Jan. 20, 1964 - The National League’s “night shift” will be working at a record pace during the 1964 baseball season. The 1964 schedule, published today, shows that the 10 clubs in the league have scheduled 438 games under the lights as compared with the previous record of 421 set last year. Last year, 423 night games were played because of make-up of postponed games. The 1963 night contests drew 6,324,616 of the league’s total attendance of 11,382,227. The operation of the Houston Colts at home will be almost entirely under the lights. The schedule calls for 77 night games at Houston and only four afternoon games. Twelve of the night games will be on Sundays under the plan by which the Colts can play on Sunday until their new dome stadium is completed, probably in 1965.
The league will have its latest opening since 1958, when the opening date was April 15. This year the official opening will be April 14, but following the custom that the Cincinnati Reds always open the season at home, the Reds will play their first game on April 13 against Houston. All of the other clubs will swing into action the next day, with New York at Philadelphia, Chicago at Pittsburgh, St. Louis at Los Angeles, Milwaukee at San Francisco.
