Total Baseball (1994 Edition)/Total_Baseball_1994_Edition_Creative_Multimedia_1994.iso/dp/0018/00183.txt

Text File | 1993-12-31 | 13KB | 198 lines

$Unique_ID{BAS00183}
$Pretitle{}
$Title{Night Baseball}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{
Pietrusza, David}
$Subject{Night Electric Light electricity gaslight Hull Jenney Cahills Cahill
Keyser Truby Wilkinson MacPhail Roosevelt}
$Log{}

Total Baseball:  The Game off the Field


Night Baseball

David Pietrusza


     The story of night baseball is often boiled down to just two chapters:
Cincinnati in 1935 and Wrigley Field in 1988.  Yet this now familiar nocturnal
habit struggled for acceptance throughout virtually all of baseball's history,
before it finally propelled the game to new levels of popularity and
prosperity.  It has transformed the the national pastime--but it was hardly
achieved overnight.
     In fact, just eleven months after Edison perfected the incandescent bulb
on September 2, 1880, the first night game was played at Nantasket Beach in
Massachusetts, in an attempt by the Northern Electric Light Company to
convince a skeptical world that electricity could rival gaslight for outdoor
uses.  Teams sponsored by two Boston department stores, Jordan White and R.H.
White, battled to a nine-inning 16-16 tie.  The Boston Post noted that "a
clear, pure light was produced, very strong and yet pleasant to the sight,"
although the crude system produced only 30,000 candlepower, and visibility
must have been tenuous at best.  Nonetheless, experiments continued apace and
would continue for decades.
     In May 1883, a railway engineer named Charles S. Hull contrived a test of
electric railroad headlights in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, by mounting a
dynamo on top of a flatcar, aiming its rays at teams representing "Captain
Clay Heninger's Nine" and George Pensinger's Paint Shop.  Allegedly, the
contest "was played as easily as in daylight."
     Just a few weeks later, on June 2, 1883, Charles Jenney of Fort Wayne's
Jenney Electric Light Company staged a nighttime contest featuring the first
professional squad to play under arcs--the Quincy squad of the Northwest
League versus the local Methodist College nine.  The professionals triumphed
19-11 in seven innings.
     Other experiments followed, one after another, in varying degrees of
seriousness.  In 1887, the American Association's New York Mets toyed with the
rather cockeyed idea of installing lights on the ground and shining them
upwards.  In Indianapolis in August 1888, owner John T. Brush installed
flaming gaslights for possible National League play.  "The crosspiece," noted
Sporting Life, "has burners on the upper side, about six inches apart, and
when the gas [is] turned on it makes a solid flame, say about four foot long."
     Less solemn attempts occurred.  In Seattle, in August 1891, an arclit
contest featured the Northwest League's Spokane and Portland clubs in
outlandish costumes.  Kerosene lamps were used at Los Angeles' Athletic Park
on July 2, 1893.  Authorities also employed a searchlight (mounted on top of
the grandstand) to assist fielders in tracking down fly balls.
     In Wilmington, Delaware, on July 4, 1896, normally staid Ed Barrow
brought his Paterson (N.J.) nine into town for a sunlit Atlantic League
doubleheader and stayed for an after-dusk third contest that degenerated into
a farce.  Allegedly one pitch literally exploded in the face of Paterson's
Honus Wagner.  "The ball became lost so often and so many runs were made they
were not counted," noted the Wilmington Morning News.  Such horseplay did
little to increase the respectability of night ball.
     And in St. Louis Chris Von der Ahe may have used electric lights for an
official game at Sportsman's Park sometime in the 1890s.  It is known that the
colorful Teuton installed lights there for night horseracing (one of many
stunts).  One story has it that as night was falling on a Browns contest, the
switch was thrown and the game was finished under flickering arcs.
     A series of highly publicized attempts to light night games occurred in
1909 and 1910.  A trio of inventors--George, Thaddeus, and Arthur
Cahill--interested major league owners in the possibility of a workable
system.  The Cahills brought their invention to the attention of Cincinnati
