Hillis Layne used his uncanny ability for playing baseball to escape from the dark promises of a Whitwell coal mine to the bright lights of professional baseball. He was signed out of Whitwell High School by fellow Tennessee Sports Hall of Fame inductee Joe Engel, president of the Chattanooga Lookouts. The year was 1938, and Layne was happy to be working in a game he loved, assigned to Americus, Georgia, where he batted .315. Two years later he was playing for the Lookouts, but with a .338 batting average and superb fielding stats. Layne’s big chance came in 1941 when he was called up to the Washington Senators. In storybook fashion, he hit his first home run in Yankee Stadium before a crowd of 68,000. His career as a player and manager spanned two decades in which he played nearly 2,000 professional games. A slick infielder, he became one of baseball’s toughest outs. He compiled a lifetime batting average of .335 in minor league play and .264 in a major league career that was shortened by army duty during World War II. Layne, known as the “Chattanooga Choo Choo,” was extremely popular and noted for his sportsmanship, clean living, and modesty. Certainly a legacy of which Tennessee’s native son, Hillis Layne, can be proud.
