| Chattanooga Lookouts | |||||
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| Minor league affiliations | |||||
| Class | Double-A (1885–present) | ||||
| League | Southern League (1964–1965; 1976–present) | ||||
| Division | North Division | ||||
Previous leagues |
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| Major league affiliations | |||||
| Team | Cincinnati Reds (2019–present) | ||||
| Previous teams |
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| Minor league titles | |||||
| Dixie Series titles(1) | 1932 | ||||
| League titles(3) |
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| Pennants(4) |
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| Division titles(7) |
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| First-half titles(7) |
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| Second-half titles(9) |
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| Team data | |||||
| Name |
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| Colors | Red, black, white | ||||
| Mascot | Looie the Lookout | ||||
| Ballpark | AT&T Field (2000–present) | ||||
Previous parks |
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Owner(s)/ Operator(s) | Hardball Capital Group (John Woods and Jason Freier)[1] | ||||
| President | Rich Mozingo | ||||
| Manager | Jose Moreno | ||||
| Website | milb.com/chattanooga | ||||
TheChattanooga Lookouts are aMinor League Baseball team of theSouthern League and theDouble-A affiliate of theCincinnati Reds. They are based inChattanooga, Tennessee, and are named for nearbyLookout Mountain. The team plays its home games atAT&T Field which opened in 2000 and seats 6,340 spectators.[2] After the 2025 season, they will move toErlanger Park. They played atEngel Stadium from 1930 through 1999, except in 1943, when they played atMontgomery, Alabama'sCramton Bowl.[3][4]
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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, moving the Single-A team to Chattanooga. The team adopted the name Lookouts in 1909 after a fan contest.[5] The following year, Andrews purchased the Double A Southern Association franchise from Little Rock and moved 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 nearly a century.
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; the Lookouts beat the Atlanta Crackers, 6-5, before some 16,000 fans.[6]
In 1931, theNew York Yankees played an exhibition game against the Lookouts. During the game, a 17-year-old girl namedJackie Mitchell pitched for the Lookouts and struck out Major League greatsLou Gehrig andBabe Ruth. Many reports of this story include a footnote claiming that a few days after the game, baseball commissionerKenesaw Mountain Landis voided Mitchell's contract, claiming that baseball was "too strenuous" for women.[7] This has been rebutted here,[8] and directly contradicts a profile of Mitchell published a few months later.[9] MLB didn't introduce a ban on contracts for female players until June 21, 1952 (which was repealed in 1992).[citation needed]
After winning the 1932Southern Association pennant, the Lookouts won theDixie Series, a postseason interleague championship between the champions of the Southern Association and theTexas League, defeating theBeaumont Exporters, 4–1, in the best-of-seven series.[10]
During owner Joe Engel's tenure, the Lookouts won four championships – three with theSouthern Association and a fourth with theSouth Atlantic League. 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 coachKiki Cuyler, the Lookouts claimed a championship. In 1943, the Lookouts played atMontgomery, Alabama'sCramton Bowl as theMontgomery Rebels after theWashington Senators moved the Lookouts from Chattanooga to Montgomery, some 235 miles (378 km) away, citing a decline in attendance.[4] (The original Montgomery Rebels team had folded due to World War II in 1943 and would return to Montgomery in 1946 in the now-defunctSoutheastern League.) The Lookouts managed to move back to Chattanooga in December of that year after Engel organized a letter-writing campaign aimed atClark Griffith, the owner of the Senators at the time.[11]
The team, which plays in theSouthern 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 theCincinnati Reds.[3] For the 2009 through 2014 seasons, theLos Angeles Dodgers served as the parent club.[12][13][14] 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.[15]
In conjunction withMajor League Baseball's restructuring of Minor League Baseball in 2021, the Lookouts were organized into theDouble-A South in which they continued as an affiliate of the Reds.[16] In 2022, their league retook an earlier name, the Southern League.[17]
On July 15, 2024, the team and local officials broke ground on the $115 millionErlanger Park[18] 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 byI-24 as it runs alongNickajack Lake.[19]
Chattanooga Lookouts games are televised onMiLB.TV. Since 2016, all games are broadcast on 96.1 The Legend.[20] Larry Ward is the lead broadcaster. Lookouts games were broadcast onWDOD (1310 AM) until the 2011 season.[21] From 2011 to 2015, games were broadcast onWALV-FM (105.1 FM, "ESPN Chattanooga"). Lookouts games have been broadcast onWLND 98.1 The Lake since the 2019 season.[22]
The Chattanooga Lookouts' mascot is Looie the Lookout. He is ananthropomorphized version of the team's logo.[23]
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