Baseball Weekend to feature former big-Leaguer Edmonds

HOT SPRINGS — The fourth annual Baseball Weekend has approved its first featured guest, who may stir interest from a younger audience.

Former St. Louis Cardinals center fielder Jim Edmonds will take part in the event that is scheduled to be held Aug. 27-28.

Edmonds retired in 2010 but has kept on the Major League Baseball scene by serving as a game analyst for the past four seasons with the MLB’s Cardinals television broadcast team on Fox Sports Midwest.

Baseball Weekend Chairman Mike Dugan said while there are still many uncertainties of what the August event will hold, organizers are hopeful to bring back retired Cardinals pitcher Al Hrabosky, a Baseball Weekend regular.

“We’re hoping that Al Hrabosky comes back,” Dugan said. “Al’s kind of our host, you know, and Al’s been great every year. Everybody loves Al. He gets along with everyone, wants to pose for pictures, wants to go through his Mad Hungarian routine.”

Like Edmonds, Hrabosky also has remained on the major-league scene by serving 35 seasons on its Cardinals’ television team.

Dugan said in a Visit Hot Springs news release that it is “shaping up already to be the best Hot Springs Baseball Weekend ever.”

“We have some surprise guests under consideration,” he said.

Dugan told The Sentinel-Record that organizers would like to include a representative from the Negro Leagues this year.

“We want to involve the Negro Leagues, if possible,” he said. “They’ve been very important to Hot Springs, and very precious to us. Some great stories come out of that, and we’d like to get someone down from the Negro League Hall of Fame, maybe the director, to talk to us and put on a presentation, and I think it’d be good for them.”

The mention of the inclusion comes after Major League Baseball’s announcement on Dec. 16 that the Negro Leagues would be given “major league” status, which will result in a long-overdue change in the organization’s record books.

A groundbreaking of Majestic Park was hosted during last year’s Baseball Weekend. Dugan said they would like to incorporate the park — which is anticipated to be finished by September — into the weekend’s festivities in some way.

Visit Hot Springs CEO Steve Arrison said in the news release that a “major announcement” regarding a new feature of Baseball Weekend is soon to come.

The 2020 Baseball Weekend was held in the midst of the pandemic, so while Dugan said the pandemic makes some plans for the upcoming weekend “unsure,” they are nonetheless persisting.

“I thought our crowd did a great job of social distancing and respecting everyone last year,” he said. “It still was thin, but it was a good crowd on short notice in an unknown situation.”

“I thought our crowd did a great job of social distancing and respecting everyone last year.” — Mike Dugan, Baseball Weekend chairman