| | The Atlanta Crackers were a minor league baseball team based in Atlanta, Georgia from 1901 to 1965. The Crackers were Atlanta's home team until the Atlanta Braves moved from Milwaukee in 1966. For the first sixty years of their existence they were part of the 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, after the Association disbanded, the Crackers joined the International League. 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-Fulton County Stadium. The Crackers were independent of major league farm systems until 1950. In their final decade and a half, they were affiliated with the Braves of both Boston and Milwaukee (1950-58), the Los Angeles Dodgers (1959-61), St. Louis Cardinals (1962-63), Minnesota Twins (1964), and, in their final season, they were the top farm team of the big-league Braves, playing a lame-duck season in Milwaukee under court order. |