FAYETTEVILLE -- Nearly five years after conceiving an idea to tell the story of professional baseball's roots in Arkansas, Larry Foley's film The First Boys of Spring is set to make its national premiere this weekend.
The film is scheduled to debut on MLB Network today at 5 p.m. It is also scheduled to air on the network Feb. 21 at 8 a.m.
"I think this is a national story," said Foley, chairman of the journalism department at the University of Arkansas. "Unlike what I typically do, go to PBS, I thought I'm going to see if MLB would like this because this is my target audience.
"A few years ago they acquired Ken Burns' Baseball, but they don't really acquire many films.
As I talked to them they said, 'If you look at our lineup, we produce almost everything, but we like your show.' "
The film chronicles the story of spring training in Hot Springs, where major-league teams trained from 1886-1925 and negro league teams continued practicing for about three more decades.
Foley teamed with fellow UA professor Dale Carpenter (editing), UA professor emeritus James Greeson (music) and Jim Borden (videography) on the project.
The film is narrated by actor Billy Bob Thornton, a Hot Springs native.
"Pretty early on I gave myself a couple of goals," Foley said.
"One was to see if I could get Billy Bob Thornton to narrate, and the other was [a national broadcast]."
Some of baseball's biggest names made their way to the resort city, where they believed the hot mineral baths helped prepare them for the upcoming season.
Foley said that just less than 50 percent of players inducted in the National Baseball Hall of Fame trained in Hot Springs. Among the most notable names were Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb and Cy Young.
"Pitchers and catchers would go to Hot Springs three weeks early to get the full impact of the mineral baths -- you had to take one a day for three weeks," Foley said.
"So not only did baseball spring training begin and catch on in Hot Springs, but the tradition of pitchers and catchers going first was born in Hot Springs because of the three-week mineral bath prescription."
Production took Foley and his crew to six states, including Fenway Park in Boston.
Last March, hundreds gathered in period costumes at Lamar Porter Field in Little Rock for a recreation of a 1912 game between the Boston Red Sox and Pittsburgh Pirates.
"One of the best professional days of my life," Foley said.
The First Boys of Spring is not the first foray into Arkansas sports documentaries for Foley, whose work has been selected for numerous regional Emmy awards.
He also produced 22 Straight!, a film about the University of Arkansas' football championship in the 1960s, and The Greatest Coach -- Ever! about longtime Razorbacks track and field coach John McDonnell.
His more acclaimed work is The Buffalo Flows about the Buffalo National River. Foley said he is drawn to cultural and natural history stories in Arkansas, which made producing a film about his favorite sport in his home state appealing.
"I really am drawn to stories that, for whatever reason, have escaped general knowledge," Foley said. "This was one of those."
Sports on 02/13/2016