Hooks & Runs · A podcast about baseball, music and culture.

274 - "I Thought I'd Given Up the Circus:" Baseball Promotions w/ Joseph Natalicchio

·46 min·3 clips

At Connie Mack Stadium, fans dismantled seats with hammers, pliers, and screwdrivers during the game.

1. Hooks & Runs talks with Joseph Natalicchio about baseball promotions and his book Baseball's Most Outrageous Promotions from Wedlock and Headlock Day to Disco Demolition Night. 2. Craig and Rex host the episode, and Natalicchio is the author whose baseball research matters because the book was released by McFarland Press on December 4. 3. The episode asks why baseball developed such a long history of unusual promotions and whether the game's scale and owners created that culture. 4. Natalicchio says baseball has more games and larger stadiums than hockey, football, or basketball, so teams needed ways to fill seats when they were out of contention by July. 5. He also points to Bill Veeck as a promotional genius who took baseball spectacle "up to 11" and helped elevate gimmicks into an art form. 6. The guest explains that the book began with his earlier fiction work and a family memory of watching Bill Mazeroski's 1960 World Series home run with his mother when he was seven. 7. Natalicchio says his son suggested the original nonfiction idea about five major league forfeits since 1970, including Tennessee Beer Night and the Cleveland Indians game involving Earl Weaver and tarps on the mounds. 8. After McFarland had already published a forfeit book, the editor suggested a new project on outrageous promotions and noted that four chapters could carry over. 9. He says the final book identifies 13 outrageous promotions and shows that four men produced nine of them: Bill Veeck, Charlie O. Finley, Bill Giles, and Bob Hope. 10. Natalicchio names the era from 1946 to the early 1980s the "era of the Barnums" because so many of the most extreme promotions came from those showmen. 11. One memorable moment is Eddie Goodell, a little person brought in by Bill Veeck at St. Louis, who walked into the record books after a cake reveal and a plate appearance. 12. Natalicchio says American League president Will Harridge reacted by banning little persons from baseball and even threatening to remove Goodell's at-bat from the record books. 13. Another highlight is Grandstand Manager's Night, where Browns fans used cards to decide strategy and ended up voting with Veeck's wife to leave Ned Garver in the game. 14. The guest says Garver had given up three runs in the first inning but then pitched a shutout, which turned the crowd into an accidental set of good managers. 15. Disco Demolition Night stands as the episode's clearest warning sign, with cheap admission for a disco record, a rock-radio tie-in, and records exploded on the field at Old Comiskey. 16. Natalicchio says the crowd may have included many non-baseball fans, and he cites Veeck's estimate of 55,000 people in a stadium built for 47,795. 17. The tone is conversational and loose, with Craig and Rex interrupting each other, laughing, and filling the discussion with side comments about Veeck, stadiums, and baseball history. 18. Natalicchio speaks like a careful researcher who still enjoys the absurdity, and he repeatedly returns to books, documents, and the exact names of promotions. 19. Baseball history fans who like Veeck, odd promotions, and stadium lore. 20. Listeners wanting modern analytics or a short, straight game recap.

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