Historians Start Mapping Out Trail for Hot Springs Baseball
From Mark Gregory at The Sentinel-Record on May 29, with mention of SABR members Bill Jenkinson, Mike Dugan and Caleb Hardwick:
Baseball historians from four states gathered at the Garland County Historical Society last week to start mapping out a new trail for tourists: “Hot Springs: The Birthplace of Spring Baseball.”
“We don’t have to gild the lily,” said Bill Jenkinson, of Willow Grove, Pa., the primary historical consultant for the Babe Ruth Birthplace Museum who has taken a lead role in the project, which was undertaken by the Hot Springs Convention and Visitors Bureau.
“Why not use what is historically true to entertain people from around the country, and bring them here, and then bring them back?” Jenkinson said in explaining their mission with the project.
The group included Jenkinson’s friend and fellow historian, Tim Reid, of Boca Raton, Fla.; Mike Dugan, of Hot Springs, a member of the Brooks Robinson-George Kell Chapter of Society for American Baseball Research; Don Duren, of Plano, Texas, author of “Boiling Out at the Springs: A History of Major League Baseball Spring Training at Hot Springs, Arkansas;” and Caleb Hardwick, of Benton.
The CVB developed a relationship with Jenkinson through its commemoration of Ruth’s March 17, 1918, home run at one of the town’s premier spring training sites, the former Whittington Park.
Read the full article here: http://www.therepublic.com/view/story/1493a75b34ee4a679167fad4904a6f56/AR–Exchange-Baseball-Historians/
Originally published: May 31, 2011. Last Updated: May 31, 2011.