Randy Smith: 1976 - When The Lookouts Came Home

  • Wednesday, April 29, 2020
  • Randy Smith
Randy Smith
Randy Smith
When I came to town in 1975, there was no baseball at Engel Stadium. There was the promise of a team that would occupy the stadium in 1976 but Chattanooga had been without pro baseball for a decade or more. Woody, Sarah and Mark Reid as well as Jim Crittenden and Arvin Reingold served as investors that brought baseball back. There was a lot of excitement around town in 1975 and early 1976. The team would be an affiliate of the Oakland A's and Engel Stadium was in the midst of a huge facelift to get ready for the homecoming.
When 1976 rolled around, and the April season opener was upon us, a standing room only crowd of more than 8,000 fans was on hand to watch Denny Walling, Mark Budaska, DeWayne Murphy, Matt Keough and company take the field. The Lookouts won that night as Mark Budaska hit a grand slam over the right field wall.

In the beginning there was no radio coverage for the team. A few stations had shown an interest but no station was ready to take on the huge financial commitment that broadcasting minor league baseball would involve. Later in the year, team ownership felt the need to have their games on the air and a deal was struck with WDOD. I was hired by the late Bill Nash as the station's sports/production director in May of 1976 so I would get to fulfill a life-long dream of mine to broadcast professional baseball.

We aired every single game in the second half of the season, home and away. I got to travel to exotic sites like Columbus, Georgia and Montgomery, Alabama as well as Knoxville, Tennessee. I stayed with the team at the Admiral Benbow Inn in Knoxville and sat out by the pool during the day and handled the game broadcast at night. It was a pretty sweet deal to be on the road while someone else handled the day to day stuff back at WDOD.   

After a few weeks, traveling around the Southern League began to get really old. In Montgomery I took my wife Shelia along and the temperature was 95 degrees after the sun went down. I did four games in Montgomery in an old wooden press box and I sweated so much, I was forced to take off my shirt, doing the game topless. My wife was good for one game and said, "No thanks", so she stayed in the motel for the other three games. My good friend Mark McCarter was there as well covering the games for the Chattanooga News Free Press and we have laughed many times about that week we spent in the Deep South heat of Montgomery, Ala.

The Montgomery squad won the 1976 Southern League Championship with an overall record of 81-56. They had players like Alan Trammell, Dave Rozema and Jack Morris all who spent time with the Detroit Tigers. Of course, the Lookouts had some future big-leaguers as well. DeWayne Murphy won several Gold Glove awards in his 10-year career and Matt Keough switched from third base and became a pitcher who won 20 games in a season, then lost 20 in another season.

The weather always seemed to be a factor. In a four game series in Columbus, Ga., we were rained out three times. Thankfully, there was a movie theater nearby, so at least we had something to do to pass the time. I believe we saw The Exorcist one day.

With the recent talk about losing the Lookouts for the 2021 season, the memory of what it was like to be without baseball in Chattanooga returns and it's not a good memory. The current Lookouts' management has stressed that the team will be back next summer but there are still some doubts. The recent contract agreement between Major League Baseball and the minor leagues calls for the elimination of 42 teams, and among them is Chattanooga's Lookouts. Hopefully we can avoid being eliminated but things appear to still be up in the air.

Baseball is more than just a game. It's a way of life as well as a great way to pass the time. (Remember Baseball is still our National Pastime.) The 1976 Lookouts won the hearts of baseball fans in a big way, bringing our community together. Here's hoping we still have baseball in our city next year. We need it. 

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Randy Smith can be reached at rsmithsports@epbfi.com
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