This collection contains 21 letters that John J. Cronin, Jr. ("Jack") wrote to his father and brother in Hartford, Connecticut, while he traveled to North Carolina and Georgia during the spring of 1930 in an attempt to join an organized baseball team. On February 26, he reported that he and his traveling companion, John J. Carlin, Jr., had safely arrived in Washington, D. C., and his next few letters recount their experiences hitchhiking through Virginia to Durham, North Carolina, where they sought a place with a local team in the Piedmont League. His letters describe his experiences over the next several weeks, as he and Carlin made their way to Henderson, North Carolina, and Atlanta, Georgia. In Atlanta, they discovered and briefly attended a baseball school run by Norman "Kid" Elberfeld, though they wished to stay only if the school guaranteed them a roster spot (March 9, 1930). Cronin declined his brother's offer to pay for the training. He and Carlin lingered again in Durham, where Albany Lawmakers manager "Wild" Bill McCorry allowed them to train with his team (March 22, 1930). Cronin described his training with the club, which he enjoyed, and began to appreciate the difficulty of gaining a place in an organized league. By April 8, he was on his way back to Hartford. Harold Cronin wrote 3 letters to Jack, his brother, providing news of Hartford and mentioning his support for Jack's baseball career. Some letters enclose newspaper clippings discussing the beginning of Cronin's southern trip (February 28, 1930), showing a cartoon bird heading for spring training (March 12, 1930), and reporting that John J. Cronin, Jr., and John J. Carlin, Jr. had been granted tryouts with the Atlanta Crackers (March 12, 1930).
John J. Cronin, Jr. ("Jack") was born on May 6, 1912, the son of John J. Cronin and Alice Malloy, and lived in Hartford, Connecticut, for most of his life. He had two siblings, Alice and Harold. Alice (d. February 10, 2001) married Edward J. Murray and Harold (d. May 3, 1994) married Mary Tyszka. In 1930, Jack Cronin and a friend, John J. Carlin, Jr., traveled to Atlanta, Georgia, and Durham, North Carolina, in an attempt to join a baseball team; though unsuccessful, Cronin later played amateur baseball around Hartford and participated in the G. I. World Series in Nuremburg, Germany, in 1945. John J. Cronin, Jr., died on January 2, 2002.
