Minor league baseball was not a part of my childhood because there was no minor league baseball in Chattanooga during my formative years. I happened to grow up here during the longest period of time (1965-1976) the city was without a professional baseball team in its 134-year history with the sport.
Since its return in 1976, it has played a considerable role in how I came to do what I do today. I'll explain.
But first let me say I would hate for other families and children to do without the fun of minor league baseball. Major League Baseball and Minor League Baseball recently have held discussions about contracting the number of minor league teams in the game. One of the those mentioned being contracted in an initial report was the Chattanooga Lookouts.
The aging of some facilities and excessive travel concerns have been cited as reasons for the need for contraction, but the bottom line is expenses.
At winter meetings earlier this month, the deputy commissioner of baseball told the Boston Globe the initial list - on which the Lookouts were included - "is out of date and thus wrong," and that no revised list would be revealed publicly.
(Read more: Chattanooga Lookouts seek 'guidance' in contraction conversation after winter meetings)
That leaves Chattanooga with a team through at least the 2020 season, after which Major League Baseball and Minor League Baseball must sign a new agreement.
Whether the city is a part of that future may depend on the building of a new stadium to replace AT&T Field, which opened in 2000. Or it may depend on how much fans want the sport to stay. Or it may depend on nothing anyone in the city can do.
I had just turned 7 years old when the Philadelphia Phillies relocated their Class AA minor league team from Chattanooga to Macon, Georgia, in 1965. It was several years before my serious love of the game began.
When local ownership secured the Class AA franchise of the Oakland A's to return minor league baseball to the city in 1976, the spring of my senior year in high school, I was thrilled. I was already an Atlanta Braves fan, but having a team in your city - especially one whose Major League club had recently won three consecutive world championships - seemed just as exciting.
Maybe, I thought, I could get a job there.
As it happened, the civic club of which my father was a member was volunteering in sprucing up Engel Stadium, where the Lookouts would play. I joined him for the work, painted some walls and got my name on a list for jobs. In time, I was told I would be hired as a scoreboard operator.
I imagined afternoons and evenings climbing all over that giant left-field scoreboard to slide in numbers for runs, strikes and balls, but I instead was assigned to the pressbox, where strikes, balls and outs were now electronically lit by switches I would flip from my seat far above the field. I also was to answer the phone during the game, most often responding to the question from baseball neophytes: "When will the game be over?"
A baseball game, fortunately, does not run at the whim of a timer, its exciting conclusion sometimes not certain until the last bat of a last extra inning.
In the pressbox, I not only met baseball Hall of Famers like Cleveland Indians pitching great Bob Feller but also the sports writers from the then-two daily newspapers, both of which offered me fall jobs covering high school football games.
A job as a sports writer at the Chattanooga Free Press helped pay for a journalism degree at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, but I also kept that pressbox scoreboard job for four seasons and two teams, the A's and the Indians. After college and joining the sports staff full time, I eventually got a chance to be one of the beat writers for the Lookouts, from 1981 to 1985, then a farm team of the Indians and the Seattle Mariners.
Those teams, though not competitive in the Southern League, included future Major Leaguers Ivan Calderon, Joe Charboneau, Darnell Coles, Alvin Davis, Kelly Gruber, Neal Heaton, Mark Langston, Jim Presley and then-Chattanoogan Robert Long.
Changing jobs at the newspaper, ultimately to editor of this page today, I since have gotten to enjoy Lookouts baseball as a fan, kicking back and catching up with friends while munching a hot dog and Diet Coke and talking about the team's latest prospect. And I was able to introduce a wife and a son to the fun, relaxation and the excitement that is a night at the ballpark.
I hope future generations will get the same privilege - to see ballpark entertainers like The Famous Chicken, to try to win a car on Used Car Night, to snag a foul ball and to see future Major League stars - all at a price that doesn't hurt the wallet.
A Lookouts official told this page last week the matter is in the hands of Major League Baseball and that there's no specific address to which supporters should vent their spleen. Social media is always good, the official said, and the team is grateful for all the backing.