Sports History On This Day: May 24

May 24, 2022 by Sports History Network

May 24, 1935 – A landmark event occurred at the ballpark in Cincinnati, Ohio. President Franklin D. Roosevelt flicked the switch ceremoniously from the Nation’s Capitol and the lights went on for a Major League baseball game for the first time in history!

Despite the neigh-sayers, National League President Ford Frick embraced the technology in a speech while in attendance saying, “One game of course, but the players were not handicapped in any way that I could see and I believe we will have more of it in 1936.”

Very prophetic words indeed as look at the amount of night baseball games played in this era of the sport. The Reds held on to win it 2-1 over the visiting Philadelphia Phillies in front of a crowd of over 20,000. According to a post on OfftheBenchBaseball.com, there are twice as many MLB night games played nowadays as there are daytime versions.

To find more great daily sports history make sure to check out the Sports Jersey Dispatch and Pigskin Dispatch.

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Embed tweet here - https://x.com/bovadaofficial/status/1812591866447020454?s=46&t=Jxc74bqcdlQ9Bjed4TR1Jw There are plenty of reasons why the English are considered formidable. Back-to-back European Championship finals under Gareth Southgate certainly showed that the country that handed the beautiful game to the rest of the world is back to its best. Now, under serial winner Thomas Tuchel and led by the likes of captain Harry Kane and Real Madrid talisman Jude Bellingham, there are bags of quality all over the pitch. Still, if England is to reign supreme next summer, it will have to banish a ghost that has been weighing them down for 60 years. 1966. That was the first and last time the Three Lions lifted the FIFA World Cup, or any silverware for that matter, and in the years since, it has been nothing but pain, especially on the global stage. Penalty shootouts, ghost goals, and controversial red cards. Seemingly, anything that can go wrong for England does go wrong. 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