Bob Barnes
From BR Bullpen
Robert Avery Barnes (Lefty)
- Bats Left, Throws Left
- Weight 150 lb.
- School University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
- Debut July 8, 1924
- Final Game July 10, 1924
- Born January 6, 1902 in Washburn, IL USA
- Died December 8, 1993 in Peoria, IL USA
Bob Barnes was a member of the baseball team at the University of Illinois in the early 1920s. His collegiate career was, by and large, unremarkable. In the spring of his senior season, the Illini were scheduled to play a double-header against Northwestern on Saturday followed by a double-header against Michigan that Sunday. At the time, Northwestern was the worst team in the Big Ten whereas Michigan was in first place that year. Barnes was selected to pitch the second game against Northwestern so that the Illini could save their best pitchers for the Michigan game the following day.
He pitched a no-hitter against the hopeless Wildcat reserves. His performance received notice in the major Chicago newspapers and those reports caught the eye of Chicago White Sox team President Harry Grabiner. Told by his scouts that Barnes was not a prospect, Grabiner hired him as the team's batting practice pitcher for the summer of 1924. That July, the White Sox played two double-headers in three days against the New York Yankees. In the second game of both double-headers, the games were decided by lopsided scores, 10-2 and 18-5. The roster rules being more lax than they are now, manager Johnny Evers put his batting practice pitcher in to finish both games.
The scouts' judgment was confirmed - Barnes pitched 4 and 2/3 innings, giving up 11 runs, 10 of them earned, throwing 3 wild pitches, hitting 2 batters, and commiting a balk to complete the trifecta.
That fall, "Lefty" Barnes gave up his fledgling baseball career and enrolled in the University of Illinois' law school. After receiving his Juris Doctor, he returned to his hometown of Washburn, Illinois; a small town near the Illinois River, about 30 miles north of Peoria. For many years, he served as the State's Attorney of Marshall County, Illinois. He was reknowned for the barbeques that he would host on the family farm, complete with a healthy supply of Bullfrog Beer, where he would regale the guests by telling them of the time he faced off against Babe Ruth in Yankee Stadium...
...a left-hander, he figured that he could strike out Ruth by freezing him with a curveball and then throwing his fastball over first the outside and then the inside corner of the plate. His first pitch, a curveball, was a called strike. Ruth looked at him and cursed the pitch loudly, the 1920s equivalent of talking trash. Then the Babe layed into the following curveball and hit a soaring drive into the upper deck of the Old Yankee Stadium. Barnes always concluded the story by saying that he had seen many remarkable things in the courtroom but nothing that awed him, that stunned him so much as the sheer majesty of Ruth's homerun.
