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Seeking a way to attract more customers and more revenue, the Cardinals saw the light and broke with tradition.

On April 18, 1950, the Cardinals became the first major-league team to play a season opener at night. Club owner Fred Saigh said he opted for an Opening Night game because it gave more working people a chance to attend.

The innovation was a success, though not as much as anticipated.

Expecting a crowd of 30,000 for their Tuesday night game against the Pirates at Sportsman’s Park in St. Louis, the Cardinals drew 20,871, the largest attendance for a Cardinals home opener. The previous high was 20,754 for the 1928 opener on a Wednesday afternoon versus the Pirates.

Time for a change

Though St. Louis was home to two teams, the National League Cardinals and the American League Browns, Opening Day there then wasn’t the grand event it was in places such as Cincinnati and Washington, D.C.

“This is a good baseball town, but the cash customers here don’t become too excited about Opening Days,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch sports editor J. Roy Stockton wrote in April 1950.

On the eve of the Cardinals’ 1950 opener, St. Louis Globe-Democrat sports editor Bob Burnes noted, “The last time anything special was done for Opening Day in St. Louis was 1936” when the Cubs and Cardinals players “appeared downtown in their baseball uniforms. Then they paraded through the downtown and midtown areas in open carriages.”

Later that afternoon, the Cubs thumped the Cardinals, 12-7, before 14,000 customers, putting an end to any more Opening Day parades.

After winning the 1946 World Series championship, their third in five years, the Cardinals drew 11,963 spectators to their 1947 home opener on a Friday afternoon against the Cubs.

The attendances for subsequent Cardinals home openers were 14,071 on a Tuesday afternoon against the Reds in 1948 and 10,121 on a Friday afternoon versus the Cubs in 1949.

In January 1950, Saigh, in his first year in charge of the Cardinals after the 1949 death of co-owner Robert Hannegan, made the decision to have his team become the first in the majors to open a season at night.

Of the Cardinals’ 77 home games in 1950, 54 were scheduled for night, their most since lights were installed at Sportsman’s Park in 1940. Saigh told The Sporting News a club survey showed fans, especially the growing number of women customers, wanted night baseball.

“The national industrious character of the population makes day games conflict with the bread-winning of too many,” Saigh told The Sporting News.

“The fans want night ball and they’re the only ones we have to consider.”

Saigh’s decision to have his team open at night was controversial.

“This is a history-making episode in the game and has caused a split in the ranks of the free thinkers,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette sports editor Al Abrams wrote. “Some baseball men say Fred Saigh has gone too far in arranging for an opener to be played at night, especially at this stage of unsettled weather conditions. Others see nothing wrong with the innovation and credit Saigh with being foresighted.”

Abrams concluded, “Night baseball has helped attendance everywhere because it gives the working man and woman a chance to see more games. Time will come, and it isn’t far off, when day games will be played only on Sundays and holidays.”

Low-key event

In the Globe-Democrat, Bob Burnes wrote Saigh “is not a man to bow to the ancient dictates of a game which too often keeps itself wrapped in the same mothballs it used in 1910 or thereabouts.”

Saigh “expects at least 30,000 spectators to view this precedent-setter,” the Globe-Democrat reported.

First pitch for the 1950 Cardinals season opener was 8:30 p.m. Game time temperature was 56 degrees, but felt colder. “A change in the wind, which blew toward right field the rest of the night, discouraged late gate sale,” according to the Post-Dispatch.

The playing surface was in bad shape because the field had been used for soccer matches. “It was the first night opening game in big-league history and the first major-league game, probably, played on a grass infield with a skinned outfield,” the Post-Dispatch reported.

For the first time at Sportsman’s Park, pennants with the colors and names of all eight National League clubs hung from the outfield flagpole. The Cardinals’ pennant was on top and the Dodgers’ was on the bottom, even though they were defending league champions, the Globe-Democrat noted.

Opening ceremonies were brief. A Marine Corps Reserve band, accompanied by a color guard, played the National Anthem. Cardinals players were introduced at the plate by broadcaster Harry Caray. St. Louis mayor Joseph M. Darst threw out the ceremonial first ball and it was caught by Pirates infielder Hank Schenz. The park was draped in bunting.

“St. Louis in general has taken tonight’s historic opener in stride,” Bob Burnes observed. “As long as it is baseball, nothing else counts.”

Winning start

The starting pitchers were Bob Chesnes for the Pirates and Gerry Staley for the Cardinals.

In the first inning, Red Schoendienst hit a home run to the roof in right, giving the Cardinals a 1-0 lead. Stan Musial also hit a home run to the roof in right, leading off the third.

The Pirates tied the score at 2-2 in the sixth on a two-run single by Johnny Hopp, a former Cardinal. Joe Garagiola’s RBI-single in the bottom of the inning put the Cardinals ahead again, 3-2.

As a light rain began to fall, the Cardinals added a run in the seventh on consecutive two-out singles by Schoendienst, Musial and Enos Slaughter. Before stroking his single, Schoendienst almost hit a second home run, but his long drive into the upper grandstand in right narrowly hooked foul.

Staley pitched a complete game and limited the Pirates to six hits. He threw 95 pitches, including 66 for strikes.

The triumph “‘thrilled a chilled and damp gathering,” the Post-Dispatch reported. The Globe-Democrat noted the “first nocturnal opening game proved very gratifying to 20,871 chilled spectators.” Boxscore

Four days later, on Saturday afternoon, April 22, 1950, the Browns played their home opener at Sportsman’s Park against the Indians and drew 10,166.

The Cardinals played four consecutive home openers at night before returning to a daytime home opener in 1954 under Anheuser-Busch, which bought the club from Saigh. Since then, the Cardinals have had multiple day and night home openers. Their most recent night home opener, a scheduled 6:15 p.m. start, was 2018 versus the Diamondbacks.