HOT SPRINGS -- Fans will have the chance to interact with four retired baseball players in a series of panel discussions that will be part of the 2021 Hot Springs Baseball Weekend on Aug. 28, the city's tourism agency said in an announcement.
The retired players participating in the panel discussions are Rich "Goose" Gossage, Andre "The Hawk" Dawson, Jim Edmonds and Al "The Mad Hungarian" Hrabosky."
Admission is free and open to the public. The panel discussions will be held at Horner Hall at the Convention Center, starting at 11:15 a.m.
The schedule includes:
• "Talking Baseball" with Hall of Famer Dawson, 67, at 11:15 a.m. in Horner Hall. Dawson played with the Montreal Expos and Chicago Cubs, among other teams.
• "Cardinal Baseball Then and Now" with Edmonds, 51, and Hrabosky, 72, at 1:30 p.m. in Horner Hall. Edmonds and Hrabosky, both native Californians, played part of their careers with the Cardinals.
• "The Goose Is Loose: Straight Talk" with Hall of Famer Gossage at 3 p.m. in Horner Hall. Gossage, 70, was one of baseball's premier relief pitchers, most notably as a member of the Yankees.
• "Everything About the Major Leagues You Always Wanted to Ask" featuring Gossage, Dawson, Edmonds and Hrabosky at 4:30 p.m. in Horner Hall.
Hot Springs Baseball Weekend will begin Aug. 27, with free public guided tours of the new Majestic Park baseball complex and a community game of catch from 4:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. at the complex at Carson and Belding streets.
Majestic Park General Manager Derek Phillips and Assistant Manager John Muldoon will guide tours of the facility, Arrison said.
"And we invite everyone to bring their baseball gloves and baseballs to play a communitywide game of catch on the fields of this marvelous new complex before or after they tour the park," he said.
"We'll provide free hot dogs, chips and water for everyone."
Other Baseball Weekend events will include the selection of four "Dream Teams" composed of the "best of the best" of the hundreds of baseball legends who visited Hot Springs for spring training in a free public selection on Aug. 28.
"Bill Jenkinson, one of the world's foremost experts on the life and career of Babe Ruth, will be joined by baseball historians Tim Reid, Don Duren and Mark Blauer in a panel discussion to select the four dream teams. The historians were joined by the late Mike Dugan of Hot Springs in doing the lengthy research that led to Hot Springs being documented as The Birthplace of Spring Training," the tourism agency said.
At 9 a.m. on Aug. 28, a room in the Hot Springs Convention Center will be named in honor of baseball historian and Hot Springs community leader Mike Dugan, who died earlier this year.
"Mike was a tireless supporter of our city," said Steve Arrison, the chief executive of the city's tourism agency. "It would take most of a day to outline Mike Dugan's contributions to Hot Springs, but he was the guiding force in our establishment of Hot Springs as the Birthplace of Major League Baseball Spring Training. And that makes it especially appropriate that we dedicate Room 105 in the Convention Center in Mike's honor as the opening event for Baseball Weekend, which he helped establish and grow."