Wins, Losses, and Empty Seats: How Baseball Outlasted the Great Depression

10. Baseball Under the Lights

10. Baseball Under the Lights Baseball’s other technological challenge dealt with electric lights. While poets and the occasional baseball commissioner rhapsodized about baseball under the sun, daytime was not always a convenient time for fans. Encroaching darkness also wreaked havoc upon lengthy games, creating conduct unbecoming to the game as players employed delaying or hurry-up tactics depending upon whether they were winning or losing. In retrospect, most baseball historians seemed to view lights as inevitable and owner resistance to them as baseball’s version of Luddite behavior. The reality for an owner was much more difficult. Electric lights represented a major investment of scarce capital, and Major League owners had plausible reasons for thinking that what worked in Minor League towns might not work in big league cities. (In some ways theater owners faced a similar dilemma with the advent of talking pictures: whether to invest in the sound system or to see whether talkies were a passing fad.) An economist might recognize elements of a positive externality. The fact that an owner was unable to capture all the gains from increased attendance under the lights because of the revenue-sharing rules was an additional deterrent to assuming the financial risk of putting in lights. The installation of lights might have been beneficial to baseball as a whole, but an individual owner might have found it to be against his self-interest. 220 Innovations to Boost Profits This chapter describes the introduction of night baseball and addresses some questions. Why did some owners resist installing lights? Was their hesitance primarily a concern about costs? Did night ball raise both attendance and profits? The questions of how night ball affected attendance and profits are examined in chapter 12. For a more complete history of night baseball, the reader is encouraged to read David Pietrusza’s entertaining (but, sadly, deficiently documented ) book, Lights On! Coming to a Small Town Near You Minor League team owner Lee Keyser noticed that night football brought in much larger crowds than daytime football. He thought, “Why not night baseball? It will draw and offset the use of the auto and give the working man a chance to attend.”1 In addition, night baseball would not have to face the chilly night weather that accompanied night football.2 Keyser’s proposal met resistance. The Sporting News suggested some rather bizarre arguments against night ball: “The night air is not like the day air; the man who goes to baseball after he has eaten a hearty meal is apt to have indigestion if he is nervous and excited; the disturbed and misanthropic fan will not sleep well after a night game.”3 Opponents of night baseball raised health issues. Would inadequate lighting injure batters’ vision or cause more frequent accidents on the field? Players had mixed feelings about night ball. They understood the value of the larger crowds, such as those attracted to night games (especially when combined with ladies’ day promotions), but they “complain[ed] it upsets their routine, eating and sleeping hours are juggled and it is difficult, at times, to see the ball.”4 The New York Times reported a more optimistic opinion regarding Keyser’s staging Minor League baseball under electric lighting, including “an increase in attendance as the result of night schedules was forecast by veteran baseball men who believe the innovation will be practical .”5 A reporter believed that night baseball had only one advantage, aside from broadening the fan base; a night game allowed fans to avoid being “roasted alive on a hot day.”6 221 Baseball Under the Lights Keyser’s experiment was an immediate success, drawing over 10,000 fans, and even interesting fans in New York City: “The first broadcast of a night baseball game in history [that] went on the air last night and New York fans received a detailed account of the Des Moines-Wichita contest at Des Moines, Iowa, over the nbc’s stations wjz and weaf.” The fans in attendance claimed the “contest was viewed as clearly as a game played under daylight conditions.”7 The Sporting News called the game a success, but cautioned against passing judgment as the second night game had greatly diminished attendance : 1,200 fans. Poor weather may have kept the crowd small at that game. Over a number of games, the average attendance was 2,300.8 Despite the drop-off in attendance in...