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Steve Dahl’s Disco Demolition – a night that has lived in infamy.
Disco Demolition at Comiskey Park, one of the most incredible promotions in the history of baseball, music and rock radio (that’s saying a lot, eh?), took place thirty years ago tonight. And its reverberations are still being felt!
Scheduled between games of a double header by Chicago AOR legend Steve Dahl, fans were encouraged to bring Disco records to the event for destruction. From the beginning of the night, the rowdy, drunk and drug-addled crowd was pelting the players with records and according to Tiger pitcher Jack Morris and Rusty Staub in the NY Times, empty whiskey bottles flew over the dugout and shards of vinyl 12″s spiked the grass during the first game.
The diabolical Dahl most definitely got the idea from Beatles record burnings held in the south after John Lennon’s Jesus remarks, but could not have guessed the night would turn so violent that the second game would be canceled. Around the same time, the Indians held a ten cent beer night promotion which also went awry. More than a few teams were barely making money at the time.
For a wonderful account of both events, please check out Mike Shropshire’s book “Seasons in Hell” about the first few years of the Texas Rangers franchise.
