It was 45 years ago today and the Tigers were in town for a doubleheader at the old Comiskey. Nobody remembers the 1979 White Sox or Tigers. They were pretty much out of contention at this time. We don't remember that day for baseball but rather a bunch of young people burning LPs in the name of hating "disco.”

Let me take you back to a crazy night in Chicago:

It was the summer of 1979, and disco was taking over the world. Donna Summer, Chic and Gloria Gaynor were at the top of the charts. Just a few months earlier, the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack had been named Album of the Year at the Grammy Awards. Radio stations were switching to all-disco formats.

Steve Dahl, then a 24-year-old disc jockey, was mad. He had been fired from a Chicago radio station when it, too, went all-disco. In his new job at a rival rock station, he took out his frustration by destroying disco records on the air.

"Back in the day when we had turntables, I would drag the needle across the record and blow it up with a sound effect," Dahl says. "And people liked that."

Pretty soon, station reps and Chicago White Sox promoters had the crazy idea of actually blowing up disco records. The team was averaging just 16,000 fans a game and would have done anything to fill Comiskey Park. So, on a muggy Thursday night doubleheader with the Detroit Tigers, fans could bring a disco record and get in for less than $1. What transpired came to be known as "Disco Demolition" and is the subject of Dahl's new book Disco Demolition: The Night Disco Died, co-written with Dave Hoekstra.

I didn't read the aforementioned book. But I do remember sitting in a hotel restaurant watching the whole thing on TV. Who knew that my first business trip to Chicago would end up like this? My senior partner and I had tickets to that game but the police shut down the place. I know because I was there.

What a difference time makes. Today, they kill each other every weekend and the mayor blames Nixon. Back then, I recall the mayor angry on TV, calling out the promotion and the lawlessness.

Disco is gone and I'm sad to see that Chicago is done, too.

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Image: Picryl