Chattanooga Minor and Negro League Baseball Teams

Satchel Paige, with K. C. Monarchs

Chattanooga has had professional baseball clubs since the 1880s, including both minor league teams and Negro league and barnstorming teams “when the game was black and white” (the name of an early book on segregated baseball teams).

Baseball first came to Chattanooga, however, with Union troops during the Federal Military Occupation in the War of the Rebellion.  After the war, two teams composed of former Union soldiers who demobilized here played in the summers of the postbellum period named after their pitchers, Siegfried’s and Ramage’s.

Minor League teams

The earliest city baseball club in Chattanooga were the Mountain Citys, often called the Mountain City Club.  They were amateurs, but played all over the South, from 1875 to 1878.

The next major baseball team in the city were the Roane Iron Company-sponsored Chattanooga Roanes, a nonprofessional employees’ team whose home field was at Douglas and Vine Streets played in 1878 and 1880-1885.

The Chattanooga Browns played in the summers of 1881 and 1884-1885.

John Stanton, whose luxurious Stanton House once stood at the site of the later Terminal Station, took over the Chattanooga Roanes as a semi-pro team in the 1885-1886 seasons.  The team played at Stanton Field behind his hotel as members of the Southern Association.

Meanwhile, Chattanooga Base Ball Club played in the Southern League in 1885 and 1886.

A team called the Mountain Citys played again from 1886 to 1887.

Ted Sullivan managed a team playing in the Southern League at Stanton Field in the 1888 season.  The Chattanooga Sullivans won the pennant for the first half-season.  Sullivan was then recruited to manage the Washington Nationals for the second half-season.

The Chattanooga Chatts were an initially independent team that played at Stanton Field in seasons 1889-1892.  When the Southern Association started back up in 1892, the team joined.  The Chattanooga Chatts were Southern Association champs for the 1892 season.

The Chattanooga Warriors played at Stanton Field in the Southern Association in the 1893 season.  After the season was over, the owner shipped the team to Mobile, Alabama.

As the Mobile Bluebirds, the team played during the 1894-1895 seasons at Frascati Park in the Southern Association.

The first Chattanooga Lookouts played at Stanton Field in the Southern Association during the 1901-1902 seasons.

The second Chattanooga Lookouts played at University of Chattanooga’s Chamberlain Field in the Southern Atlantic (Sally) League during the 1909 season and were that year’s Dixie Series champs.  These Lookouts were a Sally League franchise purchased by O.B. Andrews, who relocated it to Chattanooga and renamed the team. 

The team switched to the Southern Association in the 1910 season, still at Chamberlain Field, but the next year got their own home, Andrews Field.  The Lookouts remained in the Southern Association until it folded in 1961, and at Andrews Field until Engel Stadium, built on top of it, replaced it in the 1930 season.  They played at Engel Stadium through 1942 when the team was moved to Montgomery, Alabama.

The Montgomery Rebels played at the Cramton Bowl in the Southern Association during the 1943 season.

1952 Chattanooga Lookouts

The team returned as the Chattanooga Lookouts for the 1944-1961 seasons of the Southern Association.  After the Association folded in 1961, the team was on hiatus in 1962, played in the Southern Atlantic League in 1963, then in the Southern League (the Sally League renamed) 1964-1965.  At the end of the 1965 season, the team dissolved.

The second Chattanooga Lookouts were Southern Association champions in the 1932 season and went on to win the Dixie Series that year.  They were also association champs in 1939, 1952, and 1961.

They played their longest game 3 June 1919 against the Atlanta Crackers at Andrews Field.  The game ended in a 2-2 tie that evening after an incredible 23 innings due to darkness.

In March 1931, Joe Engel signed 17-year old Jackie Mitchell to the Lookouts, the second woman ever to play pro baseball (first was in 1898). Mitchell, whose given names were Virne Beatrice, was a southpaw who learned to pitch from Dazzy Vance, her nextdoor neighbor.  His lessons included the sinker, then called a drop ball, which became her specialty.

