Sports—and a spectacle

By Allison Gorman

Photos courtesy of Chattanooga Lookouts

If you think going to a baseball game is just about watching baseball—well, you haven’t gone to a Lookouts home game.
“Spectacle” is the word John Maedel uses to describe the event at AT&T Field. “Forty years ago you could probably go to a minor league ball game and just see a game, and that was the focus of it—just watching the action on the field,” says Maedel, vice president of the Lookouts organization. “Now you have to make it a spectacle. People have to have a good time, regardless of whether they’re a baseball fan or not.”
For those baseball fans, of course, there’s still plenty of action on the field. But there’s also a running sideshow especially designed to appeal to fans-in-training: the kids in the stands. Hence appearances by characters not known for their batting averages, like The Famous Chicken and nerdy showman Myron Noodleman (dubbed “the Clown Prince of Baseball”); children doing the chicken dance on the dugout roof; and between-inning events like a Mayfield mooing contest. In an age of endless entertainment options, clubs like the Lookouts are pulling out all the stops to keep families coming to home games.
“I think the minor leagues have really been on the cutting edge of that,” Maedel says. “You see a lot of what’s been going on in the minor leagues now at an NFL game or a major league baseball game or a hockey game. They’ve picked up on the fact that you have to entertain people, regardless of what’s out on the ice or on the field. You really don’t have to be a sports fan to have a good time at one of our games.”
With a fresh season underway, the Lookouts are sporting updated uniforms (as recent Los Angeles Dodger affiliates) and launching new specials (like “kids-eat-free Mondays”), as well as bringing back tried-and-true crowd pleasers (reaffirming the traditional baseball-chicken connection). John Maedel took a few moments with Chattanooga Parent to talk about what’s up this year at AT&T Field.

Q. What special family-friendly events are planned this season?

A. Well, we like to think that every single game is family friendly. But a lot of the promotional acts that we bring in are geared towards kids. The ZOOperstars! are an act that travels worldwide. They are giant costumes of animals, but they all have sports-related names. (So instead of Cal Ripkin Jr., they’ll have Cow Ripkin, Jr.…) We’ve been bringing them twice a year for a number of seasons now, and kids just love them. They’re hysterical to watch. Then there’s a guy called Myron Noodleman. He’s a nerd, along the lines of a Jerry Lewis-type character. He interacts with the fans and gets the crowd into it….  And then everybody knows The Famous Chicken. We’ve been bringing him to Chattanooga for a long time, and we’ll do it as long as he wants to keep coming out.

Q. How do you keep kids engaged during a regular game?

A. We do a variety of things every night to keep everyone—and kids especially—involved. There’s our speed pitch, where they can see how fast they can throw. And we’re always trying to do silly things to make it fun for the little people; we’ll encourage all the kids sitting in the dugout area to come up on the dugouts and do the chicken dance with our hostesses. We do a “Moo for Mayfield” contest, where we invite three kids to come up, and the one that can give us their best moo wins free ice cream, courtesy of Mayfield. So a lot of the contests we do are geared right towards the kids.

Q. Are there opportunities during the season for children to meet or interact with the players?

A. We have what we call our “Little Lookouts Club”—I think it’s around $10—and that entitles you to a membership in the club, a t-shirt, and a pack of our baseball cards, and at the end of the season there’s a luncheon where you can come and meet the players and they sign autographs. So there are plenty of opportunities for kids to get involved with the players.

Q. I know the stadium has a cookout area for groups. Could this be reserved by large families?

A. It has two, in fact. There’s one on the third base line that is not covered, and one’s on the right field line that is, and each can accommodate several hundred people. It takes a minimum of 25 people to reserve one.

Q. Do the Lookouts have any outreach to or involvement with grade school or high school baseball teams in Chattanooga?

A. Not the teams, but with the schools themselves, yes. We have our “Most Improved Student” program, and we partner with Hardee’s on that. Hardee’s allows us to send out letters to teachers all across Hamilton County and in about 15 surrounding counties—the radius is pretty large—and the teachers get to nominate kids they feel have improved in some fashion over the previous year. It doesn’t have to be an “A” student who’s always going to get the reward; it’s somebody who’s made progress. We give each of those kids a ticket to a game, and on a scheduled night they come, we have all the kids from a certain school line up, and they get to walk up on the field, pre-game, and they get recognized on the PA system and the video board. We feel like it’s a great thing to do for the community. We’re expecting over 8,000 kids to participate this year. The first year we did it we got about 3,000, and it’s grown steadily each year.

Q. What will the change from a Reds to a Dodgers affiliation mean to Lookouts fans?

A. The players they might have gotten a little familiar with, who might have been here for a year or two, are going to be somewhere else this year; we’re going to have all new guys. But the color scheme is going to be the biggest thing that the fans are going to see.

Q. What can a family of four expect to spend at a game?

A. A family of four can come in and out of here for less than they can going to a movie. If a family of four brought $30, they could probably come, get tickets, get something to eat and have a wonderful time. They could probably do it for less than that.
And this year we’re starting something we’ve never tried before—our little stimulus package: On Monday nights, kids 12 and under are going to get a certificate when they walk through the gate, and that entitles them to a small Coke and hot dog.

Q. What about parking?

A. We own a trolley, and we have a partnership with Unum, and once their employees leave for the day, they allow us to park fans there for free. Our trolley, goes from AT&T Field to the Unum parking lot and back starting several hours before each game and continuing until the last fan gets back to their car.