WEST RIDGE — Warren Park is officially lit.
Thanks to a $100,000 gift from the Cubs, the Far North Side park now has stadium lighting for one of its baseball fields where over 500 young baseball players living in the area compete each year.
As part of Cubs Charities Diamond Project, the Warren Park Youth Baseball League was awarded the grant earlier this year so it could add lights to Field 3, the league said.
A special event, which included a visit from the Cub's 2017 World Championship Commissioner's trophy, was held last week to ceremoniously flip the lights on.
By adding lights, the league can hold seven extra games per week, to host tournaments and better grow the program overall, Rob Miller, president of the youth league, said when the grant was first announced.
“This grant is a game changer for our league and for Warren Park," Miller said. "Lights will immediately increase our weekly game capacity by almost a third, allowing more neighborhood kids to play ball.”
Though a 1988 Cubs game is largely attributed as the first night game at Wrigley with lights, on July 1, 1943 the All-American Girl's Professional Baseball League actually held the first-ever night game at Wrigley Field thanks to the temporary use of portable lights.
Watch the ceremony below.
The Cubs and Wrigley Field are 95 percent owned by an entity controlled by a trust established for the benefit of the family of Joe Ricketts, owner and CEO of DNAinfo.com. Joe Ricketts has no direct involvement in the management of the iconic team.
