Majestic Park tours available in-person, via video, for free
Baseball fans who are unable to attend today’s free tour of Hot Springs’ new Majestic Park baseball complex can still get a bird’seye view thanks to the generosity of a local resident.
Hot Springs resident Bob Nagy took high-definition drone footage of the new complex and posted it on YouTube at https:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=gsTfMWcGet0.
“This video is, to put it mildly, simply stunning,” Visit Hot Springs CEO Steve Arrison said in a news release. “It’s so high
quality that you think you are looking at an architect’s rendering of Majestic Park, but in fact it is actual drone footage shot and edited by Bob Nagy. When you are watching it, you get the feeling that you’re seeing something created for an IMAX theater.”
Visit Hot Springs said the two-minute video was created free of charge.
“The video is 4K quality, super-high-end,” Visit Hot Springs Marketing Director Bill Solleder said in the release. “We could never have afforded to hire a studio to create such a quality production. Bob Nagy just went out on his own and produced this masterpiece and posted it to YouTube, where we discovered it.”
“Majestic Park looks like it’s always been there. Probably because it used to be a baseball field. The symmetrical layout and beautiful turf made it easy to shoot,” Nagy said in the release.
Visit Hot Springs is hosting guided tours of Majestic Park from 4:30-6:30 p.m. today.
The five-field complex, which will host state and regional tournaments and games for local teams, is located on the site of the former Boys & Girls Club of Hot Springs and is also documented as the site of one of the first Major League Baseball spring training sites. Visit Hot Springs’ baseball historians say the Detroit Tigers first used it for spring training in 1908 and Babe Ruth attended his first training camp as a member of the Boston Red Sox there in 1915.
Baseball Weekend begins Saturday at the Hot Springs Convention Center. The opening event is a dedication ceremony at 9 a.m. to name Room 105 in honor of the late baseball historian and Hot Springs community leader Mike Dugan, who was a guiding force in establishing Hot Springs as the birthplace of MLB spring training.
Baseball Weekend will include panel discussions beginning at 11:15 a.m.; a baseball trading card show; and the selection of four “Dream Teams” composed of the best of the best of the hundreds of baseball legends who played or trained in Hot Springs.
The panel discussions will include:
• “Talking Baseball” with Chicago Cubs Hall of Famer Andre “The Hawk” Dawson at 11:15 a.m. in Horner Hall.
• “Cardinal Baseball Then and Now” with Jim Edmonds and Al “The Mad Hungarian” Hrabosky at 1:30 p.m. in Horner Hall.
• “The Goose Is Loose: Straight Talk” with Yankees Hall of Famer Goose Gossage at 3 p.m. in Horner Hall.
• “Everything About the Major Leagues You Always Wanted to Ask” featuring Gossage, Dawson, Edmonds and Hrabosky at 4:30 p.m. in Horner Hall.
The discussions are free to attend and open to the public.