Reds President Gerry Herrmann by Sporting Life editor Francis Richter ("If it
should fall into the hands of speculative outsiders it would surely mean rival
night-playing leagues.  There are great commercial possibilities and
probabilities in the invention, which should be kept within the present
'charmed circle.'") The Cahills staged a game at Cincinnati's park, the
"Palace of the Fans," on June 18, 1909, that was played by two local Elks
lodges.  Despite some misjudged fly balls, Herrmann pronounced the effort a
triumph, but Reds pilot Clark Griffith commented halfheartedly, "I don't
believe night ball is destined to rival the daylight article, but I will say I
was much surprised at the ease with which the game was played tonight.
Under improved lighting it will grow more popular."
     The Cahills struck again at Grand Rapids, Michigan, on July 10, 1909, in
a loosely played game between Grand Rapids and Zanesville of the Central
League.  A year later, lacrosse, soccer, and baseball (played by two strong
local semipro squads) were showcased under Cahill arcs at newly christened
Comiskey Park.
     In 1915, the upstart Federal League saw evening competition as a way to
salvage their faltering war with Organized Baseball.  The Brooklyn Tip-Tops
began installing lights in the final weeks of the 1915 season, projecting a
few evening dates.  Unfortunately, the games never materialized.  If they had,
the entire circuit was poised to schedule evening tilts on a regular basis for
1916--had the Feds survived, that is.
     No further significant movement occurred until June 24, 1927, when Lynn
and Salem of the New England League tangled under a General Electric installed
system at Lynn's home field.  Looking on were members of the Red Sox and
Senators.  Surviving photos reveal a somewhat dim scene, but most observers
were favorably impressed, including Goose Goslin, who found it "just as good
ball as they play in daylight."
     Nineteen thirty witnessed the great breakthrough.  A three-way race was
on to convert night baseball from a gimmick into a paying proposition.  The
participants were Lee Keyser, owner of the Class A Western League's Des Moines
Demons; M.L. Truby of the Class C Western Association's Independence
Producers; and E.L. Wilkinson, proprietor of the Negro Leagues' legendary
Kansas City Monarchs.
     In the off-season, Keyser announced he would install the first modern,
permanent lighting system on May 2, 1930, but Truby and Wilkinson both got the
jump on him by successfully inaugurating systems of their own on April 17.
That evening Independence hosted the barnstorming House of David, while at
Enid, Oklahoma, the Monarchs engaged the Phillips University team using a
highly innovative portable system.  Then on Monday, April 28, Independence
hosted the Muskogee Chiefs in the first Western Association night contest.
     Nonetheless, it was still Keyser who caught the nation's attention.
Eight thousand fans attended the Des Moines game, including many initially
skeptical representatives of Organized Baseball and technicians for a
worldwide radio hookup.  All went away believers.
     Throughout the minors the idea spread like wildfire.  By season's end
most bush league teams had lights--and every circuit save the Central had
authorized night play.  Significantly, it did return for the 1931 season.
     Throughout the early 1930s, big league teams toyed with the idea of
arclit play.  The first two major league clubs to compete under mazdas were
the White Sox and Giants, who tangled at Houston's Buff Stadium on March 22,
1931.  The game was neither an artistic nor a financial success.  Players
groused about the damp of the evening, and management swooned at the
attendance--possibly as low as 500 fans.
     Cardinals owner "Singing Sam" Breadon made the most positive noises about
night ball ("It makes every day a Sunday"), but since the rival Browns owned
Sportsman's Park, where both teams played--and as they had no interest in the
innovation--nothing happened in the big leagues until 1935, when Leland
Stanford MacPhail was brought in to refurbish the threadbare Cincinnati
franchise.
     Just up from the minors, MacPhail was out to revive one of the majors'
most moribund operations.  Despite spirited opposition from Commissioner
Landis and Giants owner Charles Stoneham, he secured National League
