Ten Cent Beer Night Was A Total Disaster

Tencent beer night at a baseball game sounds like a great idea at least that's what the Cleveland Indians thought one humid summer night in 1974 in fairness at first glance 10-cent beer night sounds like the perfect plan to sell tickets to a ballgame but when beers are ten cents one dime all night let's just say things went off the rails pretty quickly here's the story of the infamous 10 cent beer night before we get into the events of that fateful evening it's important to understand the build-up to the moment sure 10 cent 12 ounce beers all night is already a recipe for disaster but if you look at the history of the players the team's the managers the city involved it just makes it worse first the two teams 10-cent beer night was to be held in Cleveland while the Indians were hosting the Texas Rangers earlier in the season while the Indians were on the road in Texas playing the Rangers the team's got into a brawl like a legit fight not one of those Broyles or everyone just sort of dances around and yells at each other there was an incident where one of the Indians slid into second base too hard in the eyes of the Rangers so then there were some fast balls being thrown at people's heads which led to legit punches being thrown a brawl and Rangers fans throwing food and beers at Indian players so there is plenty of bad blood between the two teams heading into their series in Cleveland and Cleveland Indians fans are now all fired up for their newfound rivals to come to town now let's talk about the city of Cleveland and its people in 1974 being fired up for a baseball team you don't like to come to town is again already a recipe for some sort of incident but Cleveland was already a city on the brink in the decades leading up to that fateful summer evening in 1974 Cleveland saw around 600 factories shut down with that came the loss of thousands upon thousands of jobs surging rates of poverty drug addiction and crime out of desperation Cleveland was burning literally the river was on fire Cleveland was so riddled with pollution in ways from the factories which abandoned them the Cuyahoga River which runs through the city caught fire more than once sending flames five stories high the river was on fire the city was a stick of dynamite in the fuse was 10 cent beer night if you're imagining that there couldn't possibly be a good outcome to this whole 10 cent beers all-night thing you're absolutely right so here we go the promotion worked the Indians who were terrible at the time were only averaging a few thousand fans per game 25,000 plus fans showed up for 10-cent beer night the echoes of chief Wahoo's famous war drums filling the air accompanied by the flashes and howls of firecrackers which the fans brought themselves because it was 1974 and it was 10-cent beer night by the second inning after the Rangers took the lead with the dinger a fat middle-aged woman jumped onto the field ran to the Indians on-deck circle and flashed her breasts to the crowd and then tried to kiss the head umpire as you can guess she was hammered this was the second inning in the fourth inning after the Rangers hit another dinger a man fully nude ran onto the field and slid into second base then that guy ran off they didn't catch him maybe they didn't want to Cleveland was just warming up at this point in the evening the people pouring the beer for the fans weren't able to keep up with the demand at the concession stands the one rule at the stadium was you could only purchase six cups of beer at a time not six beers total all night it was six beers per person at one time so people were just buying six beers for 60 cents drinking them getting back in line and doing it all over again as you might imagine it was a madhouse so to try to keep up with the consumption they just brought in the beer trucks set up the trucks outside of the outfield fence and just had people line up right at the beer trucks to get their 10-cent beer and who was handing out the beers of the beer trucks well it was two teenage girls and skimpy tops because it was the 70s and here we are you've got two scantily clad teenage teenage girls handing out beers at ten cents a pop two drunken laid-off factory workers on a hot humid summer night with war drums and fireworks going off in the background what could possibly go wrong well of course these poor girls can't keep up with this setup either and they just walked off and why wouldn't they the guys in line grabbed the table that had been set up to collect the cash for the beers and they just hooked it over the trucks now 10-cent beer night basically turned into free beer night there were guys not even bothering to fill up cups they were just hauling off the tap on the beer truck in the fifth inning two men jumped over the outfield wall and moon the Rangers outfielders this brought about another stoppage in play as security chased these guys all over the diamond the players looking on helplessly shortly after this Rangers manager Billy Martin headed to the mound for a conference with his pitcher upset that he was delaying the game the Indians fans threw full cups of beer onto the field because who cares they cost 10 cents or were free upon returning to the dugout Billy Martin blew kisses at the fans resulting in Indians fans shooting fireworks into the Rangers bullpen which was then ordered to be evacuated by the Empire this is real this happened at a major league baseball game after this the public address announcer proclaimed please don't throw things onto the field this resulted in you guessed it a tsunami of litter raining down on the field from that point on they decided to abandon making announcements over the PA system basically the inmates are running the asylum the Indians didn't think to have any extra police presence at the stadium that night there were 50 security guards 54 25,000 fans the Rangers first baseman estimated he had 20 pounds of hot dogs thrown at him and he was also nearly hit by a gallon jug of Thunderbird wine it was at that moment that things went from just pure insanity to dangerous at this point there are so many streakers on the field the security just stopped trying to catch them all this while the Indians and Rangers were trying to play a baseball game which is hard when the outfield is full of naked people and they're tearing the padding off the left-field wall and a few fans stole the bases they took the bases off the field they just took them in the 8th cherry bombs started raining down in the Rangers dugout in the 9th the Indian staged a remarkable comeback and tied the game at 5 that's when a drunk guy ran onto the outfield and tried to grab one of the Rangers outfielders hats this was the last row from the dugout all the Rangers could see was a fan attacking their outfielder so Billy Martin looked to his team grabbed a bat and charged onto the field like it was a war zone and you know what it kind of was this resulted in a sea of fans coming out of the stands to fight the Texas Rangers which resulted in the Indians running onto the field with their bats to fend off their own fans and fight with the Rangers this is also insane it's almost starting to sound normal let me just remind you this was a major league baseball game a street fight between the players the professional big league players and the fans happened in the outfield people were getting hit with bats the chief umpire got hit in the head with a chair people were bleeding people were injured badly the SWAT team had to come in with tear gas and clear it all up all wild and this is maybe the best part the stadium organist was playing take me out to the ballgame in the end the game was forfeited to Texas 60,000 beers were consumed at 10 cents a pop there were 19 streakers seven emergency room worthy injuries and nine arrests to this day those stolen bases the fans just took have never been returned thanks for watching this video be sure to like this video and subscribe to this channel for more of history's weirdness that you won't find in your textbooks all those textbooks that you had to give back no one has their textbooks anymore right I'm have mine anyway there's this video here is this one here there's more stuff here there's more good stuff if you liked it stick around

