![]() In 1970, the Reds donated their files and records relating to the development of lighting at Crosley Field to the Hall of Fame. The Hall of Fame’s collections have been vastly enriched by donations related to the first major league night game at Crosley Field. On July 1, 1943, two all-star teams from the All-American Girls’ Professional Baseball League, Wrigley’s brainchild, played a shortened doubleheader under a temporary lighting system. There was a night baseball doubleheader played at Wrigley Field long before 1988, however. 8, 1988, though many of their home games are still played in the day. ![]() The Cubs finally added night baseball to their offerings on Aug. ![]() Wrigley had actually ordered lighting materials after the 1941 season, but when Pearl Harbor was attacked, he immediately donated all the material to the War Department for use in lighting “flying fields, munitions plants, or war defense plants.” Phil Wrigley of the Cubs held out until 1988, saying that baseball was meant to be played in the sunshine. The Red Sox installed lights in 1947, and the Tigers in 1948. The numbers quickly grew, and 11 of the 16 major league clubs had installed lights by the time the United States entered World War II.īy the end of the War, only the Red Sox, Tigers and Cubs were holdouts. Yet faced with a dire financial outlook in Cincinnati, MacPhail and Reds owner Powell Crosley changed the Commissioner’s mind, and he allowed the Reds to host seven night games in 1935. The game was broadcast nationally by NBC radio, and Demons owner Lee Keyser told the nation that the players and fans were happy, and the night game “means that the Minor Leagues will now live.” Twelve thousand fans came out that night, 20 times the average 600 in attendance for a day game.Ĭommissioner Landis initially said to future Hall of Famer Larry MacPhail, general manager of the Cincinnati Reds at the time of the first night game: “Young man…not in my lifetime or yours will you ever see a baseball game played at night in the majors.” The first professional baseball night game held under a permanent lighting system took place May 2, 1930, at Des Moines, Iowa, where the hometown Demons beat the Wichita Aviators, 13-6. In the early 1930s, Wilkinson created a portable lighting system that could be towed behind the team bus and set up almost anywhere, allowing his teams to play more often and earn more money to ensure their survival. Wilkinson, owner of the Kansas City Monarchs, one of the Negro Leagues’ flagship franchises, and a 2006 Hall of Fame inductee. “What talkies are to the movies, night baseball will be to baseball,” prophetically said J.L. Yet none of these pioneering efforts gained much traction, and the true advances in night baseball lighting were made in the minors, the Negro Leagues and by barnstorming clubs, such as the House of David team. Ironically, the White Sox themselves were in New York, playing to a 6-6 tie in a game called on account of darkness. The following year, a night contest was held at Chicago’s Comiskey Park, between two local semi-pro teams, before 20,000 fans. The first night game in Cincinnati, between two Elks Club teams, was actually held in 1909, at the Palace of the Fans – the Reds ballpark prior to construction on the site where Crosley Field would later stand. Several more minor league night games were held in the 19th century. Another night game first occurred on June 2, 1883, when visiting Quincy (Ill.) defeated a local team at Fort Wayne (Ind.). 2, 1880, when two department store teams pioneered the concept in Hull, Mass., just a year after Thomas Edison perfected the design of the electric light bulb. The first experiment in night baseball transpired 130 years ago, on Sept. wrote that the field looked far greener at night than during the day, and that balls hit high in the air “stood out against the sky like a pearl against dark velvet.”ĭespite the fanfare surrounding the first major league game under the lights, night baseball was by no means a new concept when it came to the majors 75 years ago. They gasped.”Ĭincinnati Enquirer reporter James T. Ballpark usher Ralph Ploews recalled in a later article that the audience was mesmerized: “People were in utter joy. Several papers reported that there was an excitement in the air akin to an All-Star Game, itself a recent invention in 1933. “No pun intended, but there was electricity in the air – on the field, in the stands, and in the dugout,” said Reds first baseman Billy Sullivan at the time.
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