It’s Farewell for 69-Year-Old Minor League Engel Stadium

Section A. Row 4. Seat 2.

Frank Moore, World War II veteran and retired postal worker, can be found there at almost every Chattanooga Lookouts game, sitting practically on top of first base.

It’s near the same spot where he and his father watched the Lookouts more than 30 years ago. And it’s across the field from the bleachers where he sat as a boy.

Next year, Moore won’t be there. And neither will the team.

When the season ends this month, the Cincinnati Reds’ Class AA affiliate in the Southern League will leave crumbling, 69-year-old Engel Stadium for a new $10 million downtown ballpark.

The 75-year-old Moore and other fans will miss the park that boasts the deepest center field in America, 471 feet, and a quirky hill that slopes up toward the outfield wall.

According to local lore, the only player to hit a homer over the 30-foot-high wall in center was Hall of Famer Harmon Killebrew when he played for Chattanooga in the 1950s.

The new stadium will lack the history, of course, but at least the Lookouts are staying in Chattanooga.

“I don’t think it will have the old-ballpark atmosphere,” Moore said. “But I’ll just be happy to keep on watching.”

The 7,500-seat Engel Stadium, named for former team president Joe Engel, is known as much for its faults as its charms.

Outfield lights are frozen in place by rust. The electrical wiring is so old and scrambled that turning on an ice cream machine once caused toilets to flush.

Flooding is routine because the stadium sits on one of the lowest spots in Chattanooga. In 1984 and 1988, the Lookouts lost entire four-game series when downpours turned the infield into an island.

A study found the stadium needed a $5 million upgrade to meet minor league requirements for a clubhouse, indoor batting cage, and better lighting and dugouts. It looked like the team that was a charter member of the Southern League in 1885 might have to move.

There was much relief when team co-owner Frank Burke announced plans last fall to use private money to build a 6,000-seat ballpark in the heart of Chattanooga. The city helped by waiving property taxes.

“There are those in our industry who think we’re nuts. They say you could get the city to build it for you,” Burke said. “But (the team) has been here so long I kind of felt it belonged here. We just don’t like to see them leave communities. It’s probably an old-fashioned way to look at it.”

It has not been the same elsewhere.

Up Interstate 75 in Knoxville, the Class AA Smokies are moving because Sevierville and Sevier County agreed to help build a $19 million stadium for next season.

Nashville could lose its Class AAA Sounds because the city has balked at the team’s request for a new stadium.

In Chattanooga, Engel was responsible for much of the community’s attachment to the Lookouts and their stadium.

A legendary promoter nicknamed the “Barnum of Baseball,” he generated publicity by giving away a house, putting singing canaries in the grandstand and trading a shortstop for a turkey, then inviting sportswriters to watch him eat it.

He signed female pitcher Jackie Mitchell to throw against the New York Yankees and she struck out Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig in a 1931 exhibition. It’s still argued whether it was a stunt.

As a boy, Moore was a member of Engel’s “Knothole Gang,” children given free season passes if they pledged to stay in school and act in a “sportsmanlike and gentlemanly fashion.”

The club was named for youngsters who used to peer through the punched-out knotholes in the boards of outfield fences. Moore still carries the card in his wallet.

Despite Engel’s death in 1969, the quirky promotions continue at the stadium, where fans can get a haircut in the stands and camels sometimes are put in a pen below the center-field wall.

Moore’s fondest memories are of the players and managers, not the entertainment.

He was there in 1939 when the Lookouts won the league championship on the last game of the season. Kiki Cuyler, a Hall of Famer who played outfield for the Pittsburgh Pirates, Chicago Cubs and others, managed the Lookouts at the time.

Moore recalls seeing Jackie Robinson play in a 1941 exhibition at Engel.

“I remember Jackie sitting in the third base dugout,” he said. “He sat outside and the white players sat inside.”

Besides Killebrew, other former Lookouts in the Hall of Fame include pitchers Ferguson Jenkins and Burleigh Grimes, and second baseman Rogers Hornsby.

Engel Stadium has seen modern-day heroes, as well. In 1994, 14,137 people turned out to see Michael Jordan play with the Birmingham Barons. Extra bleachers were brought in to handle the overflow.

Now the city and Hamilton County, which own the stadium, are soliciting proposals on future uses for the ballpark. They hope to keep it open as a sports facility.

Moore, who arrived at a recent Lookouts game smartly dressed in Lookouts’ red and white, said he’ll be close to the action at the new ballpark when it opens March 30.

“I want to be near the umpire,” he said, “to tell him when he’s wrong.”