As the city gets geared up for the second Mike Dugan Invitational this week, it would be remiss to not step back for a moment and recall the man for whom the event is named.
A lot has been said and written about how Hot Springs was the birthplace of Major League Spring training -- and believe me, for someone who's a native, it's hard to fathom that fact. So give credit where it's due to Dugan for being the one who truly brought that past to life for a lot of us.
For me, personally, the revelation goes all the way back to a sweltering August day in 2005 when the county was celebrating the 100th anniversary of the Garland County Court House, an event I had the privilege of covering.
There was the usual pomp and circumstance you might expect, with former U.S. Rep. Mike Ross and other dignitaries gathered about. But the one speaker that stood out, and that became the focus of that day, was Dugan, a member of the George Kell-Brooks Robinson Chapter for the Society of American Baseball Research.
I had heard the tales for more than two years about Major Leaguers coming to the Spa City to "boil out" the alcohol, but the spring training aspect never really came into focus until that day, for me, at least.
Some baseball historians, like Dugan, adamantly argued that Hot Springs was the rightful birthplace of spring training. Cap Anson, the manager and Hall of Fame player for the Chicago White Stockings, the precursor of the Chicago Cubs, brought the team to Hot Springs in 1886 to "boil out" the winter; it was the first time that a major league team had gone south for spring training, according to Dugan. It was also the topic of the excellent 2006 book by author Don Duren, "Boiling Out at the Springs: A History of Major League Baseball Spring Training at Hot Springs, Arkansas," which I highly recommend.
Dugan, on that hot August day, said the courthouse was built on a former farm which, in 1886, became the first winter home for the Chicago baseball club.
Anson, the team's manager and part owner of the team, decided his players had imbibed too much alcohol during the winter and needed a good "boiling out." It just so happened that their spring training coincided with the first issue of The Sporting News, a weekly sporting paper, and became the lead story.
The team purchased the courthouse property, a farm, in 1885, and repeated as world champions in 1886, leading other teams, such as the Baltimore Orioles and the Boston Bean Eaters, to follow the Chicago club to Hot Springs, Dugan said.
"There were no bleachers, there was no diamond, there was no home plate. They just kind of farmed out a place to play, and came by wagon every morning from their hotel downtown, and worked out here," Dugan said that day.
Cool, wet weather in March, coupled with baseball owners who decided that their players were finding more alcohol and gambling in Hot Springs than they did up North, led to the demise of spring training here in the early 1920s, Dugan said.
The greats who came here included John McGraw and Honus Wagner, who liked Hot Springs so much that he convinced the owner of the Pittsburgh Pirates to come here for 18 straight years, starting in 1898. Every other year, the Society for American Baseball Research's Deadball Era Committee, which is dedicated to baseball prior to the 1920s when the ball was "mushy," comes here, Dugan said.
"They come to Hot Springs just to stand under this tree," Dugan said, referring to the courthouse's post oak, which is located on the northeast corner of the property. The tree is included in the Arkansas Famous and Historic Tree Program.
There's much more to the story, of course; the city hosted some of the biggest names to ever play the game: Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb, Tris Speaker, Rogers Hornsby and, my personal favorite, Cy Young. Young, the legendary baseball pitcher, was once photographed here during spring training on March 23, 1907, at Whittington Park. At the time, Young was the player/manager for the Boston Americans (later renamed the Boston Red Sox). The Cy Young Award is named in his honor.
I peppered Dugan with questions after his presentation to make sure I had all the little details correct. Four years later, Dugan unearthed a rare photograph showing the Sultan of Swat, the Flying Dutchman Honus Wagner, and the Grey Eagle likely at the beginning of spring training in Hot Springs in 1915 that the city used as a promotional postcard. In 2011, Visit Hot Springs announced the Hot Springs Baseball Trail project, spearheaded by Dugan and other historians. In 2019, he also spearheaded the successful effort to get voter approval for a bond issue to build Majestic Park.
Sadly, Dugan passed away in 2021. But the legacy he left continues to grow, just like that post oak that once watched over baseball legends as they played on that former farm all those years ago.