sat out all of 1880, and finished his professional career in 1881, playing his last season in Boston.
After 1876, he never hit better than .272, and his other totals were barely half of those from his glory days. He retired at age 31.
He finished his career with 859 hits, 698 runs, and a .359 average, in only 499 games played and 2392 at bats. His 1.4 runs per game played remains the best of all time.
Barnes has been rated as the best player of the National Association, and during his peak, from 1871 to 1876, he was a dominant offensive force. His skill at the fair-foul bunt caused rule changes, and his defensive abilities were highly regarded. A teammate of multiple members of the Baseball Hall of Fame, he was the most valuable batter.
Barnes has the distinction of having hit the first home run in National League history, on May 2, 1876.
After the close of his baseball career he engaged in various business pursuits, mostly in or about Chicago, his last connection being a long period spent as an accountant in the office of the People’s Gas Light & Coke company.
Ross Barnes died from heart disease on February 5, 1915 in Chicago, Illinois.
His obituary in the Rockford Morning Star dated Saturday, February 6, 1915 had this to say:
Barnes had remarkable skill in gauging ground and fly balls and many of the present batting rules were devised to cut off his “fair fouls” and other strategy at the plate, for he was one of the most scientific and consistent batsmen in the history of the sport and stood high in both batting and fielding averages at all times.
He attained such fame and standing that Henry Chadwick, the veteran journalist who was called the “Father of Baseball” up to the time of his death, a few years ago, maintained that he was the greatest second baseman known to the game, past or present, than which no higher praise could be bestowed.
In this inning we’ll open up the Baseball Dictionary
Under the letter: A
across the letters
Said of a pitched ball that passes across the batter’s chest at the approximate location on the uniform of the letters spelling out the team’s name.
If you would like to a part of Baseball History Podcast, submit your written contribution for the tour segment. I will only be doing the tour when one is sent in by a listener. You can do the segment on any stadium or team; past or present; Minor League, Major League, Negro League or any league outside of the US. Write about 1 page in a conversational tone, send it to me, I will record it, and you will get the credit.
You can email me at baseballhistory@gmail.com. You can leave a voice mail at: 206-888-6506. If you need more baseball, I invite you to check out Just Baseball at justbaseballpodcast.com. Well, that’s it for today’s game of Baseball History Podcast. I’ll see you later at the ballpark.
TWIBH- Ross
Barnes
Dictionary- Across
the Letters
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