Before the Braves moved to Atlanta from Milwaukee in 1966, the minor league Atlanta Crackers called Atlanta home for most of the century. Their park, as well as that of the Atlanta Black Crackers of the Negro Leagues, was Ponce de Leon Park located just east of downtown Atlanta.
In the outfield at “Poncey” was a majestic magnolia tree that was as iconic as the park itself. The final season of full-time baseball there was 1964, and the stadium – which was across the street from the Sears building now
known as Ponce City Market – was demolished in favor of a shopping center. Then, when that shopping center was replaced with the current retail development, one constant remained: the magnolia.
Nestled between that retail center and the re-developed rail lines called the Atlanta BeltLine, the tree was a living monument to baseball in Atlanta.
That was until August 3, 2026, when storms that rolled through Atlanta felled the magnolia, as seen in this post by long-time Atlanta sportscaster and journalist Jeff Hullinger.
Most of you reading this may not be aware of Ponce de Leon Park – or if you are, it is from stories of parents or grandparents or friends or relatives who visited the park that also hosted Georgia Tech football games and other events. If you have spent time in this area of Atlanta in the last 10-15 years, you are aware that it has seen massive redevelopment with an influx of residential and commercial development.
But with fading baseball lore, sickos of the sport would often go there to get a moment of historical retrospection standing between the branches of a tree that saw baseball and Atlanta in a different era, a different time, but with the same grand game.
As Hullinger noted in his post, the magnolia that was 462-feet from home plate was in play as the reconstructed ballpark Spiller Field – the original Ponce de Leon Park had burned in 1923 – was built around the trees. The stadium was re-named back to Ponce de Leon Park in 1934 when the team’s owner, for whom the re-build stadium was named, sold the team.
Famously, the legendary “500-mile home run” was hit at Poncey in 1954 when Crackers’ slugger Bob Montag hit a home run that landed in a coal car of a train passing on the rail line and ended up in Nashville, TN, before being found and returned to Montag.
Legend also has it that Babe Ruth hit a home run even further – with the Bambino also hitting one into a coal car that ended up in Joplin, MO. That 700+ mile home run may be more lore than truth. But Ruth and Braves Hall of Famer Eddie Mathews were two players to have hit balls that got caught in the branches of the in-play magnolia.
Ironic how trees and baseball are connected as the crack of the bat couldn’t be possible with out ash or hickory trees. In a time with trees are seemingly being cut down without care, it was a thunderstorm brought down a magnolia that thousands of people walked by daily and likely never know how significant that old magnolia was.
