HOT SPRINGS — Arkansas has been shut out this year from the summer pleasures of live professional baseball. But Hot Springs is stepping in as a Natural State pinch-hitter for what some fans of a certain age still call "Our National Pastime."
Along with all other minor-league teams, the Little Rock-based Arkansas Travelers and the Springdale-based Northwest Arkansas Naturals had their entire seasons canceled because of Covid-19. Only the major leagues are playing, on a sharply truncated schedule.
As for Hot Springs, it last hosted a minor-league team (the Bathers of the Cotton States League) in 1955. But what the Spa City does have is the avidly promoted heritage of its heyday from the 1880s to the 1930s as a spring-training site for a number of big-league teams. Most famous of the stars who worked out (and frolicked) here was Babe Ruth.
Now, a visiting exhibit at Hot Springs Convention Center is offering a more expansive look at the history of baseball. "Picturing America's Pastime," 51 photographs from the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum's collection of 250,000 images, continues through Oct. 21.
Many of the photos were taken long enough ago that they're in black and white, although a scattering of color shots from recent decades is included. Some are portraits of individual players and entire teams. Others are action shots of pitchers throwing and runners sliding.
Especially endearing are a few photos of excited fans, including a family (perhaps father, daughter and son). The youngsters are clutching glass soda bottles that might now qualify as antiques. A floppy-eared dog is pictured at New York's former Shea Stadium holding a sign in his mouth reading: "Let's go Mets."
The most exotic picture is set partway around the world. Taken in Egypt in 1889, it shows baseball players and their entourage posed on the Sphinx of Giza near the Great Pyramids. During an around-the-world exhibition tour, the athletes are going to play a game on a field laid out in the sand below.
Enjoying the photographs can provide the stimulus for a driving tour of the Hot Springs Historic Baseball Trail, which is mapped out online. Plaques at the trail's 32 stops commemorate players who trained here, as well as ballparks, hotels and other sites involved in the spring activities
Babe Ruth is featured in the plaque near the entrance to Arkansas Alligator Farm and Petting Zoo. It describes a feat achieved by the future "Sultan of Swat" on St. Patrick's Day 1918 when he was still a young pitcher for the Boston Red Sox.
As the plaque reports, Ruth belted a fabulously long home run during an exhibition game at Whittington Ball Park, across the street from that reptilian attraction. Nine years ago, as Hot Springs began promoting its baseball past, the homer that landed among the 'gators was measured at 573 feet. It ranks among the longest ever hit anywhere.
Impetus for promoting the city's spring-training past came from Steve Arrison, chief executive officer of the Hot Springs Advertising & Promotion Commission, and local baseball historian Mike Dugan. They and others traced a timeline dating to 1886 when the Chicago White Stockings (later the Cubs) became the first team to work out in the Spa City.
Hot Springs' era as a capital of spring baseball faded out during the 1920s, as major-league teams chose the warmer weather of Florida and later Arizona to prepare for the regular season.
Another factor was the illegal gambling and other wide-open entertainment that thrived here until after World War II. A long-ago story in Baseball magazine reported that team officials were upset "that Hot Springs is too blamed hospitable, and that the delightful life of the resort is too full of frolic and fascination for the players."
During the nearly half-century of spring training in the Spa City, the faces of the major-leaguers were lily-white. It was not until 1947 that Jackie Robinson broke organized baseball's color barrier with the Brooklyn Dodgers.
It may seem odd, then, that Hot Springs' most spectacular display of its baseball legacy pictures two Black faces among the five Hall of Fame stars shown. The giant outdoor mural spans 160 feet on a wall south of Bathhouse Row.
The three white Hall of Famers are Ruth, Honus Wagner and Lefty Grove -- all of whom played spring-training games here. The two Black players are Robinson and Satchel Paige -- who appeared only during barnstorming tours, often after the big-league season was over. That's the way it was back then.
‘Picturing America’s Pastime’
- Through Oct. 21
- 8 a.m.-5 p.m. Monday-Friday; 11 a.m.-4 p.m. Saturday
- Hot Springs Convention Center, 134 Convention Blvd.
- Admission is free.
- Information on the Hot Springs Historic Baseball Trail can be found at hotspringsbaseballtrail.com. Included is a map and details on the 32 stops. The self-guided cellphone tour’s number is (501) 545-2036.