May 28, 1946: Yankees have trouble hitting Dutch Leonard’s knuckleball in first night game at Yankee Stadium

Jackie Robinson once said that Emil John “Dutch” Leonard’s knuckleball “comes up, makes a face at you, then runs away.”1 On May 28, 1946, the New York Yankees had trouble with the Washington Senators knuckler’s elusive pitch in a 2-1 loss. Leonard may have had a little help that night, though, because the Bronx Bombers were playing their first night game in Yankee Stadium. With this game, the Yankees became one of the last American or National League teams to play at home under the lights.2

Yankee Stadium had hosted night events in the past with perhaps the most famous being the heavyweight title fight between Joe Louis and Max Schmeling in 1938. For that bout, all of the lights inside Yankee Stadium were turned off except for floodlights next to the boxing ring, so the only light in the Stadium other than the fight were lit cigarettes.3

When it came to other sports, Yankees President Ed Barrow did not believe in night baseball and refused to permit it at the Stadium, saying, “Baseball was made to be played in God’s sunshine and I won’t have any of it at Yankees Stadium.”4 In addition, War Production Board restrictions on resource allocation prohibited stadiums from starting projects with materials that could be used in the World War II effort.5 Illuminating Yankee Stadium for baseball required a change in ownership and an end to World War II.

In January 1945 a three-person syndicate of Dan Topping, Del Webb, and Larry MacPhail bought the Yankees from the heirs of the late owner Jacob Ruppert.6 MacPhail was the pioneer of night baseball. As general manager of the Cincinnati Reds, he pushed for lights to be installed at Cincinnati’s Crosley Field, leading to the first night game in major-league history on May 24, 1935, when the Reds beat the Philadelphia Phillies, 2-1. MacPhail then went to the Brooklyn Dodgers, who erected lights at Ebbets Field in 1938. By 1945 the Yankees were one of only five teams whose ballparks did not have lights.7

With the $3 million purchase ($49.5 million in 2022 dollars), MacPhail made it clear that the new ownership was not going to shake up the franchise. It would keep Barrow (in a symbolic position) and manager Joe McCarthy, who had won seven World Series with the Yankees. “You don’t spend half a lifetime looking for a guy like McCarthy and then let him go,” MacPhail said when the purchase was announced.8

One change MacPhail did say would be coming was night baseball to Yankee Stadium once the franchise was in a position to install lights.9 On September 2, 1945, Japan formally surrendered, ending World War II. The next month, MacPhail assistant Tom Gallery indicated that lights would be installed at Yankee Stadium for the next season, saying, “We’ve been up there all week with the General Electric people, the man who built the stadium, and representatives of the light company. It should all be on paper in written form within the next week to 10 days.”10

On October 30 MacPhail announced that construction of the $250,000 ($4.1 million in 2022) lighting system that would be the best in baseball would begin on January 1.11 The 2.1-million-watt illumination system included 1,409 floodlights of 1,500 watts each across six towers connected by 15 miles of wiring and 30,000 feet of steel electrical conduits. The lights featured enhancements that GE had developed during World War II. 

The 348-ton steel towers were placed so that the illumination would be evenly spread around the field. With the previous lighting systems for other stadiums, the infield was often brighter than the outfield. Overall, the lights were the equivalent of five full moons and if used for other purposes, could light US Highway 1 from Washington, DC, to New York City.

The lights were not the only upgrade to Yankee Stadium. An additional $350,000 was being spent to build 15,000 box seats, two concession rooms, a new clubhouse for the Yankees, and additional spaces for stadium staff.12

In February, MacPhail announced that 14 night games would be played at Yankee Stadium during the 1946 season. The first was scheduled for May 27 against the Washington Senators.13

By the time the game rolled around, it would have been understandable if the Yankees were distracted going into it. First, McCarthy had gone to his farm in East Amherst, New York, after illness brought on by bouts with alcoholism, and had resigned on May 24. Catcher Bill Dickey was named player-manager.14 The team was six games behind the Boston Red Sox for first place in the American League and was in danger of being overtaken the visiting Senators, who had won 12 of their last 14 games. To make matters worse, a steady, all-day rain on May 27 had forced the game to be postponed until the next night.15

On May 28, a crowd of 49,917 came to Yankee Stadium, fewer than expected because of cold weather and the threat of rain.16 Pitcher Clarence “Cuddles” Marshall and the Yankees held the Senators scoreless in the top of the first inning, and then Leonard took the mound.

Knuckleball pitchers had been giving major-league batters fits since Toad Ramsey deployed the pitch with the Louisville Colonels in the 1890s,17 and Leonard was no different. He was 4-0 and had beaten New York earlier in the season. However, McCarthy had indicated a lack of respect for him by once saying he had no interest in signing him because “[h]e keeps us on top. We can beat him every time and if we don’t whip him, he’ll beat himself on a passed ball with those knucklers.”

