Reds first: Let there be lights
Home of first professional baseball team also the site for first night game in the majors

By John Erardi
Enquirer staff writer

Cincinnati is known nationally as the home of professional baseball, but its greatest contribution to the pro game after conceiving it is illuminating it - at the highest level.

Literally and figuratively.

Seventy years ago today, the skies over the West End of Cincinnati lit up with one million watts for a game between the Reds and Phillies at Crosley Field.

That was three times the wattage of the lights in any minor-league park at the time.

"People take it (night baseball) for granted nowadays, but it's hard to put into words just how special it was (on May 24, 1935) when the field was lit up in Cincinnati for the first time," says John Murdough, who as a 16-year-old was one of 20,422 fans at the game.

"It wasn't like it is today with the lights already on when fans begin coming to the park. Back then, when the (8:30 p.m.) game was about to start, that's when President (Franklin) Roosevelt hit a telegraph key in the White House and whoosh, the lights came on. There was a collective gasp. It was like something you'd hear when a massive fireworks display lights up the sky."

That first night game in the big leagues was equally transforming for the industry. It turned Major League Baseball into what it is today: a largely nocturnal game that rarely plays day games anymore, except for Sundays (when ESPN isn't in town), some mid-week business day specials and an occasional Saturday here and there early and late in the season in northern climes.

"Yes, it totally changed things, but not right away," remembers former Reds second baseman Lonny Frey, who turns 95 on Aug. 23 in Hayden, Idaho, and played a night game at Crosley Field in the summer of '35 as a Brooklyn Dodger.

"Many of us had played ball under the lights in the minors, but the lights weren't good. I remember three popups above home plate in Baltimore one night that got above the level of the lights. None of them were caught. One almost hit the catcher in the head. The other thing I remember is that when lights were first put up (in the minors) and it rained and the lights got wet, pow! They'd blow up.

"(But) the lights in Cincinnati were good. All the lights that went up in the big leagues were good. The fans loved those night games, but it was hard on the players. We were used to having a routine for day games, and those night games threw it all off."

The myth is the Reds experimented with night baseball as a novelty, with no assurances it would catch on. The other owners felt Cincinnati was just trying to catch lightning in a bottle in an effort to jolt their annual attendance - which by 1934 had dropped to an anemic total of 206,773.
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