Atlanta Crackers - Well-known Players

Well-known Players

Famous members of the team included:

• Luke Appling, a member of the Baseball Hall of Fame who later played for the Chicago White Sox.
• Ralph 'Country" Brown (1947-52), member of the 1950 Southern Association championship team, later played for the Chatanooga Lookouts (1952-57).
• Art Fowler, longtime major league pitcher and pitching coach.
• Lloyd Gearhart, who later played with the New York Giants.
• Billy Goodman (1944&46), a lifetime major league .300 hitter who won the 1950 American League batting title.
• Eddie Mathews, a member of the Baseball Hall of Fame, later the only man to play for the Braves in Boston, Milwaukee and Atlanta.
• Tim McCarver, who went on to become a catcher for the St. Louis Cardinals.
• Bob Montag, who hit 113 home runs, the most of any Cracker and the second-most in Association history.
• Ollie O'Mara, shortstop for the Brooklyn Robins and one-time oldest living Brooklyn Dodger.
• Nat Peeples, the only African-American player in the Southern Association.
• Paul Richards, a catcher and then catcher-manager with the Crackers in the 1930s who became a major league manager with the Chicago White Sox (1951–54, 1976) and Baltimore Orioles (1955–61) and general manager with the Orioles (1955–58), Houston Colt .45s/Astros (1961–65) and Atlanta Braves (1966–72).
• Chuck Tanner, who is better known as the manager of four different major league teams during the 1970s and 1980s.

In addition, famed major league 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.