THE NIGHT disco died

THIRTY SEVEN YEARS AGO THIS MONTH, A RADIO STATION PROMOTION GONE BAD FORCED THE WHITE SOX TO FORFEIT A GAME AND BECAME PART OF BASEBALL LORE. AN ORAL HISTORY OF DISCO DEMOLITION

DAVE HOEKSTRA

On July 12, 1979, the Chicago rock station WLUPFM and the Chicago White Sox collaborated on a twinight double-header originally called Teen Night. After the events of that evening, it would come to be known as Disco Demolition. People who brought a disco record to Comiskey Park were admitted for 98 cents (97.9 is WLUP’s position on the dial) to see the Sox play the Detroit Tigers. In terms of draw, it was perhaps the most successful promotion in the history of Major League Baseball. The middling White Sox had been averaging about 18,000 fans a game in a stadium that seated close to 45,000. An estimated 70,000 showed up that day. After the first game, WLUP personality Steve Dahl and his sidekick, Garry Meier, took to the field to blow up…

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Chicago (Digital) - 1 Issue, July 2016

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