Posted By:
Dan BrettaHere's a photo of the Western Bloomer Girls of Watervliet, Michigan wearing almost the same exact jackets.
Some of these barnstorming teams were very well financed and they also drew huge crowds because of their novelty which made it easy for them to afford nice uniforms. They also drew the occasional star players. Babe Ruth clowned around a bit with the House of David, GC Alexander pitched for them for a season...Joe Wood played on a Bloomer Girls team, and Jimmy Claxton, Charley Grant, and even Sam Crawford played for the Nebraska Indians.
I have found that many of these barnstorming teams are an unexplored (a better definition is probably under explored) area of the history of baseball...still not much is known about many of these teams and they were very big attractions in their day.