The 'Ten Cent Beer Night' Riot

1974 was a depressing news here in the United States President Richard Nixon was embroiled in the Watergate scandal which would eventually force him to resign in November the first u.s. president to do so the United States economy was in a deep recession the result of double-digit inflation in the ongoing energy crisis Patricia Hearst the granddaughter of publishing magnate William Randolph Hearst was kidnapped in February and by April had claimed that she had joined her captors cause leading to nightly news stories and on June 4th in the event that perhaps best defined the trying times of the day beer was too cheap in Cleveland Ohio in his history but deserves to be remembered it was Tuesday June 4th and the Texas Rangers were playing a night game at cleveland stadium the first of a three-game series coming off of two consecutive hundred loss seasons Texas was 25 and 25 poor games back from the American League West leading Oakland Athletics the Cleveland Indians were 24 in 25 two and a half games back from the AL East leading Boston Red Sox for its Peterson the South paw who had been traded to the Indians by the Yankees in April was slated to start for the Indians he was 3 and 3 on the season Cleveland Municipal Stadium the first sports venue in the United States built entirely with public financing opened in 1931 it's one of the first multi-purpose stadiums and had been home to the Cleveland Indians since its opening and to the Cleveland Browns original with the All American Football Conference and then with the National Football League since 1946 when configured for baseball the stadium seated 74,000 400 fans making it the largest and professional baseball in 1974 but Cleveland was a struggling City noted for its River pollution the Cuyahoga River through the city was famous for literally catching fire when such fire in 1969 had caught the attention of the nation via Time magazine prompting the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency the Cleveland area had been a flashpoint for anti Vietnam War sentiment after shootings by the National Guard at nearby Kent State University in 1970 the city was in financial difficulty crime was on the rise in 1962 there have been 59 murders in Cleveland in 1972 there were 833 the city had a difficult reputation and people were leaving in droves the city lost roughly 177 thousand inhabitants between 1970 and 1980 and the Cleveland Indians simply weren't very good they'd finished at the bottom of the American League East in 1973 we weren't doing much better in 1974 commentator paul jackson of ESPN said of them the 74 indians were a smorgasbord of mediocre and forgettable talent playing in an open-air mausoleum it had become difficult to fill the massive 74,000 400 seat stadium a May 13th Ameer 4234 had showed up on a chilly night for a game against Boston on average 85% of the stadium's tickets went unsold but the game against Texas on the muggy night June 4th attracted a respectable 25,000 134 crowd twice what was expected the reason cheap beer the club was running a promotion 12 fluid ounce cups of Stroh's 3.2 percent beer for just 10 cents each there was a limit of six beers per purchase but no limit on the number of purchases made during the game the promotion wasn't new several teams in the league including Texas had done the promotion Cleveland had done its first such promotion in 1971 when the beer was only five cents it was an effective promotion for the stadium so much so that the vendors had trouble serving everyone Bud Tucker a columnist for the independent Press Telegram of Long Beach California equipped as a Frenchman is inspired by fine wine or a Russian by classic vodka so does a Cleveland or react to 10-cent beer the late Tim Russert known for being the longtime moderator of the show Meet the Press was 24 at the time and attended the game in a statement that perhaps defined much of the crowd that night he said I had $2 in my pocket you do the math perhaps there was more going on that night than cheap beer it was particularly hot and muggy the June date caught the college-age crowd just as they were coming home for summer and as Anthony cast events of mlb.com noted in 2014 it was a full moon that night in fact witnesses note that much of the crowd seemed to have not waited for the cheap beer and many seem to have arrived already drunk or high and for some reason they also showed up with their pocket stuffed with firecrackers the crowd started throwing them before the game even started and they continued throughout the rowdiness may have had something to do with the team's last meeting a week earlier on May 29th in Arlington which had had a bench emptying brawl during the eighth inning of what would be a Rangers 3 2-0 victory Rangers fans had thrown beer and food at the indians teams that were returning to the dugout the Indians were furious catcher Dave Duncan had to be restrained to keep him from going into the stands to brawl with the crowd Indians second baseman Jay brohamer who had been at the bottom of the pile promised revenge Rangers manager Billy Martin added to the fuel after the game at Cleveland reporter asked him if he was afraid of fans retaliating in Cleveland he responded nah they don't have enough fans to worry about Cleveland media kept to say riled over the course of the next week on the morning of the fourth several newspapers ran a story recalling the May 29 fight and noting hopefully the battling will be strictly in the form of baseball the Newark Advocate of Newark Ohio around the story under the headline Rangers and Indians to resume base brawling brohamer was quoted as saying that he had cooled down and wasn't looking for a fight instead he hoped to get revenge by winning all three games of the upcoming series Indians manager Ken s Vermont a doubted that there would be any trouble saying that when these things happen they're spontaneous and not planned the Cleveland fans on the other hand might have been making plans of their own Texas quickly took the lead in the second inning after a home run by outfielder Tom grieve but a buzz was in the air or rather in the crowd theater the second inning a woman hopped the fence ran over to the Indians on-deck circle ripped off her shirt baring her breasts to the raucous approval of the crowd and then tried to kiss the umpire amazingly it wasn't the weirdest thing that would happen that night nor the only act of exhibitionism the fun was not all good-natured not only was a crowd throwing firecrackers and keeping the grounds crew busy throwing garbage over the field but when Rangers pitcher Fergie Jenkins got hit in the stomach with a line drive the crowd started chanting hit him again meanwhile the beer kept flowing unable to keep up the vendors reportedly gave up trying to check