CHICAGO (CBS) — On this day 36 years ago, Wrigley Field was lifted out of the darkness when the Cubs played their first-ever night game at Friendly Confines.

The game on Monday, August 8, 1988, was not the first official night game, as it was canceled due to rain. Nevertheless, it was a historic day and an exciting one for many in Chicago and elsewhere.

Lights at Wrigley Field: Long awaited and controversial

As documented on the website Chicagology, plans for the lights at Wrigley Field date back to the early 1940s. In the fall of 1941, Cubs owner PK Wrigley ordered the lights to be installed by February or March of the following year—and the team had assembled all of the steel, wiring, reflectors and electrical equipment for the project by the end of November.

The original plan, Chicagology recalls, was not for night games in the modern sense, but for twilight games that would begin at 6 p.m.—with a city council ordinance prohibiting the start of new innings after 8 p.m.

But after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, the 165 tons of steel that were originally intended for the light masts at Wrigley Field were instead donated to the U.S. effort in World War II.

In the postwar 1940s, there were further efforts by the Cubs to install lighting, as Chicagology notes. But it never happened—the Cubs lost the 1945 World Series to the Detroit Tigers, saw their famous 1969 season, led by icons Ernie Banks and Ron Santo, collapse, and endured numerous other seasons of poor or unremarkable baseball. The Bears also played at Wrigley Field for nearly half a century—also only during the day.

As noted Chicago CBS reporter John Drummond pointed out, there have been a few previous occasions when lights have been temporarily set up and turned on at Wrigley Field. These were not for baseball or football games, but for sports that had not been seen at Wrigley Field for a long time, including in 1988.

In 1934, the lights came on at Wrigley Field when Jim Londos took on Ed “Strangler” Lewis for the world heavyweight championship. In 1946, the lights came on again when future middleweight champion Jake LaMotta faced Chicago’s Bob Satterfield in a boxing match at Friendly Confines.

But over the decades, baseball continued to be played exclusively during the day at Wrigley Field. As early as 1948, Wrigley Field was the only Major League Baseball stadium without floodlights.

When the Tribune Company purchased the Cubs in 1981, serious discussions began about playing night games at Wrigley Field.

But some neighbors in surrounding Lakeview fought vigorously against such plans. They formed the advocacy group Citizens United for Baseball in the Sunshine (CUBS), which expressed their concerns about the impact of nighttime baseball on the surrounding residential area.

There were concerns about increasing noise and traffic, as well as nuisances such as public drunkenness and urination. An unnamed founder of the group was quoted by Chicago Tribune baseball writer Paul Sullivan about the kind of people they thought night games at Wrigley Field would attract: “This whole neighborhood would fall apart with night baseball. We’d pack up and move. I don’t want my daughter exposed to someone in the alley peeing on my car.”

These concerns about public urination—which was a problem in Wrigleyville’s residential areas even when baseball was only played during the day—were a particularly common theme.

“It’s different at night than it is during the day. People don’t mind if a dog urinates on their lawn,” argued attorney Alan Borlack in court. “But if a human urinates on the lawn of your house, that’s a little disturbing.”

Citizens United for Baseball in the Sunshine succeeded in stopping the lighting at Wrigley Field – at least for a while. According to published reports, in 1982 the Illinois General Assembly passed a law banning night games in cities with more than a million residents – of which Chicago is the only one in Illinois – in stadiums that did not already host night games. A similar law was passed the following year by the Chicago City Council – but worded to apply only to Wrigley Field, not to Old Comiskey Park, where the White Sox had played night games for many years.

After many years of total failure, the Cubs won the National League’s Eastern Division Series in 1984. As noted in an MLB article by Anthony Castrovince, then-MLB Commissioner Bowie Kuhn had devised a plan to limit World Series games at Wrigley Field to daytime hours if the Cubs could make it. But they lost the National League Championship Series to the San Diego Padres.

But in 1985, Cubs season ticket holders received a letter stating that the Cubs would not be able to play World Series home games if they competed that year due to a lack of lighting. The following year, MLB ordered the Cubs to play their hypothetical postseason home games at Busch Stadium in St. Louis because Wrigley Stadium had no lighting—a move that infuriated Chicago Mayor Harold Washington.

“Since when are they in a position to tell us that our team – and it’s ours – has to drive 300 miles away to play a baseball game?” Washington said at the time. “They have a lot of nerve.”

Of course, the Cubs never came close to the World Series in 1985, 1986, or any year before 2016. But it raised the more serious threat that the Cubs might move to the suburbs—an outcome that some feared could mean the demolition of Wrigley Field.

Finally, in February 1988 – a few months after the death of Mayor Washington and the appointment of Mayor Eugene Sawyer as his successor – the City Council decided to allow eight night games at Wrigley Field that season and 18 in subsequent seasons.

The big night comes, only to be thrown into the water by the rain

After the lights were installed and the Cubs and Philadelphia Phillies were ready to take the field for the first game at Wrigley, Citizens United for Baseball in the Sunshine insisted their fight was not over. Opponents raised $100,000 to turn the new lights back off.

“This is not a baseball problem. This is a neighborhood problem,” said Charlotte Newfeld, president of Citizens United for Baseball in the Sunshine, on the day of the first night game. “The tradition of daytime baseball is not what we are concerned about — and that is neighborhood empowerment.”

Phil Ponce reports on the fight against the lighting at Wrigley Field that wasn’t over when the lights were turned on

Meanwhile, there were new concerns about parking in the neighborhood – a brand new permit-only parking zone was implemented for much of the Lakeview community. Anyone without a permit on residential streets from Irving Park Road in the north to Belmont Avenue in the south and from Lake Shore Drive in the east to Ashland Avenue in the west risked being towed.

“Don’t bother coming by car,” warned John Halpin, then head of Chicago’s Department of Streets and Sanitation. “Take public transportation, because we’re starting to tow at 4 p.m. this afternoon, and it’s going to cost at least $105 to get your car picked up.”

But when it started that evening after a scorching hot day, everyone was excited. As Lester Holt put it in his report on Channel 2 News that evening: “Thomas Edison could never have dreamed that his invention would still attract so much attention after all these years.”

Mayor Sawyer and Illinois Governor Jim Thompson were both in the crowd. Longtime Cubs hitter Banks and sportscaster Jack Brickhouse were also in attendance. People gathered on surrounding rooftops — back before rooftop baseball clubs dominated the buildings on Sheffield and Waveland avenues — and even on the tops of pickup trucks to watch the game.

Giselle Fernandez reports on the fans who didn’t get Cubs tickets but still couldn’t stay away

According to the blog Bleed Cubbie Blue, Rick Sutcliffe of the Cubs threw his first pitch at 6:59 p.m., and Phil Bradley of the Phillies hit a home run on Waveland Avenue after Sutcliffe’s fourth pitch. But Ryne Sandberg hit a two-run home run in the first inning to make the score 2-1.

But around the third inning, threatening clouds began to gather. In the fourth inning, when the Cubs were leading 3-1, it started to thunder and rain. The game was called off because of rain and was not officially counted.

The following evening – Tuesday, August 9 – the Cubs’ first official night game took place at Wrigley Field. The Cubs beat the New York Mets 6-4.

Today, the Cubs host more than 40 evening events at Wrigley Field, including concerts.

Thumbs up at Wrigley Field, hours before the Cubs’ first night game there, from a Channel 2 News credits video