Before permanent artificial lighting was installed at Braves Field to play night baseball in 1946, other outdoor sporting events were staged there under temporary lighting systems between 1921 and 1945.
Boxing was the dominant lighted sports event at Braves Field during the 1920s, after prize fighting was legalized in Massachusetts in September 1920. Boxing under portable lights debuted at Braves Field on May 1, 1921, when the Olympic A.A. sponsored five bouts at the ballpark.[1]
Numerous boxing contests at night were staged at Braves Field throughout the 1920s and 1930s, when crowds numbering 30,000 were not uncommon. In 1928 the Boston Globe had extensive reporting on the installation of portable lights for a middleweight boxing match. During the 1930s wrestling augmented the boxing cards at Braves Field.[2]
There were two experimental night baseball games played at Braves Field during the early 1930s, using the portable lighting system of the barnstorming House of David semi-pro team.
On August 1, 1932, the Braves played the House of David team at Braves Field, before a small crowd of 2,500 people. “Six floodlights, set at sporting distances like cuspidors in an old-fashioned hotel, illuminated the field, and made the ball visible to a certain degree,” the Boston Globe reported. “It is hard to believe that the big leagues will ever abandon the sunlight for the arc light. As a novelty, night baseball is all right. As a permanent diet, its value is at least doubtful.”[3]
The second night baseball game at Braves Field was held two years later on August 21, 1934, when an all-star team of Northeastern League minor-league players took on the House of David team. Again, only a sparse crowd of 2,500 attended this evening event. More people attended the previous night’s light-heavyweight boxing match between Al Gainer and Al McCoy under lights at Braves Field.[4]
In the fall of 1934, the most significant proposal to stage night events at Braves Field occurred when the Boston Braves proposed to conduct dog racing at the ballpark, on a track placed around the outer edge of the playing field. This idea by kyboshed by the National League as unbecoming of a professional baseball team. Instead, night dog racing in the Boston area debuted in June 1935 at Wonderland Park in Revere.[5]
While college football games at night were popular during the 1930s at many schools across the country, this idea was never vigorously pursued at Braves Field. Boston University played most of its home games at Nickerson Field in Weston while Boston College played mostly at Alumni Field in Newton, with both schools playing selected games at Fenway Park. Northeastern University played at Huntington Field (now Parsons Field) in Brookline, where night college football debuted in Boston on October 4, 1935.[6]
Professional football under the lights made a brief appearance at Braves Field in 1936, when the Boston Shamrocks of the American Football League hosted two AFL night games at Braves Field. The first game was staged on September 30 against the New York Football Yankees and the second on October 7 against the Pittsburgh Americans. The Shamrocks, though, moved their home games to Fenway Park in 1937, where one night game was played (October 13), before the AFL went out of business after the 1937 season.[7]
The relocation of the Shamrocks home football games signaled a decided preference for organizations to conduct lighted evening events at Fenway Park rather than at Braves Field (technically National League Park 1936 to 1940 when the team was called the Bees, not Braves). From 1937 through 1941, Fenway Park the venue sought for the vast majority of lighted boxing and wrestling matches at night, as well as the exclusive site for an annual college all-star night football game against a National Football League opponent and the pro football night games of the Boston team in the AFL (Shamrocks in 1937, Bears in 1940).[8]
World War II halted lighted sports events in Boston during 1942 and 1943, when mandatory blackouts along the East Coast were rigidly enforced for military reasons by the US Army. This required the dimout of all outdoor lighting within three miles of Boston City Hall, an area that included both Braves Field and Fenway Park.[9]
By May 1944, the blackouts were lifted and the majority investor in the Braves – Lou Perini – set his sights on installing lights at Braves Field to play night baseball after the war ended. Perini arranged for weekly Monday night boxing matches at Braves Field under temporary lights during the summer months and convinced Boston College to play one of its night football games at Braves Field in October 1944. Perini also gauged demand for night baseball by having the Braves play exhibition night games on the road against semi-pro teams under the permanent lighting systems at stadiums in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, and nearby Lynn, Massachusetts (both games produced packed audiences).[10]
Fenway Park was still the premier night-event venue in Boston in 1944, now regularly hosting the night football games of the Boston Yanks (the new NFL team in the city) and Boston College, as well as a one-time FDR campaign re-election rally in November 1944. Perini, though, believed he could make money with permanent lighting at Braves Field.[11]
In July 1945 Perini received approval from the War Production Board to install lights at Braves Field. One month later, he arranged for the Kansas City Monarchs of the Negro American League (with pitcher Satchel Paige) to play a night baseball game at Braves Field under a borrowed portable lighting system. The installation of permanent lights at Braves Field began in November 1945.[12]
Night baseball debuted at Braves Field on May 11, 1946. However, that’s not the end of this story. In September 1946, night football games under permanent lighting debuted at Braves Field, first with NFL teams and a few weeks later with college teams.[13]
On September 5, 1946, the Boston Yanks of the NFL played an exhibition football game under the lights at Braves Field against the Chicago Bears. The Yanks had expected to play all their regular-season home games at Fenway Park, but hadn’t anticipated the Red Sox to qualify for the World Series that fall. The Yanks played a second night football game at Braves Field on Tuesday, October 1, 1946, against the New York Giants while the Red Sox used Fenway Park to prepare for the World Series.[14]
Boston College used Braves Field for all of its home football games in the 1946 season, which included three night games. The first night game was played on September 27, 1946, against Wake Forest. BC hosted its football games at Braves Field through the 1952 season, the last year before the Braves departed for Milwaukee in 1953.[15]
Notes
[1] “Begin Outdoor Boxing Monday: Olympic A.A. Will Stage 50 Rounds at Braves Field in Evening,” Boston Post, May 1, 1921; “Real Lighting for Bout at Braves Field Friday,” Boston Globe, May 25, 1921.
