Baseball is the national pastime for a reason, and each pocket of the country has its own unique connection to the sport. To celebrate the 250th anniversary of this nation, we’re taking you on a summer road trip across the U.S. with Baseball in America, presented by Booking.com, 50 stories from all 50 states. Follow along here.
Although Spring Training has come to be heavily associated with its permanent homes of Florida and Arizona, where this tradition formally began may surprise you.
For about as long as professional baseball has existed in the United States, teams have been on the hunt for a suitable spot to get their players warmed up.
Of course, we mean that both figuratively and literally. The southernmost home city in the original eight-team National League lineup in 1876 was Louisville, Ky. -- warmer in February than, say, Boston, but certainly not a reliable spot for year-round baseball weather. That forced clubs to find alternatives to outdoor training in their home cities. While that would occasionally result in a trip out of town, the solution was usually found in local indoor facilities; there were no permanent off-site preseason training sites.
That was, until 1886.
To call Albert Goodwill Spalding an influential baseball figure would be an understatement. As a player, he was an early adopter of the baseball glove and a co-organizer of the NL itself. Within a decade, he was the president of the Chicago White Stockings (later the Cubs), and in that role he stumbled upon another innovation. Ahead of the 1886 season, Spalding decided to find a more suitable preseason training site for his team. He landed, ultimately, on Arkansas.
More specifically, the White Stockings would spend two weeks in Hot Springs, known for its, well … hot springs. The idea being that bathing in said springs would help players detox after a hard-partying offseason (there was usually some alcohol imbibed) and that they could supplement their training regimen with hikes of the Ouachita Mountains.
At the time, not all involved in baseball even believed in the advantages of warm-weather, out-of-town preseason training. Then the 1886 White Stockings went 90-34 and won the pennant, and naturally, people started listening. In the years that followed, Major, Minor and Negro Leagues teams followed the White Stockings south, formally moving their training facilities to Hot Springs.
Of course, teams don't gear up for the season in Arkansas anymore. New facilities and the promise of more preseason games with more teams in close proximity drew more teams to Florida starting in the 1910s, and although some clubs continued sending their players to the Hot Springs area into the 1940s, the draw of the Grapefruit League (and later Arizona and California) brought about the end of the Hot Springs era.
But Arkansas will always have that special place in baseball history, and the memory of the many legends who made their spring homes there can now be revisited year-round via the Hot Springs Historic Baseball Trail, established in 2012, which features 33 stops.