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the barnstormers were a team of professional baseball players and
from from the major leagues
would play
in games in the deep south
primarily in the off season and they would play games uh typically against other
black players from the *** leagues down there the barnstormers
were black professional players from the major leagues
and so
willie was a barnstormer uh for
a number of years in the fifties and early sixties
and it was important because first it allowed willie to make money in the off season
this was at a time when professional players had to find some other job in the off season
they would work in a hardware store they'd work in a restaurant
because they didn't make that much money playing professional baseball
but it was significant
also in kind of willie's baseball
career in that
willie now got to play in front of fans in florida in texas in south carolina in southern california
where play
where fans otherwise couldn't see him play so it extended the willie mays brand name
and I think what was also kind of neat about it was that in nineteen fifty-five
willie probably played
on the greatest team in the history of baseball
willie played on a team that had
four future hall of famers just in the outfield itself
willy mayes hank aaron larry doby and monty irvin
there was also other great players on it like um uh roy campanella and don newcombe
and so this team played in the barnstorming league
they won twenty eight straight games granted they weren't playing other
major league caliber teams but
no team would have ever beaten this ball club and they're great stories surrounding those barnstorming days
did it affect his major league baseball play
it only affected it in that
it tired him out
because willie just played baseball nonstop
and I think that
did have a cumulative effect
on willie particularly later in his career where he did suffered these
exhaustion spells where he would collapse
um on the field and had to be hospitalized
willie didn't just play a lot but he only played one way all-out it didn't matter if he was playing
uh
in a spring training game for a barnstorming league whatever
willie would crash into walls run over catchers dive for balls and that did have a cumulative effect
on willie's health