Luther Davis “Sandy” Sandlin was born in Huntsville, Alabama to Hubert Arther and Mary Sandlin in 1905. While attending Chattanooga City High School, he played football and track. On August 23, 1935, Sandlin married Eleanor R. Rike, who was at the time secretary for Joe Engel, club president and scout for the Chattanooga Lookouts. Sandlin began his career with the Chattanooga Lookouts in 1938, working as the team’s athletic trainer and traveling secretary. In the same year, Sandlin became an athletic trainer for the University of Chattanooga’s football team, the Moccasins. Sandlin rotated between these positions on a seasonal basis, working with University of Chattanooga during the academic year and with the Lookouts during their summer seasons.

During his long career with both the Lookouts and University of Chattanooga, Sandlin temporarily left both of his positions from 1943-1946, during which time he worked as a trainer for the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, Georgia as part of the training staff. In 1943, the Lookouts team moved to Montgomery, Alabama under the new club name, the “Montgomery Rebels.” At the same time, due to the United States’ involvement in World War II, the University of Chattanooga temporarily disbanded their football programs for the 1943 and 1944 seasons from a lack of players. Following a successful telegram campaign by Chattanooga fans, the Lookouts returned their operations to Chattanooga in December, 1943. After the war, Sandlin returned to Chattanooga, where he resumed his roles as trainer at University of Chattanooga and for the Chattanooga Lookouts in 1946.

With the Lookouts’ disbandment after the 1965 season, Sandlin concluded his career with the club. He continued working at University of Chattanooga (University of Tennessee at Chattanooga since 1969) until his retirement from the athletics program in 1974. Despite his retirement, he continued to work as an athletic trainer, working at Baylor High School until his passing in 1979.

“Class of 1994: L. David ‘Sandy’ Sandlin.” Tennessee Athletic Trainers' Society. Accessed November 16, 2023. https://www.tnata.org/bios-1/2020/4/26/class-of-1994-l-david-sandy-sandlin

Exum, Helen. “Sandy: A Man Whose Heart Outshines His Skillful Hands.” Chattanooga News-Free Press (Chattanooga, TN), Sep 26, 1971.

Gammon, Wirt. “Montgomery Gets Lookouts; Final game Here Tomorrow.” Chattanooga Daily Times (Chattanooga, TN), Jul 7, 1943.

Horton, Bob. “Some Remarks About Our ‘Orphans.’” Chattanooga Daily Times (Chattanooga, TN), Aug 22, 1943.

Martini, Stephen. The Chattanooga Lookouts & 100 Seasons of Scenic City Baseball. Cleveland: Dry Ice Publishing, 2006.

Russell, Fred. “Chattanooga Fans Seek Lookouts Again.’” Nashville Banner (Nashville, TN), Dec 2, 1943.

“Sandlin, Davis ‘Sandy.’” Tennessee Sports Hall of Fame. Accessed October 18, 2023. http://tshf.net/halloffame/sandlin-davis-sandy/.

“Sandy Sandlin to Join Georgia Tech’s Staff.’” Chattanooga Daily Times (Chattanooga, TN), September 22, 1943.

The Chattanooga Lookouts is a minor league baseball team that has operated in Chattanooga, Tennessee since 1909. Businessman Oliver Burnside “O. B.” Andrews and other local investors first established minor league baseball in Chattanooga by organizing the Chattanooga Baseball Club in 1908. Andrews and the other club organizers purchased a Southern Atlantic League franchise for the city, and following a fan contest to name the team in 1909, the team became known as the “Lookouts." Later that same year, the Andrews moved the franchise from the Class C Southern Atlantic League up to the Southern Association, a Double-A level league, with the purchase of a Little Rock, Arkansas minor league franchise. The Chattanooga Baseball Club combined the teams under the Lookouts name. In 1929, Joe Engel, a former major league pitcher turned talent scout for the Washington Senators, purchased the Lookouts franchise, with the backing of the Senator’s owner, Clark “The Old Fox” Griffith. Engel became the owner and president of the Chattanooga Baseball Club, and the Washington, D.C.-based Senators became the major-league affiliate for the Lookouts.

As the team’s new president, Engel commissioned a new stadium to be built on the site of Andrews Field, the ballpark that had been home to the Lookouts since 1911. Construction on the new ballpark began in 1929 and was completed a year later in 1930. This new stadium was dubbed “Engel Stadium.” The first game in the new stadium was an exhibition match on March 23, 1930. Throughout the 1930s, the Lookouts won various league championships and awards, winning the Southern Association pennant and Dixie Series in 1932. Additionally, the Lookouts won the Southern Association championship in 1932 and 1939. In order to promote the team, Engel was known to orchestrate elaborate publicity stunts and opening day spectacles in Engel Stadium, earning him the moniker the “P.T. Barnum of Baseball,” or the “Baron of Baloney.” Both celebrated and notorious for his showmanship, Engel’s stunts and gags frequently antagonized players and opposing teams’ management, and on various occasions employed overtly racist themes and stereotypes, such as the 1940 opening day stunt titled “Custer’s Revenge,” in which Engel and a Lookouts player performed an ahistorical reenactment of the Battle of Little Bighorn, with the United States Army winning the battle.

