Eligible: 1882
Contributions: Star of the amateur era alongside Spalding, Barnes won two batting titles in the NA and another in the NL. Pundits compared him favourably to famed second-basemen of the early 20th century.
A recurring theme in baseball history, and one of the more romantic aspects of the sport, is the way that its finest players can simply 'lose it'. One day a player can be on top of the world and the next, for any myriad reasons, that same ability can be lost forever. Pro fighter Chael Sonnen says that every fighter goes out the same way: face-down and embarrassed, and the same happens to most ballplayers. One day you're 1934 Babe Ruth and the next you're 1935 Babe Ruth. One of the game's first such nosedives was the disappearing act of Ross Barnes, a star of the late 1860s who simply disappeared as a productive player in his prime. In 1915 WAS Phelon wrote in Baseball Magazine, "No matter how great you were once upon a time, the years go by and men forget. Ross Barnes, forty years ago, was as great as Cobb or Wagner ever dared to be."
Barnes was an immediate star. Playing shortstop as the best fielder on the team, he was known for his intense and speedy play, his sure hands (there were no fielding gloves at the time), and strong arm. He was a fantastic batter and perhaps the game's best baserunner. In 1867 the Rockford club upset the otherwise unbeatable Washington Nationals as part of their national tour, bringing Spalding and Barnes into the consciousness of the baseball world. In 1868 the Rockford club did their own tour, and played against Harry Wright's Cincinnati Red Stockings in 1869, nearly upsetting the most dominant (and first openly professional) baseball team of all time in a thrilling match. The following season Rockford defeated Cincinnati, handing them one of only a few losses over a course of several years. During the years 1867-70, when Spalding and Barnes were two of the most respected names in baseball, they were teenagers. Barnes turned 20 in May 1870.
When the National Association of Base Ball Players opened a professional association in 1871, Harry Wright was hired by a Boston businessman to start the city's first professional club, the Boston Red Stockings. He remembered the two standouts from Rockford, and Barnes and Spalding played for Boston for the duration of the NA's existence, from 1871-75. Barnes shifted to second base to allow room at shortstop for George Wright, considered by most the best player of the era. Through the first three years of his contract, Barnes was hitting .424, winning two batting titles, leading the league twice in runs and slugging each, once in stolen bases. As the talent pool increased, Barnes stayed near the top of the game, hitting .354 over 1874-75, including setting the NA's single-season hits record in 1875. He ended up with a staggering 185 OPS+ over the life of the NA. His 445 wRC led second-place George Wright (who Barnes constantly battled for the limelight) by more than 60 runs.
While he was regaled as quick and athletic, Barnes was an intelligent hitter. The Boston Globe: "Not of the class of chance hitter who, when they go to bat simply go in to hit the ball as hard as they can without the slightest idea where it is going. He studied the position and made his hits accordingly." Barnes was the king of the fair-foul hit, a practice that allowed a ball to be put into play fair, and roll foul. Today, balls that go foul either on the fly or before passing first or third base are called foul - at the time, a ball striking fair territory and rolling foul or passing the bases in fair territory while on the fly was considered fair. Barnes was a master of placing a ball in foul territory, and his ability to use this tool has led many historians, including Bill James to dismiss him as a historical talent. However, when the NL banned the fair-foul prior to 1877 one executive claimed "I don't think [the new rule] will affect his average in the least. He can bat equally well to any portion of the field."
For what it's worth, I don't believe it is fair to detract from Barnes's ability because of the rules at the time he played. Do we ignore the greatness of Creighton or Spalding because they were the best at underhanded pitching? Old Hoss Radbourn because he had no pitch counts? Or Arlie Latham for stealing a bunch of bases off of slow pitchers and catchers wearing no mitts? You are compared to your peers. The fair-foul was a fair play at the time, and Ross was revered for his ability at it: "It was univeraslly regarded as requiring exceptional finesse. Only the most highly skilled strikers were able to execute it with consistency." (Robert H Schaefer, The Lost Art of Fair-Foul Hitting) Barnes was never a cheap hitter: he led his league in doubles, total bases, and slugging three times, triples twice. James accuses him of fair-foul bunting, but Barnes was fair-foul hitting.
As a fielder, he was regarded as a star second baseman in a time when second basemen had to cover more ground than any other position - all the ground from first to second, short right and short centre, as well as covering second on steals. The shortstop was more of a rover who patrolled the shallow outfield in left-centre. Player and writer Tim Murnane said that he 'could cover more ground than any man I ever saw. He had a long reach and could pick up ground balls when on the dead run from either side.' Paired with a strong throwing arm, Barnes led the league in assists, fielding percentage, and double plays almost every year. Murnane, who once bested Barnes in the NA steals race (30 to 29) said that he 'had no superior as a baserunner' and that he was the first player to 'throw himself wide of the base and hold onto the bag.'
