History
In 1931, the New York Yankees 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 and Babe Ruth. A few days after the game, baseball commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis voided Mitchell's contract, claiming that baseball was "too strenuous" for women.
During previous owner Joe Engel's tenure, the Lookouts won four championships – three with the Southern Association and a fourth with the South Atlantic League. For a time, Engel led the 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.
Notable former Lookouts players that have made it to the Major Leagues include Baseball Hall of Famers Burleigh Grimes, Harmon Killebrew, and Ferguson Jenkins. Other notable former players include Alvin Davis, Mark Langston, Deion Sanders, and Pete Rose Jr. (son of Pete Rose). Ben Broussard (Cleveland Indians), Adam Dunn (Chicago White Sox), Austin Kearns (Washington Nationals), Trevor Hoffman (San Diego Padres), Jason LaRue (St. Louis Cardinals), Joey Votto (Cincinnati Reds), Jay Bruce (Cincinnati Reds), Homer Bailey (Cincinnati Reds), Edwin Encarnacion (Toronto Blue Jays), Kenley Jansen (Los Angeles Dodgers), and Jerry Sands (Los Angeles Dodgers) play in the MLB.
The team, which plays in the Southern League, is the Double-A affiliate of a major league ballclub. From 1987 through 2008, the Lookouts were the Double-A affiliate of the Cincinnati Reds. For the 2009 through 2014 seasons, the Los Angeles Dodgers will serve as the parent club.
Read more about this topic: Chattanooga Lookouts
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“Let us not underrate the value of a fact; it will one day flower in a truth. It is astonishing how few facts of importance are added in a century to the natural history of any animal. The natural history of man himself is still being gradually written.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“There is nothing truer than myth: history, in its attempt to “realize” myth, distorts it, stops halfway; when history claims to have “succeeded” this is nothing but humbug and mystification. Everything we dream is “realizable.” Reality does not have to be: it is simply what it is.”
—Eugène Ionesco (b. 1912)
“The history of reform is always identical; it is the comparison of the idea with the fact. Our modes of living are not agreeable to our imagination. We suspect they are unworthy. We arraign our daily employments.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)