In the warm air that night, baseball’s routine and soothing sounds mixed with the tribal cadence of off-color chanting, the drifting scent of marijuana and the sight of vinyl records descending through the summer dusk like Frisbees.

“They would slice around you and stick in the ground,” Rusty Staub said. “It wasn’t just one, it was many. Oh, God almighty, I’ve never seen anything so dangerous in my life. I begged the guys to put on their batting helmets.”

Staub was the player representative for the Detroit Tigers when they visited the Chicago White Sox on Disco Demolition Night, July 12, 1979, at Comiskey Park. Few sports promotions ever went so awry; few are remembered as well. Some in charge that night still defend it.

One is Roland Hemond, then the general manager of the White Sox. “It was a great promotion,” he said, chuckling over the telephone from Arizona, where he works for the Diamondbacks. “We’re still talking about it today.”