In 1943, the Lookouts were relocated by Washington Senators owner Clark Griffith to Montgomery, Alabama, citing a lack of ticket-sales brought about by World War II. Now under the name, the “Montgomery Rebels,” the team operated in Montgomery throughout the 1943 season. Following a successful telegram and letter writing campaign by Chattanooga fans, the Lookouts returned to Chattanooga in December, 1943. The Lookouts went on to win two more championships within their league in 1952 and 1961. With the expansion of the American League in 1960, Washington Senators were relocated to Minnesota under a new name, the Minnesota Twins. In the Senators’ place, the Philadelphia Phillies became the Lookouts’ major league affiliate.

From its establishment through the early 1960s, the Lookouts was a racially segregated team. Despite the Brooklyn Dodgers and Jackie Robinson breaking the “color barrier” in major league baseball in 1947, minor league teams in the South were slow to integrate, with some states and cities actively resisting desegregation by attempting to pass laws prohibiting integrated athletic competitions. By the early 1950s, various teams in the Texas League and South Atlantic League had begun to field Black players, while the Southern Association teams, including the Chattanooga Lookouts, remained segregated. Minor league teams, including those in the Southern Association, increasingly hosted integrated major league exhibition games in the 1950s. In Chattanooga, Engel Stadium hosted its first integrated exhibition game between the Boston Braves and the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1952. In 1954, Earl Mann, owner of the Southern Association team the Atlanta Crackers, attempted to integrate the league by fielding its first Black play, Nat Peeples. Ultimately, Peeples only stayed with the team for two weeks before he was demoted to a Class A minor league team. Between 1960 and 1961, several of the teams in the Southern Association, facing the financial cost of refusing to desegregate, folded or dropped out of the league. The struggling Southern Association disbanded in 1962, leaving the Lookouts without a league.

Without a league for the Lookouts to play in, the Philadelphia Phillies withdrew as the team’s major league affiliate, leaving Chattanooga without baseball for the 1962 season. The Phillies renewed their affiliation with the Lookouts the next year, with the Chattanooga team now playing in the South Atlantic League. This arrangement was short-lived and in 1965, following an unsuccessful season, the Phillies once again withdrew their affiliation. Struggling to maintain ticket sales and unable to recover from a steady decline in performance, the Lookouts were forced to disband in 1966.

A decade later in 1976, the Lookouts franchise experienced a revival. The Oakland A’s signed on as the major league affiliate for the Birmingham A’s, a Southern League minor league team based in Birmingham, Alabama, and moved the franchise to Chattanooga. Following the return of the Lookouts, the team saw a return in ticket sales and public interest. Over the following decades, the team operated under different major league affiliates, including the Cleveland Indians, the Seattle Mariners, the Los Angeles Dodgers, the Minnesota Twins, and its present major league affiliate, the Cincinnati Reds. The Lookouts moved from the now historic Engel Stadium to AT&T Field in 2000, where they play to this day.

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Archambault, Paul. "Engel Stadium." National Register of Historic Places Nomination Form (Washington, DC: U.S. Department of the Interior, National Park Service, 2009), Section 8.

“Baseball Men File Petition For Charter.” Chattanooga Daily Times (Chattanooga, TN), Sep 02, 1908.

Corbett, Warren. “Joe Engel.” Society for American Baseball Research. Accessed November 16, 2023. https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/joe-engel/.

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Fenster, Kenneth. “Earl Mann, Nat Peeples, and the Failed Attempt of Integration in the Southern Association.” NINE: A Journal of Baseball History and Culture 12, no. 2 (2004): 73-101. https://muse-jhu-edu.proxy.lib.utc.edu/pub/17/article/52786.

Gammon, Wirt. “Just Between Us Fans: A Look at the New Baseball Set-Up Here.” Chattanooga Daily Times (Chattanooga, TN), Dec 02, 1962.

Gammon, Wirt. “Montgomery Gets Lookouts; Final game Here Tomorrow.” Chattanooga Daily Times (Chattanooga, TN), Jul 7, 1943.

Gammon, Wirt. “Spahn, Johnson in No-Hitter–Sneed Wins Masters Title.” Chattanooga Daily Times (Chattanooga, TN), Apr 7, 1952.

“Joe Engel Negotiating With Chattanooga Club Owners for Purchase of Franchise.” Chattanooga Daily Times (Chattanooga, TN), August 7, 1929.

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“Lookouts Change Hands.” Chattanooga Daily Times (Chattanooga, TN), October 2, 1929.

Martini, Stephen. The Chattanooga Lookouts & 100 Seasons of Scenic City Baseball. Cleveland, TN: Dry Ice Publishing, 2006.

Russell, Fred. “Chattanooga Fans Seek Lookouts Again.’” Nashville Banner (Nashville, TN), Dec 2, 1943.

Short, George. “No Baseball here in ‘62; Phils Drop Team Agreement.” Chattanooga Daily Times (Chattanooga, TN), Jan 27, 1962.

Thompson, Mike and Nate Collyer. “The 'Barnum of Baseball' Meets His Match.” Chattanooga Times Free Press (Chattanooga, TN), December 20, 2019.

Walker, Buss. “A Baseball Champion Since 1910.” Chattanooga Daily Times (Chattanooga, TN), April 8, 1954.