Eighty years ago Thursday, Joe Engel's showplace namesake stadium opened with his Chattanooga Lookouts scoring three ninth-inning runs to edge Atlanta 6-5 in front of about 16,000 spectators.
The Lookouts now play at AT&T Field overlooking the downtown riverfront, but Engel Stadium lives on, and a bunch of men will be playing there on its 80th birthday. Chattanooga's National Adult Baseball Association league will be playing a series of mini-game exhibitions in one of the newest additions to the National Register of Historic Places, and the public is invited to come out and watch free of charge.
"I've invited all 12 of our teams to come out. It will be a jamboree-style exhibition, where every team will play a couple of innings," said league founder and Bombers player-coach Jeff Santaite. "I've told everybody to get there around 5:30. The games probably will start between 6:30 and 7."
Members of the Engel Foundation, which is working to maintain and spark interest in the stadium, have been invited to Thursday's "party" as special guests. Janna Jahn, director of the foundation, will speak before the games begin.
"I think this is a nice opportunity for the public to be able to come out and enjoy the stadium and support the new adult league," Jahn said Monday. "It's an example of the type of use that Engel could have now and continuing into the future.
"I'll mainly be out there to have a good time, and I encourage others to do so as well."
The Tennessee Temple University baseball team has kept the stadium open and in use in recent years, and some high school and other teams have played there on occasion. The local NABA league played no games there last year but will be using it regularly - along with area high school fields - this season.
Santaite, who previously started an NABA league in Colorado Springs, began the local group with five teams last year and envisions 20-22 teams next year, "with a goal of reaching 40-50 teams in three years." He also plans a fall league this year.
The main season will run through August. It opened Sunday with three games at Engel, two at Gordon Lee High School and one at Boyd-Buchanan.
"Sunday is our primary day to play. We do have some midweek games," Santaite said.
Based in Denver, the NABA has more than 90 leagues in 34 states.
Describing himself as playing a "utility-type role now," Santaite is 48 and "just happy to be able to play still." An even older player, Dave Johnson, has Parkinson's disease but travels an hour and a half to play. Johnson went 2-for-4 and pitched two innings, giving up one run, in a Sunday win for the Cubs.
Santaite lived in Chattanooga in the early 1990s while on recruiting duty with the U.S. Navy and enjoyed going to Lookouts games at Engel. Over the years he heard stories about the stadium's history and has heard even more from members of his league.
"Just about everybody who's in the league who's from this area is really excited about playing at Engel Stadium," he said. "The history really resonates with them."