Starting in the early 1970s, the events became more and more disassociated with the game itself, and more about attracting a broader fan base beyond older white men. For instance, the Kansas City A’s hosted Hot Pants Night in 1971. All women wearing hot pants were admitted free. Six thousand young ladies showed up. While this did expand the female market, it seems pretty obviously targeted to men.
As one would expect, one of the dumbest promotional nights of all time occurred in Cleveland in 1974. Twenty-five thousand fans (twice the average crowd that season) showed up on 10-cent Beer Night. Who could have foreseen the problems of that night? Throughout the game, drunken fans interrupted the game. Some shed their clothes and streaked around the field, while others threw objects toward the players. Texas manager Billy Martin, no stranger to confrontation, said enough and ordered his team out of the dugout, bats in hand, to deal with the issue.
That only made things worse. A flood of fans entered the field in attack mode. Numerous players from both teams were hit by objects and punches. Umpires had no choice but to declare a forfeit with the game tied 5-5.
In another promotion that strains credulity in today’s modern world, the Atlanta Braves held a Wet T-Shirt Night during their miserable 1977 season. This was only three short years after Hank Aaron broke Ruth’s record for the storied franchise. I guess a 101-loss season will make owners do crazy things.
Speaking of crazy, the always wacky White Sox held a “Disco Demolition Night” in 1979, which involved destroying disco records between games of a double header. The ensuing riot, fueled by discounted beer prices forced the cancellation and forfeiture of the second game.
Anticipating a crowd of no more than 15,000, the White Sox were overwhelmed to see a sellout crowd of 50,000—with nearly that many turned away.
During the intermission, the pile of records was brought out and exploded—and the raucous crowd invaded the field and tore it apart. It took riot police to dispel the crowd. The second game was postponed and forfeited to the Tigers.
No doubt, the 1970s were the heyday of crazy promotions. However, the following decades had their not-so-bright spots.
In 1987, Busch Stadium handed out free St. Louis Cardinals seat cushions as fans filed in for a game against the Los Angeles Dodgers. With a free, relatively safe projectile in hand, thousands of spectators engaged in an impromptu cushion-throwing contest. Umpires had to pause play several times so the grounds crew could remove cushions from the field.
In 1995, the 53,000 fans who received a free ball at Dodger Stadium thought little of it. But that was before three Dodgers were ejected from the game. The hazards of handing out such hard stuff were exposed when fans began littering the field with the free balls. The umpiring crew waived everybody off the field giving the Cardinals a forfeit victory.
When MLB teams in the 1990s began wearing throwback uniforms, it proved highly popular with fans who were increasingly into old baseball cards, retro ballparks and movies such as The Natural. Along the way, someone decided to double down and try Turn Ahead the Clock Night across MLB ballparks in 1999, using jerseys that had yet to be invented—and, God willing, never will be.
Teams took the field wearing “futuristic” uniforms that looked like Walt Disney threw up on them. They were just flat-out ugly, somehow managing to make the Houston Astros’ unis of the 1970s look respectable.
The promotion—wisely avoided by teams such as the Dodgers, Yankees and Cubs, who wore their standard iconic jerseys—was given a big thumbs down. The uniforms were never used again and have yet to develop into a hot collector’s item, a strong sign that nobody cares to look forward in baseball.
Maybe the Green Weeny thing wasn’t so weird.
