06/19/2026
A bit of fun history for your Friday. Meet the "Banning 9" Baseball team!
Baseball wasn’t just recreation—it was a pillar of village pride. From 1914 into the 1940s, the mill sponsored a team known as the Banning Nine, which competed against other local teams including Mandeville Mills, Carrollton, Villa Rica, and their fiercest rival, Whitesburg.
The games between the Banning Nine and Whitesburg Boys were the stuff of legend—often drawing large crowds and heated emotions. “We didn’t just want to win—we wanted to beat them bad,” laughed one player. “Especially if they’d been running their mouths all week.” The Banning Nine beat Whitesburg by wide margins on occasion—25 to 2 in one case—and close losses stung for weeks.
In 1914, a Carroll County Times article even rooted for Banning to lose, saying it might “teach them a lesson.” The games were fiercely competitive—and sometimes personal. “We settled things on the field,” said one man. “And win or lose, we walked off proud.”
The games drew large crowds and gave workers something to root for beyond their shifts. Players sometimes received lighter duties or better wages for their athletic performance. “Baseball helped us forget work for a while,” said one resident. “We’d all come out to the field. It was the biggest thing we had.”
Even during Prohibition and hard times, baseball remained a source of unity. The old field, still visible along Horseshoe Dam Road, stands as a reminder of the role sports played in shaping Banning’s identity.
Read more: https://historicbanningmills.com/history-of-banning-mills/
