Historians discuss origins of spring training in Hot Springs

From left, baseball historians Jim Kreuz, Don Duren, Mark Blaeuer and Tim Reid speak about the history of baseball in Hot Springs during the Third Annual Hot Springs Baseball Weekend. - Photo by Tanner Newton of The Sentinel-Record
From left, baseball historians Jim Kreuz, Don Duren, Mark Blaeuer and Tim Reid speak about the history of baseball in Hot Springs during the Third Annual Hot Springs Baseball Weekend. - Photo by Tanner Newton of The Sentinel-Record

Hot Springs is known as the birthplace of Major League Baseball spring training, and on Aug. 15 a group of baseball historians spent an hour at the Third Annual Hot Springs Baseball Weekend discussing the town's significance to the game.

Moderated by Mike Dugan, the panel included Jim Kreuz, Don Duren, Mark Blaeuer and Tim Reid, who discussed everything from Hank Aaron to Babe Ruth. Dugan said the panel was made up of both local and out-of-state historians to "talk about where they think Hot Springs place is in the history of baseball."

"Here we are, it's 2020, and as of right now, it's almost 50% of every person inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown spent time in Hot Springs, Ark. Think about that; we haven't had full-blown major league spring training since around 1931 or 1932," Dugan said. "Think about the significance Hot Springs had between 1886 and 1930, with all the teams coming to town."

Duren credited hot water, "number one," and Albert Goodwill Spalding with bringing spring training to the Spa.

In 1886, Spalding came up with the idea of promoting the hot waters of the town to attract baseball teams.

"Mr. Spalding said 'It's a great scheme I figured out,'" Duren said, and Spalding "wanted to get the players down here and put them in that water, and that's going to make them better. Of course, this was before penicillin and a lot of other things, too."

"'I boil out all the alcoholic microbes, which may have impregnated the systems of these men during the winter while they have been away,'" Duren quoted Spalding as saying. "So he wanted to boil out the alcohol microbes," Duren said, adding "they drank a lot."

"'If I can get them down to Hot Springs and get them in that hot water down there and start them walking the mountains, running the mountains, I'll get those guys in shape, and they'll be really good,'" Spalding said, according to Duren.

"There's a lot of history in Hot Springs. Folks, we can be proud," Duren said.

Dugan said that, in the 1920s, following the invention of DDT, baseball moved to Florida, which the teams had avoided due to malaria and mosquitoes. He noted baseball also left Hot Springs for a number of reasons, including "gambling, whiskey and other things that go on in the night."

Starting in 1927, the Negro League brought its teams to Hot Springs for spring training, according to Blaeuer.

"Even on into the '50s and even the early '60s, some of these former Negro League players were now in the major leagues. ... We had some of those guys coming here to take the baths," Blaeuer said.

"For the better part of a century, this spring training story here did include the African American ball teams."

"I'll say as an outsider, that there is no place in America, in the world of course, that has a longer and more significant history of baseball that still exists, the same fields, for instance, than Hot Springs," Reid said.

While there were baseball fields in places like New York and Chicago, Reid said "those fields are all gone, no one can play on those fields and thanks to Mike and Steve Arrison, and the people of this town, you are rebuilding a field where immortals played," referring to the recent groundbreaking for Majestic Park.

"When Babe Ruth came in 1915 for the first time, the town had already been for 30 years famous. Ruth was just one more in the secession," he said. "Babe Ruth really took his first swings, because he was a pitcher, he really took his first swings as a major leaguer at Majestic Field."

Reid also spoke about Ruth's drinking habits while he was in town. "During Prohibition, he would have special crates shipped to the Arlington Hotel with the best liquor in the world," he said, and eventually, the people working on the trains "got on to the fact that Babe Ruth would have these liquor shipped."

"One year it came in and every bottle was drained empty," Reid said.

Ruth kept coming back to Hot Springs "until the owners of the Yankees had had enough," Reid said.

"There was an incident in the mid '20s where he stayed too long," Dugan said. "They kept sending telegrams to report to St. Pete, but he was having too good a time, and when he finally did get on the train, he had some intestinal issues that were reported in the New York newspapers as the bellyache heard around the world, and he missed half the season, and so they put it in the contract every year that he couldn't come back."

"In 1912, Fogel Field was built, and it's still there. It's beside the alligator farm. If you go up in the alligator farm parking lot, up that little field there, that's the field," Duren said. "It's a very historical field and not a whole lot of people know about it."

Duren noted many famous players played on the field, which was built because of how many teams were coming to town.

"We actually have real history here. Fogel Field still exists. The wooden grandstands, bleachers and fencing is all gone, but the (owners of the Arkansas Alligator Farm & Petting Zoo) have been able to take care of that through the years, and they've kept it mowed down. ... It's baseball. It's where it happened," Dugan said.

Dugan asked Kreuz how he learned about the town's baseball history. "It's funny, I took my son to see the Yankees play in Yankee Stadium ... right before they tore Yankee Stadium down, because we wanted to see the field where (Lou) Gehrig and Ruth played, and if I had known of the Hot Springs history, I'd have saved a lot of money," Kreuz said.

"I'm kind of flabbergasted by all the players that have played here. It just amazes me," Kreuz said.

"Baseball players didn't make a lot of money at that time, so a lot of the stars would put together traveling teams," Dugan said, noting "until 1958 there was no major league baseball west of St. Louis."

"One of the great figures of that time was of course the great Jackie Robinson, who broke the color barrier." Dugan said. "Several years there in the early 50s, Jackie Robinson (and others) would come to Hot Springs in October when the season ended, and put together their traveling team to head out west, which is where they made more money than they actually made during their playing season," Dugan said.

Asked about when the Negro League played a game of their World Series in Hot Springs, Duren said, "Hank Aaron came for that one, and he played at Jaycee Park, that's considered Majestic Park now, but he brought a group over and played a Negro League World Series (game). And you don't have Hank Aaron come into your town very often."

Dugan also gave a little local basketball history, noting that when Hot Springs High School added basketball, "it just so happened that they had the gentleman who was considered not only the best baseball player in the world at the time, but also the best basketball player in existence ... Honus Wagner ... agreed to go to Hot Springs High in the afternoon" and helped teach the school how to play basketball.

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