As a relief pitcher in the first inning of an exhibition game against the New York Yankees at Engel Stadium on 2 April, she struck out Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig back-to-back.  A few days later, Baseball Commissioner Landis voided her contract, but she went on to barnstorm with the House of David until retiring from the game in 1937.

The third Chattanooga Lookouts opened the 1976 season at Engel Stadium, bringing professional baseball back to Chattanooga after its longest hiatus since pro baseball began in the city.  The team played at historic Engel Stadium through the 1999 season.  For the 2000 season, the team opened at its news Bell South Park atop Kirkman (or Reservoir) Hill, which became AT&T Field in 2007.

The third Chattanooga Lookouts have been Southern League champions in the 1988, 2015, and 2017 seasons.  They played their longest game to date on 29 July 2017 against the Birmingham Barons, winning 2-1 after twenty-one innings at AT&T Field.

The Chattanooga Lookouts have been a farm team for MLB’s Washington Senators 1932-1959; Philadelphia Phillies 1960-1961 and 1963-1965; Oakland Athletics 1976-1977; Cleveland Indians 1978-1982; Seattle Mariners 1983-1987; Cincinnati Reds 1988-2008; Los Angeles Dodgers 2009-2014; Minnesota Twins (formerly the Washington Senators) 2015-2018; and Cincinnati Reds again 2019 to present.

Negro League and barnstorming teams

For over fifty years, Chattanooga hosted baseball teams that played in the Negro Southern League, that went barnstorming, or did both in different seasons.  Regarding what barnstorming was, think The Bingo Long Traveling All-Stars & Motor Kings (1976).

The Chattanooga Colored Base Ball Club played in the summer of 1885.

The city’s Afro-American community fielded a team known simply as Chattanooga in the earliest of Negro League in the country, the Southern League of Colored Base Ballists, which lasted one season, 1886.

Another team called Chattanooga Colored Base Ball Club played again in the summer of 1893.

The Chattanooga Unions barnstormed during the 1901 season.

Another team simply known as Chattanooga barnstormed during the 1909 and 1910 seasons, home-based at Luna Park in South Chattanooga on the West Side.

The first Chattanooga Black Lookouts played in the Negro Southern League in the 1920 season, based at Andrews Field.

The Chattanooga Tigers barnstormed during seasons 1921-1923, home-based at Andrews Field.

The Chattanooga White Sox played in the Negro Southern League in the first half of the 1926 season, home-based at Andrews Field.

The second Chattanooga Black Lookouts (White Sox renamed) played the second half of the 1926 season and all of the 1927 season in the Negro Southern League, home-based at Andrews Field.  In the 1927 season, they were league champions.  This incarnation of Chattanooga Black Lookouts was a farm team for the Homestead Grays of the Negro National League.

The Chattanooga Black Cats played in the Negro Southern League in the 1929 season, home-based at Lincoln Park Field.

The third Chattanooga Black Lookouts played in the Negro Southern League during the 1931 season, home-based at Engel Stadium, and barnstormed for seasons 1933-1936.

1946 Chattanooga Choo Choos, Willie Mays 4th from left in front

The Chattanooga Choo Choos barnstormed during seasons 1940-1944 and played in the Negro Southern League during seasons 1945-1948, home-based at Engel Stadium.

The Chattanooga All-Stars barnstormed during the 1949 season.

The Chattanooga Black Choo Choos played in the Negro Southern League during the 1950 season, home-based at Engel Stadium.

The Chattanooga Stars played in the Negro Southern League during the 1951 season, home-based at Engel Stadium.

Famous players who started in Chattanooga

Two of the greatest baseball players in the history of the Negro Leagues who later played Major League Baseball got their start in pro ball in Chattanooga:

Satchel Paige (the greatest pitcher of all time, black or white) got his start with the Chattanooga White Sox.

Willie Mays (the greatest all-around offensive player of all time in MLB) got his start with the Chattanooga Choo Choos.

Engel Stadium, from outfield and from stands