As you get back down to watch the Opening Day night games tonight , you credibly wo n’t be thinking about the massive array of lights that illuminate the secret plan . But that blind artificial sunlight was once a technological phenomenon that stupefy devotee and had the police threatening to shut it down .
AsGE Reports explains this good afternoon , the financial logic behind night games was always absolved : No one can go to day plot during the week — but if there was some style to act at night , the stands might be wide . Yet it take a GE engineer named Robert J. Swackhamer to propose the idea . In the 1920s , Swackhamer had designed arrays of super - bright lights to keep rail yards operating 24/7 . The project got him think : Why not practice his raiment to keep baseball player in the field after the sun sets ?
In May 1927 , at General Electric Athletic Field in Massachusetts , two teams battled it out under 72 huge flood lamps to “ packed stands , which include participant from the Boston Red Sox and the Washington Americans who played in Boston that afternoon . ”
The packed stand . GE .
You ’d consider club would ’ve been eager to try out Swackhamer ’s system , but it was a longsighted slog . Apparently , the local constabulary were no buff . “ They wanted to turn over me over to the sheriff in 1930 when I put in the first [ modest league ] baseball game kindling arrangement in Des Moines , ” Swackhamer order — presumably because of the light pollution and general hijinks it inspired .
GE built up a act of modest conference teams before bring its first big pot with the Cincinnati Reds . According to the company , it was a last - ditch effort to spare a sinking squad :
The Reds were on the verge of failure at the clock time . No more than 3,000 fans would show up a weekday game on norm . Owner Powel Crosley and cosmopolitan manager Leland “ Larry ” MacPhail took a gamble and invested $ 50,000 ( $ 850,000 adjusted for pretentiousness ) in the GE lighter .
That first game — played on Friday , May 24 , 1935 — was a smash success . 20,000 hoi polloi showed up , a monumental increase compared to normal weekday game . How was it received ?
According toCrosley-Field.com , there were plenty of naysayers ( “ There is no chance of nighttime baseball ever being popular in the bigger cities , ” sound out one critic ) and mess of puns ( “ No paronomasia think , but there was electrical energy in the air , ” spell another ) . But one reporter identify James T. Golden , Jr. saw poetry in the moment , remark that “ the sphere stand out against the sky like a pearl against drear velvet . ”
The Reds ’ field in 1935.GE .
Less than a decennium later , more than half of the MLB had installed GE light in their stadiums . Today , almost 70 percent of games are played at night under luminosity that are sometimes three times as bright as those installed by GE almost 80 twelvemonth ago .
So as you thank whatever god you hero-worship for the reappearance of baseball tonight , also give thanks a 1920s applied scientist who had the mind to light it up . [ GE Reports ]
conduct image : Crosley Field revamp in 1947 , GE .
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