Among baseball's many innovations that propelled out of the Negro Leagues, perhaps the most famous was the advent of playing night baseball.
With a present-day lens, the concept seems straightforward enough, sure, but before 1930, there were very few instances night baseball. Quite the opposite in fact; dusk meant it was time to call the game and scurry home for supper. Games, even those played by major league teams, were routinely stopped due to darkness creeping in.
For the barnstorming Kansas City Monarchs, members of the Negro National League, the ability to play at night meant additional games could be scheduled, much to the benefit of the team’s financial ledger. Even the four-time Negro National League champs were not immune to the financial woes that plagued many clubs from the Negro Leagues. Day baseball games played during the week could not be experienced by many working class families - particularly as the early effects of the Great Depression were being felt. Night baseball could bring a whole new population to click the turnstiles.
So, heading into the 1930 season, Monarchs owner J.L. Wilkinson gambled…big time. Since stadiums were not outfitted with lights, he invested somewhere between $50,000-$100,000 for a throng of portable fifty-foot telescoping lighting towers to be built. Flood lights would be affixed to the top of the towers and run on a gas-powered generator. Once the team arrived in a city or a town, the towers took two hours to assemble and reputedly burned up fifteen gallons of gas per day. Mind you, the stock market had crashed mere months before, plunging the country into the worst economic depression in its history. If Wilkinson’s gambit failed, well, the Monarchs would probably go down with him.
Night Baseball Begins (and comes to the Hoosier State)
April 28, 1930 proved to be a watershed day in night baseball history. Not only did the Monarchs use their new light setup for the first time in an exhibition game against Phillips University in Enid, Oklahoma, but also the Independence Producers and the Muskogee Chiefs of the Western Association.
Wilkinson’s investment paid off; he reportedly made his money back after just the first season. Night baseball quickly became all the rage – though Major League Baseball wouldn’t play its first game under the lights until 1935. Either way, the concept was clearly growing legs.
With respect to this humble blog's mission, let's head to the Hoosier State!
The first night game of baseball in Indiana appears to have been played on June 7, 1930 at between the Indianapolis Indians and the St. Paul Saints of the American Association. The game was played at Washington Park, which also played home to the Indianapolis ABCs.
As for the Monarchs, among their first instances of utilizing their newfangled lighting system in Indiana was on September 7, 1932, when they made the trip to South Bend, Indiana to square off against the semipro Studebaker Athletics. The Athletics were sponsored by the world-famous South Bend-based Studebaker Corporation, who manufactured automobiles. In 1932, the company had made headlines by rolling out the durable, low-cost Studebaker Rockne – named for the famous Notre Dame coach and onetime Studebaker employee – which allowed even those families impacted by the Great Depression to have access to an automobile. Though well intentioned, the model was a failure for the company.
The game would be played at Lippincott Park, the home park of the Athletics. Lippincott would host nearly two dozen games featuring Negro Leagues teams over the next couple decades. Today, you can find the former home of the park is still dedicated to baseball, albeit it is now called 'Kaiser Park' and the home to South Bend’s Southside Little League.
September 7, 1932: Kansas City Monarchs v. Studebaker Athletics
‘LOCALS TO PLAY FAST MONARCHS – Studebaker Athletics Face Floodlight Test Wednesday’ conveyed the September 4 issue of the South Bend Tribune. ‘The lighting system for the nocturnal scuffle will be furnished by the visitors. Their power plant is hauled around in a fleet of trucks. They have placed their system in several major league baseball parks with success,’ wrote the Tribune. ‘The visitors have defeated all the outstanding semipro teams of the country and a victory over them will mean a feather in the cap for the Athletics.’
On September 6, the day before the Studebaker tilt, the Monarchs played the Elkhart Eagles in nearby Elkhart, Indiana under their portable lights. Though the game was covered fairly lightly by the South Bend rags (and an account from the Elkhart periodicals couldn’t be found), it is known that the Monarchs won handily and ‘more than 1,000 persons, the largest crowd to see a baseball game here in years, got their first view of night baseball,’ according to a report given to the South Bend Tribune.
The good folks of South Bend came out to not only experience, for the vast majority of them anyway, their first taste of night baseball, but an incredibly talented Kansas City Monarchs team. Even though the ‘evening was far from ideal for baseball, top coats and lap robes…employed by the fans to shake off the cool evening air.’ The northern Indiana native in me understands those spring evenings well.
Chilliness notwithstanding, 4,000 spectators turned out to Lippincott Park to watch the 8:15 pm game.
The Monarchs, managed by third baseman Dink Mothell, handed the ball to pitcher right-hander Chet Brewer. Brewer, whose career wouldn’t end until 1952, spun up a gem; striking out fourteen hitters and scattering six hits in a decisive 9-2 Monarchs victory. ‘A fast-overhand delivery, sending down the alley a rich mixture of curves, kept the Bartzmen fanning the cool night air,’ the Tribune reported in reference to Brewer’s pitching and Athletics manager Walter Bartz.
Brewer was a classic finesse pitcher…perhaps even the master of the junk ball artistry. He enjoyed a long, illustrious career, finding his way to four league championship teams.
The top third of the Monarchs order gave the Athletics hurlers fits all game. To be fair, it was a helluva talented trio in future Hall of Famers Cool Papa Bell (center field, leadoff) and Willie Wells (shortstop, hitting third); a presumptive future Hall of Famer in second baseman Newt Allen batted second.
The threesome went a combined 6-for-15 and scored five runs in the game. After taking a quick 3-0 lead in the first, the South Bend faithful were perhaps reminded why Wells’ nickname was ‘El Diablo'.
