Wanna know how baseball destroyed disco?

In the mid-1970s, the popular but also belittled style of music known as “disco” began to pulsate from urban centers and permeate the popular music mainstream. The infamous Studio 54 in New York City was a notable trend-setting Disco Club. (The owners ultimately went to prison for tax evasion.)

“The club played a formative role in the growth of disco music and nightclub culture in general…A compilation album of disco music, A Night at Studio 54, was released by Casablanca Records in 1979. It peaked at #21.” —Wikipedia

On December 7th, 1977 the Oscar-nominated (Best Actor in a Leading Role – John Travolta) Robert Stigwood Organization’s (RSO) Saturday Night Fever was released in theaters. The film’s immense popularity was fueled by the music soundtrack by the Bee Gees which spawned three immediate #1 songs: “Stayin’ Alive,” “Night Fever” and “How Deep is Your Love.” 

Travolta’s over-the-top bump and grind dance moves caught on. (“The Hustle” by Van McCoy had already been a #1 hit in 1975). High hair and wide collars, and a lot of other new fashions (like cocaine), were taking hold in America and the world. Some have said disco was “the most dominate musical force on the planet.”

But not everyone was a fan, and very quickly a noisy “Disco Sucks” movement began, particularly emanating from progressive rock radio stations like WLUP in Chicago. In early 1979, DJ Steve Dahl launched an “anti-disco crusade” that included destroying disco records. This movement, like disco, also took off…in Chicago and then many other cities. A war was on.

How it Happened

“[GM] Mike Veeck [and WLUP] discussed the possibility of an anti-disco night promotion after [he was told] the White Sox were looking to do a promotion with the station. The matter had also been brought up early in the 1979 season. Mike Veeck [heard] of Dahl and his plans to blow up a crate of disco records while live on the air from a shopping mall. During a meeting at WLUP, Dahl was asked if he would be interested in blowing up records at Comiskey Park on July 12 [1979]. Since the radio frequency of WLUP was 97.9, the promotion for ‘Disco Demolition Night’…was that anyone who brought a disco record to the ballpark would be admitted for 98 cents. Dahl was to blow up the collected records between games of the doubleheader.”—Wikipedia

What transpired that night at Comiskey Park is the stuff of legends and still THE incident the “Disco Sucks” legions to this day talk about with a gleam in their eyes.

Although the White Sox were not drawing big crowds that season (in the 15,000 average attendance range), some say 40 to 60,000 rowdy fans showed up that night. And many were not there for the doubleheader between the White Sox and the Detroit Tigers. They were there specifically for the “Disco Sucks” explosion(s). They were there to destroy disco.

Chicago Tribune writer Bill Gleason, who attended the game with his wife, described it in his subsequent editorial, “Horror at Comiskey.”

“It was the most disgraceful night in the long history of major league baseball in Chicago…the highlight of the between-games ceremony was to have been the blowing up of all the disco records that had been tossed into a huge box in deep center field…Instead it was the beginning of the horror. When the disco records exploded, the young men and young women left their places in the lower deck. Dozens ran into the field. Hundreds. Then thousands…The White Sox security force were helpless against what had become a mob…They tore turf from in front of the pitcher’s mound. They ripped up grass from the fringe of the infield in front of shortstop. They smashed out large sections of the wire fence in the picnic area…they slid into the bases and sat in the infield…a moron grabbed a hose and directed it into the right-field area….they brought horror to baseball in Chicago.” —Chicago Tribune

The local police tactical force (about 80 men) stormed the field a little after 9:00 pm and “within five minutes had the situation under control.”

Ultimately the second game of the double-header was called off and forfeited to the Tigers.

Organizer Steve Dahl said later, “Disco is a disease. It’s a thing you have to be near perfect to get into. You have to have perfect hair and a three-piece suit, and musically it’s just the same song with different words.” 

The Disco Demolition Derby took place in Chicago on July 12th, 1979. By August, after a run of #1 disco hits (“I Will Survive,” “Tragedy,” “Hot Stuff,” “Ring My Bell” and more), the Top 40 tide was turning back to rock with #1s like the Knack’s “My Sharona,” the Eagles’ “Heartache Tonight,” and the Styx power ballad “Babe.”

“…disco died a sudden death that night” —Hugh Barker

“It was a crazy night. It got dangerous with people flinging records around, which I guess could slice you. It was complete lawlessness and chaos. We actually had to board up the door in the clubhouse. It seems funny now, and I know that they make light of it whenever they talk about it, but it was kind of a dangerous night.”

–White Sox Pitcher Ross Baumgarten

Editors Note: Ross Baumgarten was a friend and classmate of mine at UF. Not gonna say the year.