June 9 in baseball history – Sunday Night Lights

JUNE 9, 1963 | HOUSTON, TEXAS – The first major league baseball game played on a Sunday night was played on this date in 1963. Sunday night games were banned at the time, but the Houston Colt .45s (today’s Astros) asked for, and were granted, an exception because of the oppressive Texas heat. Sunday night lights soon became the norm.

"We would have been lucky to have drawn 4,000 fans if the game had been played in the afternoon."

This was before the Astrodome was built, in fact the sweltering heat was a primary reason for building it. At the time the Colt .45s were playing in open air Colt Stadium, which had virtually no shade for the fans.

The Houston ball club was ecstatic about the results of that first Sunday night game. The Colt .45s beat the San Francisco Giants 3-0 in 1-hour and 58 minutes. The paid attendance was 17,437. Executive director George Kirksey said, “We would have been lucky to have drawn 4,000 fans if the game had been played in the afternoon. You can’t expect people to pay their money to come to the ball park and suffer in the heat.”

The Associated Press in Houston reported the night game temperature was 79°. It would have been 95º had the game been played during the day.

Of the cities with major league teams at the time, the heat was an issue in Houston more than any other:

Average highs (from www.myforecast.com)
                                         June   July    August
Houston                       90          92         92
St. Louis                        85          89         87
Kansas City                84          90         87
Washington, D.C.    84          88         86
Baltimore                    83          87         85
Philadelphia               82          86         85
Cincinnati                    82          86         85
Detroit                          79          83         81
Chicago                        79          84         82
New York                    79          84         83
Cleveland                    79          83         81
Minneapolis               79          84         84
Milwaukee                  76          80         79
Boston                          76          82         82
Los Angeles                72          75         76
San Francisco            71          71         72

The Houston club had to deal with the heat until 1966 when the Harris County Domed Stadium opened. Soon after the stadium name was changed to the Astrodome and the team name changed to Astros. Sunday night lights became common for every team.

CONTRIBUTING SOURCES:
June 9, 1963 box score/stats
Weather stats
Houston Astros
Associated Press, Houston, via The Hartford Courant, June 11, 1963