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THE CRACKERS
Early Days of Atlanta Baseball $24.95 hardcover |
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– the team that defined baseball in the South The Book
Underscored with a sense of nostalgia for the lost traditions of the past, The Crackers is the first comprehensive history of Atlanta's original minor league (Southern League and Negro Southern League) baseball teams spanning six decades. It is the complete chronicle of the rise of amateur and minor league baseball in Atlanta beginning just years after the Civil War left its devastating mark on the city (with the Atlanta Baseball Club, the Gate City Nine, and the Osceolas) through the rise and fall of the Atlanta Crackers (1901-1965).
Through never-before-published player interviews, extensive illustrations, and meticulous research, Tim Darnell examines all the drama and politics that affected the team over the years, from forced team sales to fights over the signing of the first African American to the Crackers. Stories of the major actors in this baseball saga are given (and accompanied by never-before-published photographs and memorabilia), including Coach Earl Mann; famed Atlanta journalist Henry Grady; star Crackers Luke Appling, Eddie Mathews, Chuck Tanner and Ralph "Country" Brown; Charles Pemberton, scion of the Coca-Cola fortune; and Nat Peeples, the only African American to ever play in the Southern Association. Darnell writes engagingly about the Atlanta Black Crackers, Atlanta's Negro Southern League franchise whose success and popularity paralleled their white counterparts, beginning with their great semi-pro predecessors the Atlanta Tigers and the Herndon Blue Devils. Darnell pays tribute to great black players Norman Lumpkin, Chico Renfroe, Sammy Haynes, and many others. All in all, The Crackers is a light-hearted and engrossing history of a time, a people, and one very special centerfield magnolia tree whose stories now exist, for better or worse, only within the shadow of the baseball juggernaut known as "America's Team." Includes extensive charts giving every recorded team score and player statistics. The Author Tim Darnell has over fifteen years experience in newspaper and magazine journalism, serving as a reporter for two weekly Atlanta newspapers and as editor of four local and national business magazines. His passion for baseball inspired him to establish a company which owned the minor league Albany (GA) Alligators. The Praise "Before we had the Braves, the Crackers were our team."—President Jimmy Carter "As a wide-eyed boy, I watched Lindsey Deal rattle the signboards in right field, Eddie Mathews field ground balls off his chest, and Country Brown fly to first after a perfect drag bunt. So I loved this book which brought back some wonderful memories of the majesty of the Crackers and the magic of baseball. It's a home run."—U.S. Senator Zell Miller "There has always been something very magical about the early days of minor-league baseball and Tim Darnell makes that magic come alive in Southern Yankees."—Jim Huber, CNN/Sports Illustrated "For those of us who grew up knowing only the successes of the Braves and thought the life of the Crackers was just stories our parents and grandparents told us. . . Tim Darnell makes us want to look behind today's strip mall and find the shade of that old magnolia. Progress is, forever, a relative term. And sometimes that means looking backwards to appreciate the walk forward."—Jon Nelson, WGCL-TV Sports "Tim Darnell took me on a vivid journey back to visit with my boyhood heroes, the Atlanta Crackers. A great trip through a special time in Southern sports."—Ernie Harwell, Baseball Hall of Famer and Atlanta Crackers radio announcer, 1943-1948 "In 1965, the Atlanta Journal assigned me to cover the last baseball game in Ponce de Leon Park. It was sad like a death to see this beautiful old stadium neglected, ravaged by peeling paint and broken bleachers, and finally, a broken heart. Ponce de Leon Park launched a thousand memories for me and deserves to be remembered more for its glory. Tim Darnell has done that for me with his meticulous detail and warm stories that remind us there was a time when the Atlanta Crackers and the Atlanta Black Crackers captured the hearts and imaginations of their city like no professional teams before or since."—Lee Walburn, Atlanta Magazine "Long before the Braves, there were the Crackers and Ponce de Leon Park--for a boy coming up from South Carolina, an enormous stadium and, out on the field, players--some of whom might soon be in the majors and others who actually had been! I can recall the lineup of Paul Richards's 1938 Southern League champions as if it hadn't been sixty-five years ago. This book stirs up some treasured memories."—Louis D. Rubin Jr. "This is a must-read for anyone who gets teary at the magnolia in what once was centerfield at old Poncey, my generation's field of dreams."—Paul Hemphill, Pulitzer Prize-nominated author of The Heart of the Game: The Education of a Minor-League Ballplayer. "In looking at Crackers it stirred many warm memories of my youth in Tallapoosa, Georgia, and coming to Ponce De Leon Park to see the Atlanta Crackers. It was pure baseball with true athletes who played for the love of the game and didn't use five Buckhead lawyers to negoitate endorsements and salaries. It is a great look at baseball in Atlanta before fans payed 20 bucks to park and seven dollars for a brew. The book also gave me a sense of pride of a great man of baseball, Whitlow Wyatt, who is from the same area I grew up in Haralson County. This book on the minors is a MAJOR hit! I loved it!"—Rhubarb Jones, Eagle 106.7 FM Atlanta "This affectionally conceived and executed history is a real work of love: love of place, people, and a game. It is an informative and considered glimpse of a beautiful game played during an ugly time. It is proof that everyone's history is important."—Percival Everett, author of Suder "Tim Darnell has not only written one of the finest books on minor league baseball, but one of the very best books on the game itself. The real strength of the book, though, is that he tells the reader much about the cultural history of Atlanta and the South and gives considerable attention to the legendary Black Crackers as well.There are strong baseball tales in the book, but equally strong historical stories, such as the night in 1948 when team owner Earl Mann stared down the Grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan so that Jackie Robinson's All- Star team could play in Atlanta. Baseball fans will love this nostalgic and illuminating story about Atlanta and its legendary minor league teams."—Bruce Chadwick, When the Games Was Black and White: The Illustrated History of Baseball's Negro Leagues "When people ask me what my team is, I say, 'Well, it used to be the Crackers...', and then my voice trails off in this poignantly deracinated way. Those people need to read this book."—Roy Blount Jr. also by this author: The Georgia Tech Trivia Book |
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