[2] “Wilson Stops Jock Malone in the Sixth,” Boston Globe, July 30, 1924; “Expect More Than 30,000 at Legion Bouts at Braves Field Tonight,” Boston Globe, June 5, 1925; “Fans Await Expectantly ‘Zero Hour’ in Boston’s Boxing War,” Boston Globe, August 29, 1927; “Flynn Favored to Whip Bobby Brown Here Tonight,” Boston Globe, July 9, 1928; “DeGlane Retains Wrestling Title,” Boston Globe, July 31, 1931.
[3] “First Night Game at Braves Field,” Boston Globe, August 1, 1932; “Braves Win First Night Game,” Boston Globe, August 2, 1932.
[4] “House of David Is Night Game Victor,” Boston Globe, August 22, 1934; “Al Gainor Favored to Defeat McCoy: Ten-Round Bout Tonight at Braves Field,” Boston Globe, August 20, 1934.
[5] “Charter Given for Dog Track,” Lowell Sun, November 17, 1934; “National League President Balks Fuchs Plan for Dog Racing at Braves Field,” Lowell Sun, December 8, 1934; “Fuchs Will Not Embarrass Game: Assures League on Dog Racing Proposition,” Boston Globe, December 13, 1934; “Dog Racing Track Will Open Tonight,” Boston Globe, June 12, 1935.
[6] “First Night College Football Game in Boston Won by Northeastern, 37 to 7,” Boston Globe, October 5, 1935. Boston College played its first night football home game on September 30, 1938 at on-campus Alumni Field, taking on local rival Northeastern (“BC Eleven Engages NU Tonight in First Test of Floodlight Football by Major N.E. College,” Boston Globe, September 30, 1938).
[7] “Shamrocks Open Season at Bees’ Park Tonight,” Boston Globe, September 30, 1936; “Shamrocks Defeat Americans, 16 to 7,” Boston Globe, October 8, 1936; “Shamrocks Facing Los Angeles Club,” Boston Globe, October 10, 1937.
[8] “Shucco Fights Natie Brown in Fenway Park Ring Tonight,” Boston Globe, July 12, 1937; “Redskins-All Stars in Fenway Floodlight Tilt,” Boston Globe, September 11, 1939; “Boston’s Pro Bears Open Grid Season Wednesday Night,” Boston Globe, September 30, 1940.
[9] “Drastic N.E. Dimout on Lights,” Boston Globe, May 4, 1942.
[10] “Sox, Tribe Deny Plan to Install Lights Now,” Boston Globe, May 2, 1944; “Callahan A.C. Bouts at Braves Ballyard Every Monday Night,” Boston Globe, April 16, 1944; “BC Favored in Tonight’s Game with CCNY,” Boston Globe, October 13, 1944; “Braves Pound MacFayden, 11 to 0,” Boston Globe, July 14, 1944; “Fallon Allows 3 Hits as Frasers Blank Braves at Lynn,” Boston Globe, September 20, 1944.
[11] “Eagles Topple Boston Yanks in Debut, 28-7,” Boston Globe, September 27, 1944; “Elliot Paces BC to 42-13 Victory,” Boston Globe, October 21, 1944; “President’s Fenway Park Speech,” Boston Globe, November 5, 1944.
[12] “Braves Will Play Night Baseball Next Year, Boston Globe, July 19, 1945; “Satchel Paige Hurls Here Aug. 13,” Boston Globe, August 3, 1945; “Braves Will Install Night Game Lights,” Boston Globe, November 8, 1945.
[13] “37,407 See Braves Arclight Debut,” Boston Globe, May 12, 1946.
[14] “Pass Interceptions Help Yanks to Hold Bears to 24-17 Score,” Boston Globe, September 6, 1946; “Football Yanks, Giants Out to Show Customers NFL Tops on Grid,” Boston Globe, September 30, 1946.
[15] “Wake Forest Offers Real Threat to BC at Wigwam Tonight,” Boston Globe, September 27, 1946; “Wake Forest Baffles Boston College, 12 to 6,” Boston Globe, September 28, 1946.
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