Lights Ban Upheld : Wrigley Field Kept in Dark

A judge today upheld the constitutionality of state and city anti-noise laws prohibiting the installation of lights at the Chicago Cubs home ballpark, Wrigley Field, the only unlit stadium in the major leagues.

“The (state) statute and (city) ordinance are constitutional,” Cook County Circuit Judge Richard L. Curry told a standing-room-only crowd in his courtroom.

The Tribune Co., which owns the Cubs, filed the suit so the National League’s 1984 East Division champions could play night baseball at the park.

The owners filed the suit Dec. 19, claiming that the firm had been ordered to install lights by baseball Commissioner Peter Ueberroth or face “drastic consequences.”

A letter written by Ueberroth warned that the actions might “include the requirement that Cubs post-season games be played elsewhere than Wrigley Field, perhaps not even in Chicago,” the suit said.

Lawyers for the Tribune Co. had no immediate comment on plans to appeal.