Ten years down and five more to go before the Cubs can ask the city for additional night games at Wrigley Field.
The 10th anniversary of the Cubs’ first night game arrives Saturday, and now that night games have been so accepted in the last decade, it seems likely Tribune Co. will push for more at Wrigley Field.
The current agreement between Tribune Co. and the city, which expires after the 2002 season, allows the Cubs to play up to 18 regular-season night contests a year.
Mark McGuire, the Cubs’ executive vice president of business operations and not the guy in front of Sammy Sosa in the Roger Maris home run chase, says no decision has been made on 2002 and insists no one has even talked about it.
“We have had no internal or external discussions,” McGuire said. “Something will have to happen, that we know. The way the legislation is written, unless we do something in 2002, we won’t even get the 18 (night games).”
There is almost no chance the Cubs would ask for fewer night games. There is a chance they would agree to keep the limit at 18 for another specified period of time. But if you consider the current economics of baseball and factor in Tribune Co.’s bottom-line philosophy on all Cubs-related matters, it would seem a request for more night games is on the horizon.
It would be a business decision in line with other Tribune Co. moves, such as moving a large bulk of the television schedule from WGN-TV to its cable station, CLTV.
The Cubs fought long and hard for night baseball. The principal front man in the lights debate, Dallas Green, eventually became a reformed day-baseball fan, saying he didn’t realize how much day games meant to Cubs fans until after he left.
In spite of predictions that night games would ruin the neighborhood, Wrigleyville apartment rents keep going higher and the aura of night games at Wrigley becomes more accepted.
“The organization took every precaution and the neighborhood has accepted it,” said Cubs marketing director John McDonough. “The lights were a perfect fit, and were aesthetically a perfect fit as well. From a marketing standpoint, it provided an opportunity for thousands of people to watch games who work during day and can’t watch it unless it’s at night.”
In the late 1980s, the anti-lights activists were a relatively small but noisy group, headed by an organization calling itself CUBS, an acronym for Citizens United for Baseball in Sunshine. On the day the first night game took place, a group spokesman complained that the neighborhood would be out of control because of all the people.
“The problem is that there’s so many people here at night there’s no way to control it,” he said.
After a prolonged debate, Tribune Co. finally received city council approval for 18 night games a season for 15 years, with a provision that no games be played on Friday nights (when neighborhood residents want to park their cars for the weekend), and only one game on a Saturday and Sunday.
The first night game was set for Aug. 8, 1988. The hype was unending in the days leading up to the first game.
“I’ve been listening to this for weeks,” said manager Don Zimmer before the first game. “What’s so big about it?”
The game was so big that several hundred fans trekked out to Grant Park to watch it on a 15-by-17-foot TV screen set up at the Petrillo Bandshell. So big that 556 media members were on hand, making it, at the time, the most widely covered baseball game, outside of postseason play or the All-Star Game, in major-league history. So big that everyone in Chicago was talking about it, even though the Cubs were 53-56, also-rans in the National League East.
A 91-year-old Cubs fan named Harry Grossman switched on the lights with a hokey, “Dick Clark Rockin’ New Year’s Eve”-style countdown.
The game got off to a typical Cubs start. Phil Bradley hit a home run on Rick Sutcliffe’s fourth pitch, and the night era began just like the day era ended, with the Cubs trailing early.
In the bottom of the first, the ubiquitous field-crasher named Morganna–who was almost as well known as The Chicken in those days–hopped over the brick wall and tried to plant a kiss on Ryne Sandberg, who was at home plate. A security guard interrupted, and Morganna never got to Sandberg. He then hit a two-run homer, and the Cubs eventually took a 3-1 lead into the fourth. After a magnificent sky show with fully-amplified sound effects, also known as lightning and thunder, a furious rainstorm drenched everyone and forced a delay.
Greg Maddux, Jody Davis, Les Lancaster and Al Nipper entertained the crowd with some running belly-flopping on the wet tarp. Zimmer went nuts. He pointed out that Nipper had a sore elbow, Lancaster was on the disabled list after having an appendectomy, Davis had an injured foot and Maddux was one of the best young pitchers in the National League.
“I thought it stunk,” Zimmer fumed, fining all four players for their transgression.
That ignited a rash of drunken fans running out onto the field, a record that still stands today according to a security spokesperson. Sutcliffe said the rain was a sign from someone up high with a lot of clout, and he wasn’t talking about Mayor Eugene Sawyer.
“It looked like the Good Lord said, `I’m going to show you Wrigley Field has always been in daylight,’ ” Sutcliffe said. “He was pretty upset about this. He’s telling us He’ll determine when the first night game is.”
Ten years later, night games are treated no differently than day games. Few give them a second thought.
McGuire said the Cubs continue to meet with neighborhood officials to solve the problems created by the infusion of 40,000 people into the area for a few hours on game day.
“Most of the talk is parking-related issues,” McGuire said. “Gratefully, the issues are Cubs baseball issues and not night-or-day issues. There is a recognition that whenever there’s 39,000 people in the neighborhood, there is going to be an impact. But people are less focused on night versus day. When we started, certainly there was a great deal of emotion. Some in the neighborhood painted an unattractive picture of what it would be and the lifestyle it would create.”
Mark Grace is the only Cubs player remaining from the day-only era, and he believes the tradition should be kept the way it is now.
“You want to keep the tradition of day baseball here,” Grace said. “I like day baseball. I really enjoy it. It’s the way to be played. It makes your life a lot more normal. I’m here at 9, I’m gone at 5. For the most part, the guys enjoy the day games. Night games are good sporadically, but I don’t think we need to play any more. Eighteen is fine with me.”
By the way, the Cubs played the first real night game the following night against the New York Mets. But the unending hype and rainstorm of 8-8-88 combined to make the following night a footnote in Cubs history.
The first night game at Wrigley Field will always be the one that was never in the record books.