Partway through 1874 the Red Stockings and Philadelphia Athletics postponed their respective seasons to undertake a goodwill tour of England, showing off the American game and playing some exhibition games against English cricket clubs. Cricket games were also played, and the teams you would expect to win at each sport did, but the end result was disappointing. No lasting effect on the English was noted, and both clubs lost money on the enterprise. During the tour, rumors were already swirling that the club might not survive, and be broken up at season's end. The rumors continued through the offseason and into the 1875 season, but by the end of summer a bombshell had dropped: frustrated by Association politics and a lack of discipline from both clubs and players, William Hulbert was withdrawing his Chicago White Stockings from the NA and starting his own association - the National League. Moreover, he had signed most of the best players in baseball, including the 'Big Four' as they were being hailed in Boston: Spalding, McVey, Barnes, and Deacon White. The Red Stockings, long immune to revolving, were crushed.
Rumor was that the players would abandon the club immediately, but they played out their contracts, and in 1876 the Chicago club was the toast of the baseball world. Barnes led the league in almost every offensive category, hitting .429 with a staggering 235 OPS+. He put up 6.0 WAR in just 66 games as Chicago cruised to an easy inaugural NL pennant. It would be Barnes's swan song. He was 26.
Before the 1877 season the NL instituted the modern foul ball rule, disallowing Barnes's fair-foul hits. Because his career nosedives after 1876, modern baseball historians have claimed his success was due to the fair-foul rule, but there was something else going on. By mid-May 1877 Barnes excused himself from the White Stockings. The Tribune wrote: Barnes has been physically incapable of exertion; he is as weak, debilitated and worn as would be any strong man after six month's sickness." Barnes was expected back in June after a quick rest in his native Rockford, but his absence dragged on through the summer as criticism mounted. The Tribune published more than one defense of the great player, at one point publishing a telegraph from Barnes reading: "I seldom leave the house now. I don't feel badly, but I grow weaker every day." He finally returned in mid-August, receiving a raucus ovation from the Chicago crowd, but the papers reported that he had none of his old energy or ability. At 27, Barnes appeared done, and his year-end numbers looked like it, too. He played just 22 games and while he hit a respectable .272, he was a far cry from the 'King of Baseball' some publications called him.
With no recovery in sight, Barnes was not offered a contract for 1878, and spent the season in court, suing the White Stockings for not paying him while he was ill. He was ultimately ruled against. He spent some of '78 in London, Ontario as player/manager for the Tecumseh of the International Association. The IA at the time was the top minor league of the day and probably not a far cry from the talent of the NL. He played a full season of baseball in 1879 with old teammates Cal McVey and Deacon White in Cincinnati, posting an OPS+ of 106, above league average but well below his standards, still suffering from the chronic fever and fatigue that baseball historian and SABR member Robert H Scheafer described as 'ague'. He sat out 1780 and worked as a travelling salesman before old friend Harry Wright invited him to join his Boston Red Stockings in '81. Barnes, now 31, hit like a league-average player (103 OPS+) but played a miserable shortstop and described himself as 'useless as a fifth leg on a horse.'
Barnes was out of baseball after the experiment with Boston. Still a young man, Barnes was reportedly fabulously wealthy, to say nothing of his well-to-do Illinois family. He sat on the Chicago Board of Trade, with fingers in his family's interests in banking and industry. He tried umpiring in 1890 with the Player's League, but found it an exercise in self-abuse and quickly gave it up. He worked as an accountant in Chicago and ran hotel operations in Rockford. The lifelong bachelor died in his Chicago apartment in 1915, aged 64.
Ross Barnes is something of an unsolved tragedy. We don't really know how good he was outside of the fair-foul rule, or outside of his mysterious illness, but we do know that he was one of the very best players of the amateur era, when he was a teenager, and that he was unquestionably the best player of his time, a career that spanned the entirety of the professional National Association and the beginning of the National League. As late as WWI, writers and legends were remembering him as perhaps the best of all time, frequently remembering him as a better player than legends like Nap Lajoie, Honus Wagner, and Ty Cobb, and it's because he might have been. He was the best baserunner of his day, the best defender at a premium position, and he was a career .398 hitter before his illness. He might have been.
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