Channel: Weird History

Views: 2,368,099

Keywords: ten cent beer night, 10 cent beer night, baseball 10 cent beer night, Cleveland Indians, Texas Rangers, 10 cent beer night cleveland, 10 cent beer night cleveland video, 10 cent beer night cleveland baseball, 10 cent beer night cleveland indians, 10 cent beer night espn, 10 cent beer night documentary, cleveland indians 10 cent beer night video

Id: VxTtzLUteDA

Length: 7min 57sec (477 seconds)

Published: Tue May 22 2018

Reddit Comments

[u/LiveJournal]

I like the idea that somewhere in Ohio there is a stolen base just rotting in someones garage from this game.

[u/komicman]

Most importantly though, they did it again later that season. Never change Cleveland.

[u/diegojones4]

I think the things mentioned at the beginning mattered more that the $0.10 beer. Beer was [$0.40 in 1974](https://247wallst.com/special-report/2017/10/23/the-price-of-beer-the-year-you-were-born/4/)

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In the 80s I used to go watch farm league games with $0.50 pitchers and a chance to win a ham at the 7th inning stretch. I also went to clubs that had a $5 cover and dime drinks and another that had $3 cover and quarter drinks. Then there was a club that on Sundays that had strippers, no cover, and free beer as long as it lasted which was usually around 23:00.

[u/noobtube228]

They should make this into a movie.

[u/[deleted]]

Here's The Dollop on 10 Cent Beer Night.

It goes into great detail.

[u/CholentPot]

As a native Clevelander this makes me feel nothing but pride. This and Browns Beer Bottle Gate.

[u/maybeburdman]

Did they learn nothing from nickel shot night at O'halligans?

[u/unitool]

If every night was $0.10 beer night, I’d probably watch baseball.

[u/loopster70]

I wish baseball could still be like this. Fans running on the field is my favorite thing to see at a baseball game. I understand why it's so heavily policed against, but I live for the moments when that barrier breaks down. Chris Chambliss' HR to win the pennant in '76, and the subsequent fan reaction, is something like my favorite moment in baseball history.