On a tour of the unfinished Erlanger Park in early December, Chattanooga Lookouts Vice President Andrew Zito made one thing perfectly clear: “No new bricks.”
He pointed to a wall of bricks in the stadium — most of them red, but several showing shades of blue, green and orange.
“That was the graffiti it acquired over time,” Zito said. “We wanted to leave it.”
Erlanger Park is teeming with history, beyond just the bricks. The new home of the Lookouts is being built on the former U.S. Pipe and Wheland Foundry site, and elements of the historic buildings — like the powerhouse and the pattern shop — remain and are being reimagined.
But it was on the roof of the batter’s eye, a less historic and more innovative structure, where Zito began his tour. The Kubota Club, as it will be called, allows up to 150 fans to take in the action from just beyond center field within the batter’s eye, which is made from glass. Only one other ballpark in the country has a glass batter’s eye: Parkview Field in Fort Wayne, Indiana, home of the Single-A Tincaps.