It might be a small footnote in the colorful history of a Chattanooga baseball legend, but the Joe Engel Bat Co. was big news in 1952.
Engel, a longtime president of the Chattanooga Lookouts, started a bat-making company with business partners here in the early 1950s. The company pioneered a then-new laminating process to make stronger, more durable baseball bats.
During his tenure leading the Lookouts, Engel was known as one of minor league baseball’s most inventive promoters. The former Washington Senators pitcher is famous for once giving away a house at a Lookouts game and, another time, having his players parade into Engel Stadium on elephants.
A 2012 report in the Chattanooga Times Free Press noted: “Between 1929 and 1965, Engel brought to Chattanooga circuses, popular music, thoroughbred horses, (and) a woman who struck out both Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig.”