Chicago Tribune March 18, 1888	Tommy Barrett Born: April 30, 1863 Died: March 29, 1906 Goto Baseball Reference for Tommy Barrett lf Majors: No
	Chicago Position: lf First game: August 24, 1888 Last game: August 24, 1888 # of games: 1	Filled in for one day from the Whittings after Chicago released Moriarty, per the Chicago Tribune (August 24, 1888).

Tommy Barrett played one game for the Chicago Maroons, on August 24, 1888. Gene Moriarty, who had played center field for the club all season, was released on August 23, and Thomas McCallum, from the recently collapsed Minneapolis club, put in an appearance for the Maroons that day. Barrett, a regular player for the Chicago Witings in the Chicago City League, was called to play in left field on August 24. He went 0-3 with four putouts. The game was scoreless until the top of the ninth, when Chicago scored one run. Omaha came back to score two runs in the bottom of the ninth to win the game. It was his only game in professional baseball.

Thomas Edward Barrett was born in Chicago on April 30, 1863, son of Irish immegrants Anthony and Rose Barrett. His family's house was destroyed in the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, and the family moved to Pennsylvania, where he went to work in the coal mines of Pennsylvania. After his father died in 1872, the family moved back to Chicago. He took jobs first as an errand boy and then with the American District Telegraph Company. He then landed a job with Brown, Fleming & Co. at the Chicago Board of Trade. He remained at the Board of Trade for 28 years.

In his younger days, Thomas Barrett was a member of the "Bung Cadets" with Frank Rheims (Chicago Tribune, May 28, 1887:1). In 1882, evangelist K.A. Burnell led a meeting of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union on New Years Day. During his sermon, he preached about the dangers of intemperance.

While coming down from his home but a short time before, he had seen carriage after carriage roll by on the avenue - the occupants of which - young men of presumed responsibility - were conspicuously under the influence of wine. To one deplorable sight, particularly noticeable, he drew special attention - that of six young men in an express-wagon, calling themselves "Bung Cadets." (Chicago Tribune, January 3, 1882: 8)

Barrett was known as a sportsman in Chicago. He re-organized the Chicago Whitings in 1880. The Whitings would become one of the dominent amatuer clubs in Chicago through the 1880s. In the mid-1880s, Barrett developed a reputation as an amateur boxer. In March 1887, he won the Middleweight Amateur championship of Illinois by defeating Frank Rheims (who was also associated with the Board of Trade). Barrett was Vice-President of the Chicago Amateur Association in 1888, which ran the eight team City League (Chicago Tribune, March 18, 1888: 25). He also played outfield for the Chicago Whitings that season, when he was tapped for his one game with the Maroons. He continued to play for the Whitings into the 1890s. In 1892, Barrett was involved with a group that bought the Chicago Colts (now the Cubs).

Tommy Barrett married Ellen McCoy in 1887; one of the witnesses was Frank Rheims. They had one daughter, Josephine, born in 1888. Barrett worked at the Board of Trade until 1902, when he was elected to be the Sheriff of Cook County. He was the first Democrat to hold the office in 24 years, and the only Democrat to win on the ticket that year, winning by 8000 votes when most other Democrats were losing by 10,000 or more votes. He held that position until his death in March 1906 of throat cancer, after battling the disease for more than one year.

In his obituary in the Chicago Inter Ocean on March 30, 1906, Chicago mayor Edward Dunne praised Barrett.

I think he was as honest and big hearted a man as ever lived in this city, and had a greater cirlce of admiring friends than any man of my acquaintance in Chicago."

I knew him from the time he was a little boy. He was a good hitter, a fair fielder, and a fine base runner. In those days he was an all round athlete, a handy man with his fists, and he won many hard ring battles among amateur fighters of the town.<.i>