Atlanta Crackers

History

For 60 years (until 1961), the Crackers were part of the Class AA Southern Association, a period during which they won more games than any other Association team, earning the nickname the "Yankees of the Minors". In 1962, the Association disbanded. Then, the former Miami Marlins, a Class AAA International League team that had spent 1961 playing in San Juan, Puerto Rico, and Charleston, West Virginia, moved to Atlanta and adopted the name "Crackers."

A team in the Sunbelt Baseball League, a summer collegiate league, has adopted the team name for one of their teams.

Ball parks

The Crackers played in Ponce de Leon Park from 1907 until a fire on September 9, 1923, destroyed the all-wood stadium. Spiller Field (a stadium later also called Ponce de Leon Park), became their home starting in the 1924 season; it was named in honor of a wealthy businessman who paid for the new concrete-and-steel stadium. That new park was unusual because it was constructed around a magnolia tree that became part of the outfield. Balls landing in the tree remained in play, until Earl Mann took over the team in 1947 and had the outfield wall moved in about fifty feet. The Crackers played their last season in the newly built Atlanta Stadium (later known as Atlanta–Fulton County Stadium).

League affiliations

The Crackers were independent of major league farm systems until 1950. They then became a AA affiliate of the Boston Braves/Milwaukee Braves (1950–58) and Los Angeles Dodgers (1959–61) during the last decade of the Southern Association's existence. As an International League team, they were the top affiliate of the St. Louis Cardinals (1962–63), Minnesota Twins (1964) and the Braves again (1965). The team then played in Richmond, Virginia, in the International League as the Braves' Class AAA farm team, the Richmond Braves, through the 2008 season. The team moved to newly built Coolray Field in Lawrenceville, in Gwinnett County, northeast of Atlanta, in 2009 and now plays as the Gwinnett Braves, thus marking a homecoming of sorts. The close proximity of the AAA and MLB clubs makes for a near zero delay when players are called up or sent down.

Origin of the team's name

According to Tim Darnell, who wrote The Crackers: Early Days of Atlanta Baseball, the origins of the team name is unknown.

Darnell cites several possibilities as to why this name was chosen:

However, this list does not represent the most likely origins of the name. The term cracker is derived from the Gaelic craic, meaning entertaining conversation or boasting, with the latter sense still attested in the idiom "not all [subject]'s cracked up to be." It was used in the 18th century to denote Irish and Scottish colonists of the Deep South backcountry. The Earl of Dartmouth had this to say in a 1766 correspondence: "I should explain to your Lordship what is meant by Crackers; a name they have got from being great boasters; they are a lawless set of rascals on the frontiers of Virginia, Maryland, the Carolinas, and Georgia, who often change their places of abode."

During the period of Reconstruction following the American Civil War, there was also a political party of the same name. Organized in Augusta, Georgia, this party's platform was one of "opposition to Catholics and segregation of blacks".

While now sometimes used as a derogatory term for a white southerner that promotes racism, it is also used as a term of pride by some white southerners to indicate one that is descended from those original settlers of the area.

Ironically, as was the case in several other cities, Atlanta's local Negro-league team was named after the local white-league team: the Atlanta Black Crackers joined the Negro Southern League in 1920, and existed until the early 1950s.

Notable players

Play-by-play announcer Ernie Harwell called Cracker games on the radio from 1943 to 1949 before being traded to Brooklyn Dodgers for catcher Cliff Dapper, the only time an announcer has been traded for a player.