New trails trace baseball and Delaware history

Courtesy Delaware Tourism Office

Two new trails trace the history baseball in Arkansas and Delaware’s place in American history.

A trail that debuted March 29 in Hot Springs, Ark., documents the town’s role in spring baseball.  A series of 26 cast-aluminum plaques designate sites around the Arkansas resort town associated with famous baseball players and venues where major league teams trained in the spring.

“Five pre-eminent baseball historians have painstakingly documented the Hot Springs connection to what became known as the sport’s spring training,” said Steve Arrison, CEO of Visit Hot Springs.

Two sites associated with Babe Ruth are the spot where he hit a home run in 1918 that traveled 573 feet and landed in an alligator pit at the Arkansas Alligator Farm and the site of the hotel where Ruth flipped a coin with his manager to determine Ruth’s salary for the next year.

The plaques contain a Quick Response Code that let smart-phone users access an audio narration that adds more information about the plaque.  A dedicated website — www.hotsprings.org — provides a complete list of the plaques.

The Delaware History Trail has 36 sites throughout the state that showcase its heritage. Among the sites are the Delaware Agricultural Museum and Village in Dover, the Delaware History Museum and Old Town Hall in Wilmington, Historic Odessa, the Lewes Historic District, the New Castle Historic District and Winterthur Museum, Garden and Library.

Participants can download a trail passport and obtain a list of sites at www.visitdelaware.com/history. Visitors record site codes in their passport found on signs posted at each trail site.

Trail participants who visit a minimum of 18 sites, including six sites from each of Delaware’s three counties, are eligible to receive a limited-edition book titled, “Landmarks and Legacies,” a colorful narrative by writer Pam George that highlights 50 of Delaware’s prominent historic places.