Spalding's World Tour

In October of 1888, Albert Goodwill Spalding — baseball star, sporting-goods magnate, promotional genius, serial fabulist — departed Chicago on a trip that would take him and two baseball teams on a journey clear around the globe. Their mission, closely followed in the American and international press, had two (secret) goals: to fix the game in the American consciousness as the purest expression of the national spirit, and to seed markets for Spalding’s products near and far. In the process, the