An Unpleasant Stroll

Can you remember what you were doing forty years ago yesterday?  I can.  I was in the kitchen washing dinner dishes with the White Sox game on the TV.  It didn’t take long for me to see something was strange.

I couldn’t get over all the people at Comiskey Park for a twilight doubleheader on a week night, not for a team 40-46, even if they were playing the up-and-coming Tigers (Trammell, Whitaker, Morris et al).  And there was something about these “fans”: they were on the grubby side.  They also didn’t seem much interested in staying in their seats or off the foul pole.

Mike Veeck or his father Bill—the latter always took the blame—had come up with the promotion idea of “Disco Demolition Night” in conjunction with a disc jockey of no small ego or great  intelligence (or courage.  In all the years since, he’s denied any responsibility for what happened.).  The more I watched the game, the more it seemed clear that the planned demolition between games was going to blow up in more ways than one.

The DJ took the field, spoke whatever stupid words popped into his head and then presided over the explosion of a pile of disco records.  One “boom!” was all it took, and Comiskey Park gave way to bedlam.  People poured onto the field and offered a textbook illustration for what anarchy looks like in action.  After about a half-hour of this, the police came to put an end to all the running amuck.

The event seemed to be a catalyst to Bill Veeck selling the team to a group of investors led by Jerry Reinsdorf, so there’s that, along with a growing belief this was a violent protest aimed directly at the LGBTQ community.  Yes and no.  I’m pretty sure the non-baseball fans present for DDN regarded disco as “fag” music, but that needs to defined.  The f-slur could be applied to anything such people found objectionable.  But did they really feel that threatened by gays and lesbians?

Depending how I dressed, I could’ve have passed in both disco and anti-disco circles; my preferred mode of dress at the time would have been “baseball casual.”  As for the anger expressed that night, I think a lot, possibly most, of it was class-directed.  Blue-collar whites often heard the word “disco” and thought Studio 54.  Straight college graduates getting ahead in life—while enjoying a new kind of music—were a major irritant to the dirty blue-jeans crowd.

But, all in all, an event that never needs to be repeated.