1979

Twenty-five years ago, disco records prevented the White Sox from playing a game. Disco Demolition combined three combustable elements: Bill Veeck's populist promotional sense, Steve Dahl's satirical bent, and 50,000 inebriated kids bored with what disco had become in the hands of the Bee Gees and KC and the Sunshine band. (Would such a promotion have caught fire in the glory days of the O'Jays or was the vitriol based purely in intolerance? I hope not, for that music was great.) The Sox forfeited the second game of a doubleheader, but that may have been the most memorable night of the season.

I was watching at home, seeing whatever action Channel 44 allowed on the air as Harry Caray and Jimmy Piersall alternately described the action, pleaded with people to get back in their seats, and (in Piersall's case) generally went ballistic. The field was ruined, not that it mattered much. The Sox were a fifth-place team, wore pajamas on the field, and were about to see their player-manager quit on them. My most vivid memory the rest of the season was attending one of the Sox many bad games August 1 -- they lost to the Yankees 7-1 and I was just relieved when they scored the one run late in the game to have one highlight. The guy playing first base for the Yankees was Thurman Munson (out of position, giving his 32-year old legs a break from catching). It was his final game. A day later, he died crashing his airplane in Canton, Ohio, the second active player to die in the past year after Lyman Bostock was shot in Gary the autumn before. Several of my memories of baseball that year have to do with death and carnage -- perhaps the period (at least after 1977) was a time of malaise. At least the World Champions that year were disco-fuelled fun.