Play Ball! Historic Baseball Trail Opens

Photo: hin255

In Hot Springs, Arkansas, a city known as the official Birthplace of Spring Baseball, a one-of-a-kind attraction was recently opened to the public.

Starting March 29, the historical “baseball trail” will allow visitors to tour a series of 26 historical landmarks, taking tourists on a journey to where America’s baseball legends played and trained during the sport’s golden era.

According to an article on the Hot Springs website, Steve Arrison, CEO of Visit Hot Springs, says that more than 45 percent of Major League Baseball Hall of Famers in Cooperstown, N.Y., either played baseball or were associated with baseball training in Hot Springs National Park. 134 out of the current 295 Hall of Fame members can now be associated with training, playing, visiting, or simply being in Hot Springs, Arrison says.

According to Arrison, five baseball historians worked to document Hot Springs as the birthplace of what eventually became known as the sport’s spring training. As the historians dug deep into newspapers, archives, and other sources across America, they uncovered increasing information about the popularity of spring baseball in the area. Now more than 300 players, managers, owners, journalists, and other famous names can be associated with the sport in Hot Springs.

On the trail, tourists can stand in the spot where Babe Ruth hit a home run that traveled 573 feet and landed in a pit on a nearby alligator farm; and flip a coin at the site of The Eastman Hotel, where Ruth did the same in 1921 to determine his salary with the Yankees for the following year.

Brochures are available to visitors who can independently tour the plaques along the trail, and smartphone users can access audio narration through a free mobile app.

For more information, visit the Hot Springs website. Fans of the national pastime might also like to read “Shining Diamonds“ in the April issue of Healthcare Traveler.

Jim Twardowski, RN, is a travel writer based in New Orleans.

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