Jimmy Barrett Jumps To The Tigers

Story of a jumper.

Jimmy Barrett Jumps To The Tigers

Jimmy Barrett was a star player for the 1900 Cincinnati Reds. Barrett played his first full major league season at 25 years old, hitting .316 with quite a bit of power.

And he jumped at the chance to go to Detroit.

Barrett is an interesting case. He was originally drafted by Detroit of the Western League in 1899, back when there was no thought of Detroit becoming a major league city. From Barrett’s SABR biography:

Barrett played well for a really bad Cincinnati team in 1900. And, when the opportunity came to move back to Detroit, he jumped at it:

That strikes me as an overly diplomatic way of referring to a jumper. Let’s dig in for more information.

---

Barrett Jumps

It’s clear that Barrett was a star in Cincinnati:

From The Cincinnati Enquirer, October 18, 1900, page 4

As you can see, there was clearly no thought in Cincinnati back in October 1900 that Barrett would be snatched from under the city’s nose. The same seems to have been true in December:

From The Cincinnati Enquirer, December 23, 1900, page 26

But that didn’t last long.

This story in late February 1901 must have been an absolute shock to Cincinnati baseball fans:

Above from The Cincinnati Enquirer, February 19, 1901, page 4

Things get confusing from here. There was a note the next day suggesting that Barrett was staying in Cincinnati:

From The Cincinnati Enquirer, February 20, 1901, page 4

There was also a report a week later that Barrett was still with Cincinnati:

From The Cincinnati Enquirer, February 27, 1901, page 4

But it was all for naught. In fact, the articles soon turned away from whether Barrett had jumped to whether the Reds could get him back again:

From The Cincinnati Post, March 18, 1901, page 2

From The Cincinnati Post, March 19, 1901, page 3

But, of course, it was too little, too late.

From The Cincinnati Enquirer, March 24, 1901, page 30

From The Cincinnati Enquirer, March 24, 1901, page 17

Barrett did return to Cincinnati — very briefly, in 1906. He was an American League man otherwise: