Between 1911 and 1927 native Georgian Sherry Smith played for fourteen years in the major leagues. His team played in the World Series twice. Later in his career, Smith returned to Georgia to coach for the Macon Peaches in the Southeastern League.
Courtesy of Georgia Sports Hall of Fame.
A Vidalia native, Mel Blount played with the Pittsburgh Steelers throughout the 1970s and early 1980s as part of the team's famous "Steel Curtain" defense. Blount helped the Steelers win four Super Bowls.
Courtesy of Georgia Sports Hall of Fame.
The Atlanta Crackers (1901-1965) played at Ponce de Leon Ballpark in their hometown.
Courtesy of Special Collections & Archives, Georgia State University Library, Lane Brothers Commercial Photographers Photographic Collection, 1920-1976.
In 1954 Nat Peeples, a native of Memphis, Tennessee, played two games with the Atlanta Crackers, a minor league baseball team affiliated with the Southern Association. He was the first and only Black player to be recruited by a team in that organization.
Photograph from NBC
Bryan "Bitsy" Grant, a native of Atlanta, was a champion tennis player during the 1930s. In both 1935 and 1936, he was ranked as the third best player in the world, and he won the U.S. Championships (later the U.S. Open) three times.
Courtesy of Georgia Sports Hall of Fame.
Nancy Lopez competes while a student-athlete at the University of Tulsa in Oklahoma. Lopez enrolled at the university in 1974 on a golf scholarship, and in 1976 she was named an all-American. The following year she left school to begin her professional career.
Courtesy of Tulsa Athletic Media Relations
Nancy Lopez is one of the most successful golfers in the Ladies Professional Golf Association, with career tournament winnings of more than $5 million. Inducted into the Georgia Golf Hall of Fame in 1998, Lopez sponsors charity golf tournaments in Albany and Stockbridge each year.
Courtesy of Georgia Golf Hall of Fame
Bobby Dodd was the head coach of the Georgia Tech football team from 1945 to 1966. In addition to coaching the Yellow Jackets to the 1952 national championship, Dodd is remembered for leading the team in a thirty-one-game winning streak from 1945 to 1966. He is the first man to be inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame as both a player and a coach.
Courtesy of Georgia Tech Sports Information
Bobby Dodd Stadium, named for former head coach Bobby Dodd, was built in 1913 by students at Georgia Tech and is today the oldest on-campus stadium in NCAA Division I-A football. Renovated in 2003, the stadium is home to the Georgia Tech football team.
Courtesy of Georgia Tech Sports Information
Rudy York (left) sits with teammate Roy Henderson in 1930, when the two played together on the company team for the textile mill in Atco. York later went on to play professionally for the Detroit Tigers.
Photograph from Collection of Bartow History Center, Cartersville
Rudy York examines a baseball bat in the late 1960s with three young boys wearing Atlanta Crackers jerseys.
Photograph from Collection of Bartow History Center, Cartersville
Davis Love III, a professional golfer who makes his home in Sea Island, played for the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill from 1983 to 1985. He was named an all-American three times, as well as an all-Atlantic Coast Conference golfer, during his collegiate career.
Courtesy of UNC Athletic Communications
Davis Love III, a resident of Sea Island, was inducted into the Georgia Golf Hall of Fame in 2001. A professional golfer since 1985, Love was listed in 2004 as the fourth all-time money winner on the Professional Golf Association tour.
Courtesy of Georgia Golf Hall of Fame
After retiring from his career as a track runner, Edwin Moses began to campaign against steroid use. He also served on the International Olympic Committee and worked in support of the Goodwill Games and the Special Olympics.
Courtesy of Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Edwin Moses competes at the 1988 Olympic Games in Seoul, Korea. Moses shares the honor of being a two-time Olympic champion of the 400-meter hurdles with only one other man. This distinction is especially remarkable because his two wins occurred eight years apart.
Courtesy of Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Despite being interrupted repeatedly by injuries, Spud Chandler's career was exceptional. With the highest winning percentage in major league history among experienced pitchers, and having pitched for six world championship wins, Spud Chandler received the American League's Most Valuable Player award in 1943 and is a member of the Georgia Sports Hall of Fame.
Courtesy of University of Georgia Sports Communications Office
As a young boy, Spud Chandler, shown here in his Yankees uniform between 1937 and 1947, was a fan of the New York team. While at the University of Georgia, he rejected offers from professional football teams and from other professional baseball teams so that he could play for the Yankees, with whom he spent his entire pitching career.
Courtesy of University of Georgia Sports Communications Office
Cheryl Haworth trains in 2004 at the Anderson/Cohen Weightlifting Center in her hometown of Savannah. Haworth has won numerous awards, including a bronze Olympic medal in 2000, during her weightlifting career.
Courtesy of Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Cheryl Haworth rests during a 2004 training session in Savannah. In 1998, at age fifteen, Haworth became the youngest lifter to hold senior American records.
Courtesy of Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Fran Tarkenton's offensive unit drew the nicknames "Tarkenton's Raiders" and "Tarkenton's Music Makers." He led the Southeastern Conference in passing completions and set a conference record for completion percentage in 1959, earning him All-SEC quarterback honors. He also led the Georgia Bulldogs to an Orange Bowl victory over Missouri in 1960.
Courtesy of University of Georgia Photographic Services
One of the most popular professional baseball players in Atlanta history, Ralph "Country" Brown was a member of the minor league Atlanta Crackers from 1947 to 1952.
Courtesy of Special Collections & Archives, Georgia State University Library, Tracy O'Neal Photographic Collection.
Atlanta Braves manager Chuck Tanner watches over spring training practice in 1988. It would be Tanner's last season as Braves manager.
Courtesy of Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Chuck Tanner, Atlanta Braves manager from 1986 to 1988, promised Atlanta a world championship, but his Braves teams finished last and next to last. When the Braves fired him in May 1988, the team had won twelve games, lost twenty-seven, was in last place, and already out of contention for the division title.
Courtesy of Atlanta National Baseball Club, Inc. Copyright 2002. All Rights Reserved.
Georgia native Edith McGuire became the top sprinter of the 1960s, winning six Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) championships and an Olympic gold medal in Tokyo, Japan, in 1964. McGuire was also the only American woman ever to hold three AAU titles at different times, in the 100 and 200 meters and the long jump.
Image from Wikimedia
Wyomia Tyus (center) of the United States, Edith McGuire (left) of the United States, and Ewa Klobukowska (right) of Poland took first, second, and third place (respectively) in the women's 100 meter at the 1964 Olympic Games in Tokyo, Japan.
Photograph from Corbis
Mildred McDaniel became interested in track and field by accident. She won an Olympic gold medal and set a world record in the high jump in 1956.
Courtesy of Georgia Sports Hall of Fame.
Georgia native George Stallings, known to baseball fans as the "Miracle Man," managed one of the most renowned teams in the game's history, the 1914 "Miracle" Boston Braves.
Courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, Bain News Service photograph collection.
Boston Braves manager George Stallings. Stallings finished his career with 879 victories in 1,813 major league games.
Courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, Bain News Service photograph collection.
George "Kid" Woodruff coached the University of Georgia football team from 1923 to 1927, bringing the Bulldogs' program to national prominence. UGA's practice fields are named after him.
Courtesy of University of Georgia Sports Information Department
Considered one of the world's fastest women, track star and Decatur native Gwen Torrence is a two-time Olympic gold medalist. She was inducted into the Georgia Sports Hall of Fame in 2000.
Courtesy of Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
On July 8, 1948, Louise Suggs turned professional, and in her inaugural year as a pro she won the 1949 U.S. Open by a record fourteen strokes. Suggs continued to win tournaments and set records throughout her pro career.
Courtesy of Georgia Sports Hall of Fame.
Louise Suggs was one of the charter members of the Ladies Professional Golf Association, and her competitiveness, accuracy, and "picture swing" led her to a phenomenal amateur and professional career in golf.
Courtesy of Georgia Sports Hall of Fame.
Louise Suggs won a number of amateur golf championships between 1941 and 1948 before turning professional in 1948. In 1996 she was the first woman to be inducted into the Georgia Sports Hall of Fame.
Courtesy of Georgia Sports Hall of Fame.
One of baseball's most revered players, Luke Appling was for nearly twenty years (1930-43, 1945-50) the star shortstop of the American League's Chicago White Sox. Before that he played for the Atlanta Crackers.
Courtesy of Georgia Sports Hall of Fame.
Regarded by many as the fiercest competitor in baseball history, Georgia native Ty Cobb won a record twelve batting titles and established the all-time mark for highest career batting average with a .367.
Courtesy of Georgia Sports Hall of Fame.
In 1911, in one of the greatest offensive displays in baseball history, Ty Cobb paced the American League in hits (248), runs scored (147), doubles (47), triples (24), runs batted in (127), and stolen bases (83).
Courtesy of Georgia Sports Hall of Fame.
The greatest amateur golfer ever, Bobby Jones dominated his sport in the 1920s. His most outstanding project in retirement was the creation of the Augusta National Golf Club in Augusta, and the annual invitational tournament it spawned, the Masters.
Robert Tyre "Bobby" Jones circa 1921. The greatest amateur golfer ever, Jones dominated his sport in the 1920s. In the eight seasons from 1923 to 1930, Jones won thirteen major championships, including five U.S. Amateurs, four U.S. Opens, three British Opens, and one British Amateur. On September 27, 1930 he became the only man to win all four major titles in one season, completing the "Grand Slam" of golf. Then, while still in his athletic prime at the age of twenty-eight, he retired from competition to devote more time to his family and his law practice.
Image from Wikimedia
At first Bobby Jones resisted the idea of competing in the tournament at the Augusta National Golf Club, but partner Clifford Roberts convinced him that his participation might make the difference between the survival and failure of the tournament. Jones agreed to play.
Photograph from Wikimedia
In 1930 Bobby Jones became the only man to win all four major titles in one season, completing the "Grand Slam" of golf. Considered the greatest amateur ever to play the game, his achievements were commemorated on this 1981 postage stamp.
Courtesy of the Smithsonian National Postal Museum
