Why Do Baseball Players Still Bunt So Damn Much?

 Ross Barnes, Red Stockings, 2B, 1874

"In the 1870s, just as professional baseball was getting its sea legs, there was an infielder named Ross Barnes who was really only good at one thing. At 5 feet 8 inches and 145 pounds, he had a smidge of pop in this deadest part of the dead-ball era, hitting six home runs in almost 500 career games, but where Barnes really excelled was bunting. As recounted by Bill James in his most recent Historical Baseball Abstract, Barnes made a career of being able to bunt balls that would land fair and then spin over the base lines and off the field. (In the rules of the day, this still counted as a fair ball.) And so it was that Barnes led the league in hits four times and batting average three times."
Buzzfeed

SABR 43: Ross Barnes selected as Overlooked 19th Century Baseball Legend for 2013
"... In June, 279 members of the Society for American Baseball Research submitted their votes for the 2013 Overlooked 19th Century Base Ball Legend — a 19th-century player, manager, executive or other baseball personality not yet inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York. Previous Overlooked Legends were Pete Browning in 2009, Deacon White in 2010, Harry Stovey in 2011, and Bill Dahlen last year. White was recently inducted into the Hall of Fame on July 28. Charles Roscoe Barnes was born to Joseph and Mary (Weller) Barnes on May 8, 1850 in Mount Morris, New York. His family eventually moved to Rockford, Illinois where Barnes became a ballplayer. He joined the Forest City Club of Rockford in 1866, the beginning of a historic career on the field for possibly the most exciting all-around player of the 1860s and 1870s."
SABR

1874 Harper's Woodcut of the Boston Bostons

"Charles Roscoe Barnes (May 8, 1850 – February 5, 1915) was one of the stars of baseball's National Association (1871–1875) and the early National League (1876–1881), playing second base and shortstop. He played for the dominant Boston Red Stockings teams of the early 1870s, along with Albert Spalding, Cal McVey, George Wright, Harry Wright, Jim O'Rourke, and Deacon White. Despite playing for these star-studded teams, many claim that Ross was the most valuable to his teams."
Wikipedia

The Ross Barnes Case
"Charles Roscoe 'Ross' Barnes was one of the greatest players of his era, and largely forgotten today. Barnes was a member Harry Wright’s Boston Red Stocking teams in the National Association from 1871-75, and won the National League’s first batting title hitting .429 in 1876 as a member the Chicago White Stockings. Teammates and contemporaries had no doubt about how good he was. 'Orator Jim' O’Rourke called Barnes 'the greatest second baseman the game ever saw.' In 1896 A.G. Spalding 'declared Ross Barnes to have been the greatest ballplayer in America,' and Tim Murnane said of Barnes: His left-handed stops of hard-hit balls to right field were the prettiest stops ever made on the Boston grounds. As a base-runner no man of the present day is his equal, and as a batsman he must be reckoned very high."
Baseball History Daily