The Chattanooga Lookouts are a

Minor League Baseball Minor League Baseball (MiLB) is a professional baseball organization below Major League Baseball (MLB), constituted of teams affiliated with MLB clubs. It was founded on September 5, 1901, in response to the growing dominance of the National Le ...

team of the Southern League and the Double-A affiliate of the Cincinnati Reds. They are based in

Chattanooga, Tennessee Chattanooga ( ) is a city in Hamilton County, Tennessee, United States, and its county seat. It is located along the Tennessee River and borders Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia to the south. With a population of 181,099 in 2020, it is Tennessee ...

, and are named for nearby Lookout Mountain. The team plays its home games at AT&T Field which opened in 2000 and seats 6,340 spectators. Following the conclusion of the 2025 season, they will move to Erlanger Park. They previously played at Engel Stadium from 1930 through 1999, with a one-year break in

Montgomery, Alabama Montgomery is the List of capitals in the United States, capital city of the U.S. state of Alabama. Named for Continental Army major general Richard Montgomery, it stands beside the Alabama River on the Gulf Coastal Plain. The population was 2 ...

Cramton Bowl Cramton Bowl is a 21,000-seat stadium located in Montgomery, Alabama. Cramton Bowl opened in 1922 as a Baseball park, baseball stadium and has been home to Major League Baseball spring training and to minor league baseball. Today, however, its pr ...

in 1943.

History

In 1908, Oliver Burnside "O.B." Andrews, owner of the Andrews Paper Box Company, Garnett Carter, and a third unidentified party took ownership of a franchise in the South Atlantic League relocating the Single-A team to Chattanooga. The team adopted the name Lookouts in 1909 after a fan contest. The following year Andrews purchased the Double A Southern Association franchise from Little Rock and relocated them to Chattanooga. The team began playing on Andrews Field in the 1100 block of East 3rd Street, which would remain the site of their home stadium for close to a hundred years. Joe Engel bought the Chattanooga Lookouts in 1926 and opened Engel Stadium in 1930 on the site of Andrews Field. The first game in the new stadium was played April 15, 1930, with the Lookouts beating the Atlanta Crackers 6-5 in front of approx. 16,000 fans. In 1931, the

New York Yankees The New York Yankees are an American professional baseball team based in the Boroughs of New York City, New York City borough of the Bronx. The Yankees compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) Am ...

played an exhibition game against the Lookouts. During the game, a 17-year-old girl named Jackie Mitchell pitched for the Lookouts and struck out Major League greats

Lou Gehrig Henry Louis Gehrig ( ; June 19, 1903June 2, 1941), also known as Heinrich Ludwig Gehrig, was an American professional baseball first baseman who played 17 seasons in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the New York Yankees (1923–1939). Gehrig was ...

and

Babe Ruth George Herman "Babe" Ruth (February 6, 1895 – August 16, 1948) was an American professional Baseball in the United States, baseball player whose career in Major League Baseball (MLB) spanned 22 seasons, from 1914 through 1935. Nickna ...

. Many reports of this story include a footnote claiming that a few days after the game, baseball commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis voided Mitchell's contract, claiming that baseball was "too strenuous" for women. This has been rebutted here, and directly contradicts a profile of Mitchell published a few months later. MLB didn't introduce a ban on contracts for female players until June 21, 1952 (which was repealed in 1992). After winning the 1932 Southern Association pennant, the Lookouts won the Dixie Series, a postseason interleague championship between the champions of the Southern Association and the Texas League, defeating the Beaumont Exporters, 4–1, in the best-of-seven series. During owner Joe Engel's tenure, the Lookouts won four championships – three with the Southern Association and a fourth with the

South Atlantic League The South Atlantic League, often informally called the Sally League, is a Minor League Baseball league with teams predominantly in states along the Atlantic coast of the United States from New York to Georgia. A Class A league for most of its h ...

. Engel led a charge to own the Lookouts privately, with the help of several hundred fans as shareholders from 1938 to 1942. In 1939, as a privately owned franchise under coach Kiki Cuyler, the Lookouts claimed a championship. In 1943, the Lookouts played at

as the ''Montgomery Rebels'' after the Washington Senators moved the Lookouts from Chattanooga to Montgomery, some away, citing a decline in attendance. (The original Montgomery Rebels team had folded due to World War II in 1943 and would return to Montgomery in 1946 in the now-defunct Southeastern League.) The Lookouts managed to move back to Chattanooga in December of that year after Engel organized a letter-writing campaign aimed at Clark Griffith, the owner of the Senators at the time. The team, which plays in the Southern League, has been the Double-A affiliate (or its equivalent) of a major league ballclub since 1932. From 1988 through 2008, the Lookouts were the Double-A affiliate of the Cincinnati Reds. For the 2009 through 2014 seasons, the

Los Angeles Dodgers The Los Angeles Dodgers are an American professional baseball team based in Los Angeles. The Dodgers compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the National League (baseball), National League (NL) National League West, West Div ...

served as the parent club. In affiliating with the Twins in 2015, the Lookouts rekindled a relationship with the franchise that, as the 1901–1960 edition of the Washington Senators, spent the longest period as its parent team. For much of that earlier stint, the Lookouts were the Senators' top farm team despite being at a classification two steps below the majors. It was announced on September 25, 2018, that the Lookouts would resume their affiliation with the Reds. In conjunction with

Major League Baseball Major League Baseball (MLB) is a professional baseball league composed of 30 teams, divided equally between the National League (baseball), National League (NL) and the American League (AL), with 29 in the United States and 1 in Canada. MLB i ...

's restructuring of Minor League Baseball in 2021, the Lookouts were organized into the Double-A South in which they continued as an affiliate of the Reds. In 2022, the Double-A South became known as the Southern League, the name historically used by the regional circuit prior to the 2021 reorganization. On July 15, 2024, the team and local officials broke ground on the $115 million Erlanger Park in the South Broad Street area. The ballpark will be constructed on the site of the former U.S. Pipe/Wheland Foundry. The ballpark will be flanked by I-24 as it runs along Nickajack Lake.

Television and radio

All Chattanooga Lookouts games are televised on MiLB.TV. Since 2016, all games are broadcast on 96.1 The Legend. Larry Ward is the lead broadcaster. Lookouts games were broadcast on WDOD (1310 AM) until the 2011 season. From 2011 to 2015, games were broadcast on WALV-FM (105.1 FM, " ESPN Chattanooga"). Currently, all Lookouts games are broadcast on WLND 98.1 The Lake starting with the 2019 season.

Mascot

The Chattanooga Lookouts' mascot is Looie the Lookout. He is an anthropomorphized version of the team's logo.

Roster

Retired numbers

*26 – Dernell Stenson, OF, 2003

Season-by-season records

*2021: 58–54 *2022: 61–75 *2023: 70–67 *2024: 45–90

References

External links