If the White Sox had a decent team in 1979, Disco Demolition likely never would have happened. Get your pencils and scorecards ready:
The eightieth campaign in franchise history began on an inauspicious note with Donald Eulon Kessinger as player-manager. Kessinger was definitely counter to Comiskey’s nocturnal culture: He was a former star shortstop for the Chicago Cubs, and he was a gentle and deeply religious soul from Arkansas.
On August 2, 1979, Kessinger retired as a player-manager, leaving behind a 46-60 record. “Kess” was replaced by coach and future Hall of Famer Tony La Russa.
“I think Bill Veeck was fascinated with my law degree,” La Russa said during a 2015 spring training interview in Scottsdale, Arizona. “That’s why I got the shot. They scouted me in winter ball in the Dominican and in Iowa (the Class AAA Oaks, where La Russa was managing on July 12, 1979). We finished 27-27 and I said, ‘Will you hire me for the next year?’ He was impressed how I loved the game and wanted to learn it. We were just together for those fifty-four games but he took me up to that Bard’s Room and it was like going to graduate school every night. Those conservations with scouts and managers. Oh, my. And I would just sit and listen and learn. Bill and Mary Frances treated me like family. But I missed Disco Demolition.
“I wasn’t a big disco fan.”
The Kessinger/La Russa regime didn’t have a lot of offense to work with, and the team finished in fifth place with a 73-87 record. Outfielder Chet Lemon led the White Sox with seventeen homeruns and a .318 average. Opening Day pitcher Ken Kravec went 15-13 with a 3.74 ERA.
“It wasn’t a very good team,” said Mike Veeck. “Don Kessinger would always resign for the good of the club. He would come in and offer himself all the time. Dad almost got to expect it, and one day he accepted, which shocked Kessinger.”
In modest tones, Kravec recalled, “I probably had a lot to do with it, but when I played we weren’t very competitive. I opened up the 1979 season on the road and at home. I don’t know if we thought we had enough to go to the World Series, but we thought we’d be more than competitive. We had pitching: (the late Frankie) Barrios, (Ross) Baumgarten, Trout, myself, Farmer in the bullpen. But you never know how things will fall into place.”
Just ask Steve Dahl and Mike Veeck.
“We had the good year in 1977 (The South Side Hit Men) and competed late until the season,” Kravec continued. “We still won ninety games and finished third. It seemed like there was more energy at Comiskey than at Wrigley at that time. The ‘Wrigley Field Experience’ hadn’t evolved yet. The fans seemed to be more into the game at Comiskey.”
Former Styx frontman Dennis DeYoung is a White Sox fan dating back to the early 1960s. “I hated the White Sox then,” he said. “The thing that pissed me off the most about Disco Demolition is that they didn’t blow up those uniforms. Here’s how bad it is. As a White Sox fan in 1979, in protest, on tour, I wore a Cubs jersey tailor made for me. As Yogi [Berra] used to say, you can look this up. If you’re a White Sox fan, you don’t like the Cubs. But I was the silent majority. Ralph Garr. Lamar Johnson. I hated the team, but [Bill] Veeck was trying to do anything to save them. He was a good guy, smart and funny.”
DeYoung was a White Sox season ticket holder from 1984–1994. The baseball strike of 1994 robbed the heart of many White Sox fans, and DeYoung was one of them.
“The Sox had a chance to win the World Series,” he said. “They called me and asked why I had not sent in my money for the coming year. I told them, ‘Settle the strike and I’ll send it.’ They didn’t and I didn’t. Tony LaRussa and I discussed this at the time and he understood. Once we were out to eat with Jerry Reinsdorf (owner of the White Sox after Veeck) and Tony had me tell Jerry my feeling about the strike. I did it as a fan of baseball and pulled no punches. The strike destroyed the illusion. Jerry understood, having heard this stuff before. Jerry is a good guy. Hell, he paid for dinner.”
