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Groovy Hepcats and Jive Turkeys Groovy Hepcats and Jive Turkeys. That’s how contestants in the onfield promotions were addressed by the promotions staff. I don’t think that is quite accurate for the disco era. I think hepcats predates the ’60s, being groovy occurred at the end of the ’60s and jive turkeys was not a compliment. But that’s how it was last night at Disco Inferno night at Prince Georges County Stadium, home to the Orioles AA team, the Bowie Baysox. The place had 33s hung from the ceiling on the concourse and album covers placed all over the grandstands. The young people running the on field promotions were dressed as the Village People, John McEnroe and other disco types from the late ’70s. I haven’t heard "Staying Alive" for quite some time, but the music was Disco and it's not any better now than it was then. The original disco baseball promotion was July 12,1979 in Chicago at old Comiskey Park. The eccentric owner of the White Sox, Bill Veeck, hatched the scheme with his son, Mike. Known as Disco Demolition Night, the idea was for fans to bring disco albums to the stadium and trade them in for $.99 tickets. There would be a ceremony between games of the doubleheader between the Chisox and Tigers, where the albums would be placed in a pile and blown up. Things turned bad early on. The promotion was so wildly popular that ushers stopped taking albums after 20,000 had been collected. The uncollected vinyl discs became Frisbees during the game as thousands of fans (there were 90,000 fans in attendance that night) started throwing the the albums in the stands and onto the field. Both the Tigers and Sox wore helmets onto the field that night. During the actual demolition of the albums, the fans went crazy and stormed the field. Bonfires were built in the outfield and the playing surface was destroyed. Miraculously, no one was injured. However the field was damaged for the remainder of the season and did not recover until after baseball ended there. Poor Bill Veeck stood at home plate, microphone in hand, imploring the fans to behave. No one listened. Unruliness is no stranger to the South Siders. In recent years, drunken fans have run onto the field and attacked coaches! I think it has to do with the ready supply of hard liquor which is dispensed throughout the stands by vendors. Getting a shot of “Jack” in your seat in Comiskey is as easy a getting a soft drink in other stadiums. With trade rumors floating over the big team, the Baysox came from behind to win their game in 11 innings. The Baysox trailed the Mets 5-1 in the sixth inning before the baby birds mounted their comeback. The Baysox drew first blood in the opening inning when Javy Lopez lined a single through short to drive in Peter Bergeron (late of the Expos) who opened the game by taking one for the team from Orlando Roman. No small feat since Roman was hitting 92 mph with his fastball. The Mets answered this in the top of the fourth when Lastings Milledge and Wayne Lydon were driven home on a line drive double off the bat of Mike Jacobs. The play had all the makings of a footrace, with Lydon following Milledge around the bases by not more than five feet. Kurt Birkins started for the Baysox and alternately looked dominating and bewildered. Birkins throws his fastball in the upper 80s and, when he is on, finishes hitters off with a deadly slider. Unfortunately, he lost his composure in the fourth with Milledge and Lydon an base; it was downhill afterwards. He gave up one more run before being pulled for Josh McCurdy in the fifth. The Baysox made their comeback by scoring two in the eighth then two more in the ninth to tie the game. They eventually won the game when Alexander Garcia balked home Bergeron with the winning run in the bottom of the 11th. Milledge has started his AA campaign with a bang. The Mets #1 pick in the 2003 draft is currently hitting a nice .410! The other former # 1 pick on the field was the Orioles' Tripper Johnson, taken as a first round sandwich pick in the 2000 draft; Johnson is hitting .253 with 8 HRs. He is progressing through the Orioles system, improving at each step of the way. --- John
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