27 years ago, the lights came on for the first night game in the history of Wrigley Field

It might sport all kinds of bells and whistles these days -- including some spankin'-new bleachers, a monster video board and the very latest in dinger-mashing technology -- but old-time tradition has always been central to Wrigley Field's charm. The brick, the ivy, the manual scoreboards: It's like taking a trip back to the ballgames of yore, when the fedoras were unironic (and didn't feature dogs) and this thing was an actual mascot.

And, for a long time, that sense of history carried over to the ballgames themselves. Despite the growth of television and postseason play, the Cubs refused to bring night games to the Friendly Confines, wanting to preserve the serenity of baseball under the sunshine -- that "the gentle ballpark at Clark and Addison would continue to blend into the surrounding brownstones," as one Chicago columnist put it. 

But on Aug. 8, 1988, that all changed. Before a game against the Phillies, the team brought out 91-year-old superfan Harry Grossman -- who first attended a Cubs game during the 1906 World Series (!) at the age of 8, and had hardly missed a game in 25 years -- and with the push of a button, Grossman made a bit of Chicago history:

But Mother Nature is never without a sense of humor, and struck one last blow for the sun -- rain washed out the contest that night after just 3 1/2 innings, and so the first official night game came one night later against the Mets.

Still, it was a landmark moment, if only because Grossman turned out to be a world-class showman. Before he hit the button, he took to the mic and asked the crowd to help him out with a countdown: "1, 2, 3, let there be light!"