16 June 2013

Dad Remembers the Atlanta Crackers

     It can be hard to get family stories out of my dad; I can't really ask him specific questions, rather, he has to share his stories as the memories come to him.  The other day, while we were watching the Atlanta Braves get stomped by the San Francisco Giants, he threw this tidbit out:
"I remember going to an Atlanta Crackers game once."
     For those of you (all of you?) not in the know, the Crackers were Atlanta's minor league team in the first half of the 20th century, before the arrival of the major league Atlanta Braves (formerly of Milwaukee).

     Dad couldn't give me much more information, except that he was young enough to mostly just remember enough to remember that he went, that they were playing at their own stadium, Ponce de Leon Park (as opposed to Atlanta-Fulton County, where they played their final year), that he got lost and was fussed at, and that he went with a kids' team, likely his older brother Gary's.

     When it's all typed up and combined with information I can find online about the team and Ponce de Leon Park Stadium, it actually fills out a pretty good picture.  Based on what I've found out, he would have attended sometime between 1960 and 1964, when he was 9 years old.  And every time I hear a story like this, it gives me one more connection to a place and time in history.

     I mean, just imagine this little boy enjoying his first game of professional baseball:

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1 comment:

Biff Barnes said...

The other side of the Braves vs. Giants game: I remember San Francisco Seals games in 1957 the year before the Giants moved west. They were a Pacific Coast League team playing in their own beautiful Seals Stadium. I can imagine a lot of your Dad's feelings at the Crackers' game.

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