In the first inning, it looked as though McCarthy’s statement might be prophetic. Third baseman Snuffy Stirnweiss doubled and took third on a groundout. Joe DiMaggio brought him home with a single for a 1-0 Yankees lead. Nick Etten singled but Leonard retired the side, and allowed only three more hits, two walks, and no runs in the final eight innings. The Senators tied the game in the second inning when Marshall walked first baseman Mickey Vernon, who had a 22-game hit streak coming in, and Jeff Heath sent him home with a double to center field. In the fourth inning, Leonard hit a single to center field and shortstop Cecil Travis scored to give New York a 2-1 lead, one which held for the rest of the game.

Leonard pitched a complete game, which he capped in the ninth by getting pinch-hitter Bill Drescher to ground into a force out at second base for the win. For the Senators, the only sour note was that Vernon’s 22-game hitting streak came to an end.

The win pulled the Senators to within a half-game of the Yankees,13 but neither team was able to keep up with Boston. The Red Sox finished 104-50 while New York was 17 games behind them, and the Senators were 28 games out of first place.

The big winner in New York in 1946 was night baseball. The Yankees set a major-league record for attendance with 2,265,512. The largest crowd for a night game was 71,551 for a game on August 28 that Cleveland Indians pitcher Bob Feller started after throwing a no-hitter against the Yankees earlier that season, the second of his career.18 To put this into perspective, the attendance for Feller’s no-hitter on the afternoon of April 30, 1946, was 38,112.

The first World Series night game was not played until 1971, so Yankee Stadium did not host one until New York returned to the fall classic in 1976. However, the financial success playing under the lights during the 1946 season brought night baseball to the Bronx for good.   

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author consulted Baseball-Almanac.com, Baseball-Reference.com, and USInflationCalculator.com.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/NYA/NYA194605280.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1946/B05280NYA1946.htm

Notes

1 Stan Baumgartner, “Jackie Asks for Fans’ Advice on ’48 Pay, Gets ‘$20,000’ Reply,” The Sporting News, November 12, 1947: 11.

2 Jack Hand (Associated Press), “Yankee Stadium to Have Lights, Night Baseball,” Salt Lake Telegram, October 20, 1945: 6.

3 Francis E. Stan, “Win, Lose or Draw,” Washington Evening Star, June 22, 1938: A14.

4 United Press, “MacPhail Hopes to Get Giant Okay to Use Polo Grounds,” Passaic (New Jersey) Herald News, May 3, 1945: 25.

5 “MacPhail Hopes to Get Giant Okay to Use Polo Grounds.”

6 Jack Smith and Dick Young, “MacPhail, Topping, Webb Buy Yanks,” New York Daily News,  January 27, 1945: C16.

7 Oscar Eddleton, “Under the Lights,” SABR Baseball Research Journal, 1980. Retrieved October 29, 2022. https://sabr.org/journal/article/under-the-lights/.

8 Leo M. Peterson (United Press), “See Sale of Yankees as Hopeful Sign for Baseball This Year,” Olean (New York) Times Herald, January 27, 1945: 6.

9 Peterson.

10 Associated Press, “Yankee Stadium to Have Lights in ’46,” Marysville (California) Appeal-Democrat, October 20, 1945: 8.

11 “Joe McCarthy Set to Guide Yankees,” Edmonton Journal, November 1, 1945: 6.

12 “Yankees to Have Best Illuminated Park,” Cincinnati Enquirer, January 16, 1946: 21.

13 International News Service, “Yankee Stadium Lights Will Flash on May 27,” Fort Worth Star-Telegram, February 14, 1946: 11.

14 “McCarthy Resigns Yankee Job; Dickey Named Manager,” Buffalo Evening News, May 25, 1946: 5; Mike Vaccaro, Emperors and Idiots: The Hundred-Year Rivalry Between the Yankees and Red Sox, from the Very Beginning to the End of the Curse (New York: Doubleday, 2005), 250-251. 

15 Associated Press, “Yanks First Night Tilt Postponed by Rain,” Montgomery (Alabama) Advertiser. May 28, 1946: 3.

16 Burton Hawkins, “Leonard’s Convincing Work Booms,” Washington Evening Star. May 29, 1946: 14.

17 Ben McGrath, “Project Knuckleball,” New Yorker, May 17, 2004, newyorker.com. Retrieved October 29, 2022. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2004/05/17/project-knuckleball.

18 Associated Press, “Year’s Yankee Stadium Sports Draw 3,302,535,” Chicago Tribune. November 30, 1946: 19. Yankee Stadium capacity at the time is listed as 70,000. See Philip J.  Lowry, ed., Green Cathedrals, fifth edition, (Phoenix: Society for American Baseball Research, 2019), 214.