Disco Demolition In 1979 on July 12th a historic night in sports and sports marketing happened. Mike Veeck was given a shot as a promotions director by his dad Bill Veeck the owner of the Chicago White Sox baseball team. He partnered with a local disc jockey name Steve Dahl. Dahl and his broadcast partner Gary Meier were working for WLUP, The Loop, a rock radio station in Chicago and had created a group known as “The Insane Coho Lips” as a sort of fake organization to go against disco.
The plan was concocted for fans to bring unwanted disco records to Comiskey Park for the Detroit doubleheader versus the White Sox for a 98 cents admission fee (the call numbers of the radio station). It was planned for Dahl to blow up the records after the 1st game of a double header. There were fans at Comiskey Park, plenty of them, in fact, with the announced crowd of 47,795 standing as the largest one of the season. It was to gain popularity for Dahl, and he took all the records put them into a box and blew them up. He left thinking he was a hero to end disco little did he know what would happen next. The Sox did not expect such a large crowd, which was officially announced as 47,795.
Mike Veeck said that it was really closer to 60,000 and that he had hired security for 35,000. Many people were trying to crash the event climbing up ladders and part of the walls they climbed to get it in. Veeck ordered yellow-jacketed guards to go outside to stop fans from crashing the gates. When Sox pitcher Ken Kravec started warming up for Game 2 he actually moved his pregame routine to the main pitching mound. A little bit after that hell broke loose and all the fans stormed the field. The batting cage was dragged out and trashed; fans burned banners and climbed foul poles and the field fans tried to climb inside the club boxes.
They also started tearing up the pitching rubber and the dirt. They took the bases. They started digging out home plate. They tried to get them to calm down and to go back to their seats but nothing worked. The cops came but they were just chasing them around the park. Bill Veeck tried over the scoreboard and over the PA system to ask them nicely to go back to their seats. The Hall of Fame broadcaster for the Sox, Harry Caray, even failed to get them back to their seats.
They were burning the field and banners and all were reportedly high from drugs. Some of them got into the dugouts and others tried getting into the clubhouse. Mike Veeck’s idea was a disaster because the White Sox had to forfeit the game. The field was ruined and things were strewn all over the places like debris. Mike said he knew he was in trouble when he saw people climbing that foul pole.
His dad Bill had to offer a refund to the fans or give them IOU’s because the 2nd game was forfeited because the Tigers complained to the umpires that it wasn’t safe to play on the field the way it was. Players were also afraid for their lives and their psyches would have been rattled for the game. Bill Veeck only came to the game that night to make sure the promotion wouldn’t go awry, but of course it did.