famously, on st. patrick's day, 1918, a young successful pitcher named babe ruth of the boston red sox was forced to play an emergency game at first base in a spring training game against pittsburgh. this game possibly changed the course of baseball history, as it was the first time ruth had ever played any position other than pitcher. ruth responded by hitting two home runs that day in hot springs, and the second was a 573-foot shot that landed across the street from whittington park in a pond of the arkansas alligator farm and petting zoo. the red sox took notice and soon ruth was playing the field more often. over 130 major league baseball hall of famers, including such names as ruth, cy young, cap anson, honus wagner, ty cobb, tris speaker, walter johnson, rogers hornsby, mel ott, dizzy dean, jimmie foxx, and stan musial all trained in hot springs spring training. "the first boys of spring" is a 2015 documentary about hot springs spring training. the film was narrated by area native, actor billy bob thornton, and produced by filmmaker larry foley. the documentary began airing nationally on the mlb network in february 2016.