Atlanta Crackers
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Atlanta Crackers 1884–1965 (1884–1886, 1889, 1892–1898, 1902–1965) Atlanta, Georgia |
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| League | International League (1962–1965) |
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| Dixie Series titles (2) |
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| League titles (7) |
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| Pennants (21) |
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Previous names
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Previous parks
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The Atlanta Crackers were minor league baseball teams based in Atlanta, between 1901 and 1965. The Crackers were Atlanta's home team until the Atlanta Braves moved from Milwaukee in 1966.
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.
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).
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.
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