It is often said in Negro League research circles that proving a false negative is easier than proving a positive, with respect to identifying the threads that connect black baseball history. Such is the case with this photo of the Atlanta Black Crackers, a team name that gets snickers from the unknowing when uttered out loud. They were charter members of the Negro Southern League in 1920, formed from a nucleus of young men from Morehouse, Morris Brown, Clark, and other local universities. Named after the white Atlanta Crackers of the Southern Association, they would mostly jump back and forth between independent play and the NSL before reaching their pinnacle in 1938 as part of the Negro American League.
Now the photo above is found on the Center for Negro League Baseball Research's sister site, the Negro Southern League Museum Research Center and is listed as the team photo of the 1951 Chattanooga All-Stars. This struck me as curious as the uniforms in the photo look more like what the Black Crackers were wearing at one point, as evidenced in the newspaper clipping shared in the Seamheads blog. Also seems odd that a team representing Chattanooga would be wearing an "A" on all of their uniforms, but sometimes teams in that time period bore the mistakes of failed moves or previous cities, so I kept that in mind while doing some digging. (I'll talk about the nomadic Detroit Elite Giants in another entry, but I digress.) In addition, this photo just "feels" older to me. Maybe the style of clothing worn by the men in civvies is different, perhaps the catcher's gear seems clunkier than what was worn by the 50s, or the photo quality just seems different. A feeling isn't research though, so it was time to begin yet another lonely archeological dig,
One name is visible on the photo, an "F. Smith, MGR" standing at the far right. So who is he? Seamheads, the definitive Negro League statistical database, lists Ford Smith as the only player that fits that first name initial. Aside from the the completely different facial characteristics, Ford was a pitcher and outfielder for the Kansas City Monarchs and isn't listed on the roster of ANY Negro Southern League team. In addition, the 1951 Chattanooga Stars were managed by Raymond (Claude) Roberts, not anyone named Smith.
However, a guy named "Tiny" Smith is listed as an infielder for the Black Crackers in 1935, and by June 19, 1936 he was named as the Black Crackers' manager. A football All-American End from Morris Brown, he was signed mid-season in 1935. At this point in my research, I still didn't have a name to a face though, and Smith is a common name. So I took a trip over the Atlanta University Center archives and sifted through some yearbooks from when he may have been hanging around Morris Brown. In 1936, the football staff included the recently graduated Edgar Smith, who in 1931 and 1932 was Morris Brown's All-American representative at End.
In the yearbook photo, Smith is standing at the far right, and his face seems to match the same Smith seen in the baseball team photo. Six men over from the left appears to be Red Hadley, another long time Black Crackers player. I think I can safely conclude that this is a photo of the 1936 Black Crackers based on the uniform style and matching a key name to a face. The "F. Smith" inscription is a likely typo or possibly his middle initial.
Tiny Smith, by the way, never made it to the big leagues, as he was no longer on the team when the Black Crackers moved up to the Negro American League in 1938. The '36 edition however featured future all-stars Roy Welmaker and Felix "Chin" Evans on the pitching staff. Evans would still be on the club as they stormed their way to a first place finish in the second half of 1938. The uniforms worn by the Black Crackers can be seen here.
So that closes the case on another mystery nobody asked me to solve. The research process for these photos and teams involves going down a few rabbit holes, though the aid of the internet and the foundation of work that others before me have built made this much easier than it would have been even 5-10 years ago.
Have a correction? Feedback? Have another mystery for me to solve? Shoot me an email at contact@nlbuniforms.com
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