Ed Farmer
The oddballs of the 1979 White Sox team included third baseman Jim Morrison (as in “Light My Fire”), musician/outfielder Thad Bosley (who went on to play for the Cubs), and outfielder Rusty Torres. Torres was the only man in Major League Baseball to play in the three forfeited games of the 1970s: He was the starting right fielder in Disco Demolition; he was on second base for the Cleveland Indians on June, 4, 1974 when Indian fans stormed the field, inspired by “Ten Cent Beer Night” at old Municipal Stadium; and on the rainy afternoon of September 30, 1971, Torres was in the on deck circle in the ninth inning of the Washington Senators’ final game in D.C. Hooligans stormed the field and the game was forfeited to the New York Yankees. Just like the patio seats at Comiskey Park’s Disco Demolition, fans tore up the seats at Robert F. Kennedy Stadium.
(In December, 2014 Torres was sentenced to three years in prison for sexually abusing an eight-year-old girl during a baseball practice in the Long Island town of Oyster Bay where he worked as a youth baseball coach. Torres was unavailable for comment.)
Besides Kravec, the 1979 pitching staff included current White Sox announcer Ed Farmer (3-7, 2.43 ERA) and Steve Trout (11-8, 3.89). As much as Comiskey and Disco Demolition may not have made sense to the straight-laced Kessinger, this whole thing was right in Trout’s left handed wheelhouse.
His father Paul (nickname “Dizzy”) pitched for the Detroit Tigers between 1940 and 1953.
Steve “Rainbow” Trout was born in Detroit the summer of 1957, and in 1965, moved with his family to the Chicago south suburb South Holland.
Trout pitched the night before Disco Demolition. Before the first game of the double-header, he was interviewed by Sox announcer Harry Caray about his performance. “I noticed the big green doors opened up in center field,” Trout said. “Where the relief pitchers came in. And sure enough, it’s Steve Dahl and two hot looking girls with him. As he approached our dugout, Harry noticed the girls more than anyone else. He left me in the middle of a question and goes right over to Dahl and says, ‘Hey girls, are you also here for the disco party?’ The stands were just filling up. I didn’t realize there would be so many metal fans in silver and black. It was anti-disco all right, but I remember they were out of beer by the fifth inning of the first game. Bill Veeck used to say, ‘When you’re out of beer, you’re out of Bill,’ and we’d go off to Miller’s Pub until four in the morning. It was a hot night.”
After his 1978 rookie season with the White Sox, Trout took a winter job to call season ticket holders. Trout laughed and recalled, “I’d say, ‘This is Steve Trout, would you like to renew your season tickets?’ They’d say, ‘Not if you’re pitching next year.’ I also had a winter job that year as Santa Claus at Sears & Roebuck in the River Oaks Mall on the the South Side. I did it for four weeks. They paid me better than the White Sox!”
American League Standings, July 13, 1979—the day after the White Sox forfeited game two of Disco Demolition to the Detroit Tigers:
Western Division
California - 52-38 - (GB)
Texas - 50-38 - 1
Minnesota - 46-40 - 4
Kansas City - 43-45 - 8
Chicago White Sox - 40-47 - 10 1/2
Seattle - 39-52 - 13 1/2
Oakland - 25-66 - 27 1/2
Eastern Division
Baltimore - 57-30 (GB)
Boston - 53-32 - 3
Milwaukee - 51-38 - 7
New York - 49-40 - 9
Detroit - 42-44 - 14 1/2
Cleveland - 42-45 - 15
Toronto - 28-62 - 30 1/2
Dahl has been a White Sox season ticket holder since the early 1990s.
“When I first came to town I tried to be a Cubs fan because I grew up in LA. National League and all that,” he said. “I became a Sox fan later. I was persona non grata there for a while and then (former Daily Herald sportswriter and Sox media manager) Rob Gallas reached out to me. He was the one who kind of made [Disco Demolition] part of Sox lore. He embraced it rather than try to hide it. That’s really what got me as a White Sox fan. I was part of the team’s history and felt connected to it.”
The 1979 White Sox drew only 1,280,762 fans to Comiskey—an average of 16,211 a game, good for tenth in the fourteen team American League. Games were broadcast on WSNS Channel 44. The famous 1977 South Side Hit Men drew 1,657,135 (average 20,458 a game) which was fifth best in the American League just two years earlier. Attendance tumbled hard in 1978 and early 1979. Attendance on the night before Disco Demolition was a paltry 15,520. Something had to be done.