There have been few promotions in the world of sports which could rival the unplanned and unmitigated disaster of one July night in 1979. The event, dubbed Disco Demolition Night, will forever be hailed as one of the most riotous evenings in the history of American athletics.

The calamity was created as a result of a rivalry between Chicago radio stations. Popular disc jockey Steve Dahl had been fired from WDAI when they switched their mandate from rock and roll to dance-hall disco. He was quickly hired by WLUP, where he went about creating his own personal smear campaign against the genre which had cost him his position. Dahl and his broadcast partner, Gary Meier, along Mike Veeck, the son of White Sox owner Bill Veeck, hatched a plan which would allow fans to wage musical war.

Attendees, they proposed, would turn in their unwanted disco records and, in exchange for a $.98 fee, get to see the collective refuse blown up smack dab in the middle of Comiskey Park.

The team was hoping to sell perhaps 12,000 tickets to the Thursday night affair. But when 90,000 people showed up at the gates of the 52,000-seat stadium, fans began scaling the walls in an attempt to get inside.

One can imagine the wonderful smells of baseball – grass, dirt, leather and pine tar – mingling with the fetid scents of stale beer and marijuana smoke. It must have been an amazing sight – a giant crate in the middle of the outfield, filled with records and rigged to explode.

The demolition itself was slated to take place between the first and second games of a twi-night doubleheader. But midway through the first game, it was apparent that this would be no ordinary evening at the ballpark. Several fans had discovered that, much like the Frisbee they loved to toss at home, vinyl records could fly a great distance when thrown correctly.

Somehow, they managed to get through the first game. Then, out to center field drove Dahl, wearing combat fatigues and an army cap. When the bomb finally went off courtesy of the rogue radio DJ’s, the crowd quickly reached full throat.

Without adequate security, facility personnel were forced to rely on the masses to police themselves and behave in an orderly fashion.

It was a major miscalculation on the part of the promoters. Fans surged onto the field, stealing the bases and tearing up chunks of the outfield grass. They set fires and incited scuffles with one another, prompting then-White Sox broadcaster Harry Caray to appeal to fans over the loudspeaker.

Finally, when it was clear to all that the night was lost, the Chicago Police moved in and evicted the rioters.

Mike Veeck, the son of the team’s owner and the major brains behind the promotion, was blacklisted from the game for much of his life following the Disco Demolition debacle. As he would later say, “The second that first guy shimmied down the outfield wall, I knew my life was over!”

- Taylor Maxwell

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Tags | Baseball, Bill Veeck, Chicago White Sox, Gary Meier, Mike Veeck, MLB, Steve Dahl