CHICAGO -- Twenty years ago, a Chicago-area sportswriter joined in the chorus of day baseball purists and wrote that Cubs home games should only be played in the sunshine, not under 1,500-watt lamps.
"Leave the lights off, and the gentle ballpark at Clark and Addison would continue to blend into the surrounding brownstones," the columnist wrote. "Somehow the intimacy is lost in the lights, installed because of progress and postseason play."
Nobody listened. On Aug. 8, 1988, 91-year-old Harry Grossman flipped a switch and Wrigley Field joined the modern era. It was the last Major League ballpark to get lights, and the 540 floodlights beamed across the diamond, allowing the Cubs to play their first night game.
Actually, they only played 3 1/2 innings before summer rains washed out the game between the Cubs and the Philadelphia Phillies. On Aug. 9, 1988, the Chicago Tribune editorialized: "Someone up there seems to take day baseball seriously.
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