Baseball in Hot Springs

by Mark Blaeuer

Hot Springs, Arkansas, with its thermal water baths, attracted its first big-league outfit when the National League champion Chicago White Stockings traveled south for spring training in 1886. The baseball colony grew as dozens of other clubs followed. Individual players flocked here as well to hike, golf, and "boil out" in bathhouse steam cabinets prior to leaving for training camps elsewhere. Nearly half of Cooperstown's Hall of Famers made the pilgrimage to this baseball mecca. Major- and minor-league aggregations, legendary teams, players of the Negro Leagues, and baseball schools for budding players and umpires all come to bat in Images of Sports: Baseball in Hot Springs.

130 pages, Hardcover

Published March 28, 2016

Reviews

[Richard Tolleson]

I always knew that baseball teams once came to Hot Springs to "take the waters," but didn't know any details. You get the details in a couple of essays in this book, but beyond that, it's all pictures. That's not a knock. You would have to visit several museums to see these pictures, and that's even if they were all on display. What especially impressed me was the captions. There are very few pictures in which each and every person is not identified. This won't be important to the casual fan, but for future generations of historians, this identification will be vital. I recommend this book for baseball fans, especially those with connections to Arkansas.

[Bill Keithler]

Interesting little book--essentially photos--regarding baseball's use of Hot Springs Arkansas as a spring training (or pre-spring raining) site. Most of the photos are of purely historical interest but there are a number which are pretty interesting shots of players whom a fan will have heard of--Honus Wagner, Babe Ruth, Tris Speaker, Al Simmons and others.

Entertaining, but likely to appeal to either a past or present denizen of Hot Springs, or a serious student of the history of baseball.