After the conclusion of the 1888 baseball season, Albert Goodwill (A.G.) Spalding decided to promote America's national pastime to an international audience by orchestrating a tour around the world of his Chicago White Stockings and a hand picked all-star team, the All-Americas, consisting of the best ballplayers from the other National League teams. By promoting this traveling expedition, Spalding sought to plant the seeds of American baseball culture on foreign soil, and elicit publicity and support from the domestic audience. Called the Spalding's Australian Base Ball Tour (even though the players visited many places other than Australia), the tourists traveled to Minnesota, the Midwest, Colorado, California, Hawaii, South Pacific Islands, Australia, Egypt, Italy, France, and United Kingdom to played exhibition baseball games. Taking their inspiration from the Spalding Australian Tour of twenty-five years before, John McGraw and Charles Comiskey decided to take their two teams on a similar tour between the 1913 and 1914 seasons. Comiskey and McGraw funded the tour completely. For the position of Managing Director, Comiskey and McGraw chose Ted Sullivan. Sullivan penned an account of the tour in 1914 entitled, History of World's Tour: Chicago White Sox and New York Giants. The tour began with a barnstorming tour across the United States before they left from Seattle, Washington, making stops in Japan, China, the Philippines, Australia, Egypt, Italy, France, and England. While traveling, the tourists survived a near shipwreck, had a personal audience with Pope Pius X, met Thomas Lipton (the tea magnate), the last khedive of Egypt, and played before England's King George V. Their tour concluded in the United States, where both Comiskey and McGraw held banquets for the players and the press.