The American League Plays Its First Night Game at Shibe Park

On May 16, 1939, the Cleveland Indians defeated the Philadelphia Athletics 8-3 in ten innings at Shibe Park in the first night game in American League history. A crowd of 15,109 fans watched the Athletics' ancient ballpark transform under 27,080 fifty-watt lamps mounted on massive light standards along 20th Street and atop the left-field stands. The lighting system generated enough power to illuminate more than 2,000 homes.

The National League had gone first. Cincinnati hosted the first major league night game in 1935, and Brooklyn installed lights at Ebbets Field in 1938. American League owners resisted, viewing night baseball as a gimmick. It took Brooklyn Dodgers president Larry MacPhail to persuade 76-year-old Connie Mack, the Athletics' owner and manager, to install lights and break the AL's holdout. Mack needed the revenue. His Athletics were terrible and drawing poorly, and night games promised to bring working fans who could not attend afternoon contests.

Cleveland outfielder Roy Weatherly, hitting .414 at the time, earned the distinction of being the first American League player to bat under the lights. He flied out to center field. The game attracted baseball dignitaries from across the league, including AL President Will Harridge, Indians owner Alva Bradley, Senators president Clark Griffith, and Browns president Don Barnes.

The Athletics lost the game, which was fitting. Mack's team would finish seventh that year with a 55-97 record. But the lights worked, the crowds came, and within a few years every American League team would follow Philadelphia's lead. Night baseball, dismissed as a novelty by traditionalists, became the standard way Americans watched the game.