Bill Veeck will probably best be remembered for his numerous, outlandish promotions to fill his ballparks – who isn't familiar with his stunt of using 3' 7” Eddie Gaedel to pinch-hit for his 1952 St. Louis Browns? -- but this one was the brainchild of his son Mike. If the sole purpose of a promotion is to fill the ballpark and the consequences be damned, then this was a pure stroke of PR genius.
Local Chicago radio station WLUP-FM, dedicated to the cause of good old-fashioned rock music, sponsored the promotion to take place the night of July 12, 1979 between games of a twi-night doubleheader between the White Sox and Detroit Tigers at Old Comiskey Park. WLUP disc jockey Steve Dahl, self-proclaimed leader of an anti-disco music faction known as the Insane Coho Lips, would oversee the demolition of thousands of fans' vinyl records – every fan who showed up to the park with a record to be destroyed would be admitted for 98 cents.
The 1979 White Sox were a fairly mediocre squad, and attendance was correspondingly low. Dahl later admitted he thought the promotion would be a dud, that even if it brought in 5,000 more paying customers, the park still would look empty. Consequently, nobody was prepared for the crowd that eventually turned up – estimated to be as many as 60,000 people were in the ballpark, with many thousands more turned away at the gates (and many of those people managed to get in anyway, either via old fire escapes or even being pulled in over the walls).
The evening was to begin with Dahl, escorted by WLUP personality known as “Lorelei,” throwing out the ceremonial first ball to White Sox backup catcher Mike Colbern. As Dahl remembers it, Colbern took an instant liking to Lorelei, hit on her, and disappeared with her into the dugout leaving Dahl with a baseball and nobody to throw it to. What really transpired is a topic for conjecture, but an extant photograph does show Colbern kissing Lorelei. It may not have been much, but for a catcher whose career spanned all of 80 games and 224 at-bats, it was definitely the highlight. In any case, an inauspicious beginning. Apparently nobody was interested in baseball this evening.
Those fans who turned up late were surprised to find out that their records were no longer being taken for the demolition (quite enough had been collected), and throughout the opener those discs found their way onto field frisbee-style, along with beer, golf balls with “disco sucks” written on them, and the occasional fireworks. Across one of the catwalks in the outfield, a banner hung with a pot leaf on it, and (allegedly) a cloud of smoke from the weed was hovering over the outfield bleachers. The bleachers, every seat taken and filled up even in the aisles, were shaking noticeably, to the point that some feared possible collapse. On top of it all, two fans attempted to climb the left field foul pole.
Nobody seemed the least bit distracted by game, which the Tigers won 4-1.
Between games came the demolition. Dahl and his entourage arrived through a gate in the center field wall in a jeep and circled the field before he took the mike and started the show. What appeared to be a small wooden crate and a large green dumpster were filled with disco records and DJ Dahl gave the signal to start the explosion. The crate went up modestly, like ordinary 4th of July fireworks, but the dumpster gave way with an enormous explosion, sending vinyl and paper hurtling into the air (Mike Veeck's claim that debris went “200 to 250 feet” in the air is probably an exaggeration). The night was about to get out of hand.
After this, Dahl et. al. climbed back into the jeep, did another lap, and the driver, sensing trouble, got out of there as quickly as he could. The crowd was charged, but not yet over the edge.
Ken Kravec, the White Sox scheduled starter for the nightcap, started warming up in the left field bullpen. After a few minutes, he claimed that fireworks were coming out of the upper deck and he felt in genuine danger. He and his catcher chose to finish warming up from the mound on the diamond. At this point, a handful of fans had already wandered onto the field. Existing video shows Kravec attempting to throw from the mound, and behind him two fans are sliding into second base. After a few pitches, more and more fans ran onto to the field, and Kravec gave up. He grabbed his hat off his head and walked back into the dugout, passing several fans on his way.
Then all hell broke loose. Suddenly, thousands of fans decided it would be cool to be on the field. They stormed the infield until it could barely be seen. Local Chicago TV resumed the broadcast at that point, with color commentator Jimmy Piersall expressing his disgust at the mob, referring to Steve Dahl as “jerk” and stating that he hoped the station would not show what was happening on the field. Chaos was soon the order of the night, and fans in the outfield managed to get hold of the batting cage, which they moved into the middle of the outfield and started destroying. Later rumors were that the fans had actually set it on fire, but the fire in the outfield was in fact the revival of the smoldering records left over from the demolition. Eventually, the fans got that fire raging pretty high. They managed to swipe home plate and the pitcher's plate off the mound, and tore up or burned sections of the outfield and a patch around the mound. Local TV pulled the plug.
Bill Veeck grabbed a microphone and attempted to restore order with no luck at all, and veteran Hall of Fame announcer Harry Caray tried as well. Veeck even tried singing “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” for some reason, and the Sox-O-Gram on the scoreboard pleaded, “Please return to your seats” (yeah, that should do it). Steve Dahl offered his assistance, but was told he'd done enough already.
For 37 minutes the field was a madhouse, and finally Chicago's finest, complete in riot-gear, turned up. The fans in the stands actually cheered the police, and the field was cleared in about 3 minutes to the tune of “Na Na Na Na Hey Hey Goodbye.”
Bill Veeck wanted to proceed with the nightcap, but Tigers' manager Sparky Anderson flatly refused to allow his players back onto the field, which was not in playing condition anyway. The White Sox decided to simply postpone the game, which set Anderson into a tirade. A game can be canceled because of rain or because the lights stop working, but not because of a riot precipitated by a promotion gone haywire.
That evening the Cubs were playing in Cincinnati, in game delayed two or three times by rain, and that eventually went into extra innings. Every so often the announcers would give an update on what was going on at Comiskey, and between 10:30 and 11 p.m. CDT or so they stated, “the American League Office apparently agreed with Sparky Anderson – starting pitchers have just been posted for game 2 of the White Sox doubleheader.” A short time later, the game was officially ruled a forfeit.
Quite a night...it did nothing for the White Sox, but at least Steve Dahl's career was assured.
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Copyright © 2004 by Steven Richard Wright. Posted July 14, 2004.
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