After he roped a double in the third inning, Wells quickly stole third. Dancing down the line, he bolted for home as Athletics southpaw hurler Lefty Kertis was in his windup. According to Bob Overaker of the Tribune, Wells sent the fans into a ‘frenzy’ by sliding into home so far ahead of the ball that “’Pepper’ Martin, Athletics catcher, never had a chance to tag him.”
Wells struck again in the ninth inning after lacing a single, stealing second, then scoring the game’s final run on Indianapolis native George Giles’ base hit. Though he was the only Monarch held hitless on the day, teenaged Quincy Trouppe (then ‘Troupe’) started in left field. Twenty years later, Trouppe would become one of the oldest rookies in baseball history when he took the field for the Cleveland Indians at age 39.
Night baseball in South Bend, Indiana was off to a rousing start.
June 16, 1936: Cincinnati Tigers v. Studebaker Athletics
Less than four years after the Monarchs toted their lighting accommodations into town, Lippincott Park was outfitted with its own 180,000-watt lighting system – naturally sponsored by the Studebaker Corporation.
To christen the new stadium, the Studebaker Athletics turned to yet another Negro League team for a contest, this time booking the Carl Glass-led Cincinnati Tigers for the game to follow the formal dedication of the new exterior illumination. The game would be held at 8:30 pm on June 16, 1936.
The Tigers were founded in the early 1930s by DeHart Hubbard, a local Cincinnatian and an Olympic gold medalist at the 1924 games held in Paris.
For the Studebakers, some familiar names reemerged from the 1932 game against the Monarchs, including standout left fielder Al Nagy (who managed two of his team’s six hits against Chet Brewer), and pitcher Joseph Desits (who threw the final three innings against the Monarchs). Walter Bartz was still installed as manager.
Unlike the Athletics/Monarchs meeting, the 2,200 fans who came out for the historic game were treated to more baseball than originally bargained for, receiving five extra frames in an ultimate 7-6 Tigers victory in 14 innings.
Glass handed the ball to ace starting pitcher and Cincinnati native Porter ‘Ankleball’ Moss. His unusual nickname proved astute once he began his hurling duties – his submarine delivery had baffled hitters in the Queen City for a good chunk of the decade. Bartz and the Athletics handed the ball to Bennie Plotrowski.
The lineup for the Tigers that included shortstop Marlin ‘Pee Wee’ Carter, catcher Josh Johnson, and first baseman Olan 'Jelly' Taylor.
The Tigers exploded for five runs in the second inning, spurred by a three-run home run over the center field fence by pitcher Moss. Talk about helping your own cause. Anyway, after pushing another run home during the top of the fourth inning, the Tigers held a comfortable 6-0 advantage. Though Moss would punch out 14 hitters over the contest, the Athletics roared to life in the late innings, scoring three runs in the bottom of the seventh and two more in the bottom of the eighth to tie the game at 6-6.
It wasn’t until the top of the 14th inning that the Tigers were able to strike decisively to win the tilt. With the clock nearing one o’clock in the morning, Jelly Taylor ripped a single that scored left fielder Harvey Peterson with the go-ahead run. Moss closed the game out for a 7-6 victory.
The Tigers were relieved by game’s end – I mean...they had to have been. While the Athletics and the fans returned home to their beds, the Tigers hit the road for Madison, Wisconsin, a 250-mile trip, where they were due to another game against the Madison Blues at 8:15 p.m. that day for more night baseball. It would be several uncomfortable, bumpy hours on the bus in the dead of night before they arrived in Madison.
While the road-weary Tigers lost the first game to Blues on June 17 by a 5-3 tally, they snapped the Blues eight-game winning streak by a 1-0 score the following day on June 18. Ankleball Moss outdueled former minor league hurler Alvin ‘Butch’ Krueger by a 1-0 final. Forty-eight hours after pitching 14 innings, Moss twirled a complete-game four-hitter, striking out ten. Not for nothing, he also tripled and scored the team’s only run.
Lippincott Park continued to host Negro Leagues teams for the next couple decades, before ostensibly falling into disrepair in the 1950s. It began to play host to the South Side Little League in the early 1960s. For those in the area or maybe just visiting, the park is formally called ‘Kaiser Park’ today, and is home to six little league diamonds.
Though Hall of Famer Clark Griffith once said ‘high class baseball cannot be played at night,’ it nonetheless quickly became an institution of the sport. By the end of World War II, every major league ballclub had installed lights but the Red Sox, Tigers, and Cubs. Though the Red Sox and Tigers would install lights just a couple years postwar, the Cubs famously would not play a night game at Wrigley Field until 1988.
When considering the history of night baseball, one would be remiss not to pay homage to the Negro Leagues, minor leagues, and even small municipal teams and parks, who laid the foundation for the practice well before it reached the game’s highest level.
Afterwards: A Tragic Ending for Porter Moss
Porter ‘Ankleball’ Moss was selected to the All-Star team in 1937, 1942, and 1943. His life ended tragically on July 16, 1944, when, after the team bus broke down, his Memphis Red Sox were forced to hop a train to make their next game. After a drunken passenger began heckling some young women on the train, Moss told the man to sit down and leave the women alone. After the passenger became more belligerent, the man began a verbal spat with the rest of the Red Sox, ultimately drawing a pistol and firing into the Red Sox car as he jumped off the train. The bullet struck Moss in the stomach.
With no doctor around, the Red Sox had no recourse but to tend to Moss the best they could and see if a doctor was available at the next station.
As it were, there was a doctor available at the next stop. he refused to treat Moss since he was a Black man.
While he eventually made it to a hospital, it was far too late. Moss died twelve hours after being shot. He was 34 years old. The man who killed Moss received a 10-year prison sentence.
In reminiscing about his former teammate, longtime Memphis Red Sock Verdell Mathis said that ‘He was the best of it all. I’ve never met anybody like him. I don’t expect I ever will.’