Watched “Saint of Second Chances,” last night. It’s a Netflix documentary on Mike Veeck, son of Chicago White Sox owner Bill Veeck.
Starts off with his disastrous promotion “disco demolition night” where disco hating fans were invited to bring a disco record to the Cominsky park where they would all be blown up in the outfield between games of a scheduled double header. 50,000 showed up, and after the demolition, maybe 20,000 of them stormed the field went wild and stole the bases. (Sox had to forfeit 2nd game)
Bill sold the team shortly after, and the documentary follows Mike’s return to baseball as the owner of a series of minor (minor, minor, minor) league teams. Covers a series of absolutely crazy promotions he came up with (my favorite was “no fan” night where he chained the gates of the stadium closed, but still had the concession guys and ushers at their stations. Fans could watch the game by looking over the fence from outside the stadium.)
To give you some insight into the mind you’re dealing with, he named his son Night Train, figuring all things being equal, a guy named Night Train would make the roster before a guy named Joe.
Hilarious, and poignant at parts. Highly recommend.