permission to stage seven night contests per season.
     But MacPhail was the only member of the Reds Board of Directors to vote
against night ball--a little known fact.  As part of his planning, the Roaring
Redhead had scrupulously computed the payback on a new state-of-the-art
system.  Limited as he was to an annual quota of seven regular-season tilts,
he calculated that he would have to stage exhibition games to turn a profit,
but in January 1935 the National League had banned such displays in big league
parks.  Faced with a losing proposition and with the equipment still not
ordered, MacPhail voted to scrap night ball.  But because his "nay" was the
only one cast, night baseball was approved.
     Franklin Roosevelt threw the switch from the White House as 20,422 fans
packed Crosley Field on the decidedly cold and damp evening of May 24, 1935.
The Reds, behind Paul Derringer, stopped the hapless Phils 2-1 to decidedly
mixed reactions. "There is no chance," Washington's Clark Griffith blustered,
"of night baseball ever becoming popular in the bigger cities.  People there
are educated to see the best.  High-class baseball cannot be played under
artificial light."
     Yet who could argue with results--a huge crowd paying to see the woeful
Reds on an even more woeful night (the average Crosley Field afternoon contest
would attract just 1,500), and the Reds continuing to draw whenever they
played after dark.  Still there was no further movement until the stormy
MacPhail lost his job with the Reds and in 1938 signed with the equally
pathetic Brooklyn Dodgers.  The result was a page in baseball
history--Brooklyn's debut under the lights on June 15 and Johnny Van der
Meer's back end of his unprecedented "double no-hitter."
     Night baseball quickly spread around the majors, as one by one other
clubs followed:  the A's (May 16, 1939), Phils (June 1, 1939), Indians (June
27, 1939), White Sox (August 14, 1939), Giants (May 24, 1940), Browns (May 24,
1940), Cardinals (June 4, 1940), Pirates (June 4, 1940) and Senators (May 28,
1941).  Even mossbacks like Clark Griffith became believers, although not
everyone was sold.  Mrs. Liebrich, who lived across the street from the
Philadelphia Athletics' park, "wanted to know what privacy she'd have in a
bedroom, facing the park, illuminated by eight floodlights" when Connie Mack
installed lights.
     Even though President Roosevelt encouraged night play in his historic
"green light" letter to Clark Griffith, which cleared baseball to continue
operation during the war because it was a vital need of the American people,
World War II interrupted the march of this innovation.  Shortages of materials
made new installations difficult, if not impossible.  A drought in the
Southeastern states threatened TVA-generated power and, consequently, night
games.  And on the east and west coasts, fear of enemy aircraft and submarines
doused night baseball.  The Pacific Coast League, Ebbets Field, and the Polo
Grounds were notable casualties.
     Despite blackout regulations, the last hour of the 1942 All Star Game at
the Polo Grounds was played under lights, and the 1943 midsummer classic at
Shibe Park was totally under the arcs.  By war's end the government was
actually encouraging new installations as a morale measure.
     Following the war, the Braves (May 11, 1946), Yankees (May 28, 1946), Red
Sox (June 13, 1947), and Tigers (June 15, 1948) fell into line.  The Cubs, who
like the Tigers had been on the verge of installing a system before Pearl
Harbor, remained the last outpost of exclusively sunlit ball.
     It was not until the threat of shifting Cubs League Championship and
World Series games to distant St. Louis that night play became a reality at
Wrigley Field.  Before 39,008 fans on August 8, 1988, the Cubbies took the
field for their evening baptism.  Baptism it was as rain washed out the
historic event.  The lights went on for keeps the next night as 36,399 saw the
Cubs vanquish the Mets 6-4.
     Some--and not just the terminally nostalgic--now say night ball is
overdone.  With games dragging on past the three-hour mark, it's tough to stay
awake through nine full innings.  Statistics prove that attendance can be
higher at afternoon contests.  Yet with television driving so many of
baseball's decisions, a retreat from evening play seems unlikely.