IDs and started filling up whatever container was handed to them nineteen-year-old fan Terrier kick recalled I had a dog in suds mud maybe 32 ounces look like a mini keg another witness said that as the crowd which he described as notably younger and longer haired than usual grew progressively more drunk there was some antics every half inning or so young fans ran into the field of dot security when Greve hit a second home run in the fourth extending the Rangers lead to 5 to 1 a naked man rather the field and sled in the second base in the fifth inning the father-son team jumped up in the field and boom the crowd another streaker ran across the field carrying his clothes with him but still wearing his left sock as he approached the fence he threw his clothes over planning his escape the crowd could see what he could not a Cleveland police officer was at the other side of the fence catching both the clothes and the offender the game had to be halted in the 6th says the crowd was doing firecrackers into the bullpen umpire nestor shylack cleared the bullpen but was trying to let play continue fans were no longer just throwing beer and firecrackers but also rocks batteries in any part of the stadium that wasn't bolted down a group of fans started trying to tug the padding off the left-field wall drying the grounds to away from picking up the growing pile of trash that was landing on the field despite the antics that can continue then Cleveland managed to tie the game at 5 all in the bottom of the 9th with 2 out of the winning run on second but then 19-year old terrier kick the fan with the dogs and suds mug decided that he wanted a souvenir was not a good decision he jumped the fence ran up behind Texas outfielder Jeff Burroughs and grabbed his hat there's some controversy regarding what happened next according to your kik Burroughs kicked him but because of the slope of the diamond from the Rangers dugout all Billy Martin could see was Burroughs legs and it looked like he'd been knocked down more fans were climbing onto the field and Martin thought Jeff was out there all by himself I saw knives and other things we just couldn't let our teammate get beat up he ordered his team under the field carrying bats to protect burrows it was not a good decision seeing the Rangers leave the dugout sparked the already wild an inebriated mob fins stormed the field greatly outnumbering the players Martin recalled now I know how the people of the Alamo felt the crowd was tearing knives chains clubs made from stadium seats stadium security was overwhelmed although it's hard to see what they could have done in any case and no one considered asking for greater police presence seeing the melee and Rangers players being injured as per Monti ordered the Indians onto the field the two teams who have been fighting each other so recently made common cause against the mob outnumbered they fought their way back to the dugouts are retreated into the locker rooms behind locked doors shylack bleeding from a cut on his head from a thrown bottle called the game as soon as the players made it inside he said he didn't do it earlier for fear it would spark retaliation against the players the game was called a forfeit going into the record books as a 9 to 0 loss for the Indians fans kept rioting stealing everything that could take including literally stealing the stadium's bases so really the organiz play take me up to the ball game director of stadia stadium operations Danzer be ordered the lights shut off and the cleveland police arrived in restored order despite the apparent violation juries and less than a dozen arrests area hospitals reported seven people treated and released martin was quoted saying that's the closest you'll ever see to a guy getting killed in baseball Serbia pined there is no doubt in my mind what caused the problem it was the beer shylack called the crowd uncontrollable beast Indians vice president Alva Barba said in the end there was no way that even a thousand policemen could have controlled the few that were determined to act up but nonetheless blamed shy lack of the crew for family control the game and protested the forfeit newspapers had a field day the Windsor star headline read soused tried fans force forfeit some responded with humor but others took the right seriously and called for an end to beer sales at baseball games despite the calls to change the sport and stop selling beer a major league baseball games nothing really changed the American League issued a memorandum instructing all teams to let them know in advance if they're gonna have any promotional events and the Indians decided that the next time they had a 10-cent beer night that they would limit patrons to four beers per night no exceptions actually in the end it appeared that this is one of those spontaneous events the Indians and the Rangers played the next two nights they split the wins and there were no incidents in the Indians held another 10-cent beer and I didn't a lie of that went without incident or at least without a riot the Rangers finish the season 84 in 76 second in the American League West behind the A's who run the series that they were the first and so far only team in Major League Baseball history finish over 500 after two consecutive 100 lost seasons Burroughs was the American League MVP Hargrove the Rookie of the Year and The Associated Press named Billy Martin the American League Manager of the year the Cleveland Indians finished 77 and 85 lackluster fourth and the American League East tin cent beer night perhaps Sund up well in the dismal decade for Cleveland and their baseball team the prospects for both would eventually improve but not really until the 1990s Terry your kick the fan whose desire for a souvenir apparently sparked the riot perhaps summed up the attitude of Clevelanders to both their City and their baseball team at the time he said it never occurred to us that they would forfeit we were disappointed yes but the Indians weren't very good then it's not like it cost them a pennant or anything I hope you enjoyed this episode of the history guy short snippets have forgotten history between 10 and 15 minutes long and if you did enjoy please go ahead and click that thumbs up button if you have any questions or comments or suggestions for future episodes please write those in the comment section I will be happy to personally respond be sure to follow the history guy on Facebook Instagram Twitter and check out our merchandise on T spring comm and if you'd like more episodes on forgotten history all you need to do is subscribe [Music]

Channel: The History Guy: History Deserves to Be Remembered

Views: 230,244

Rating: 4.9649014 out of 5

Keywords: history, the history guy, history guy, us history, ohio, cleveland, baseball

Id: nx_zzHjqFRk

Length: 12min 35sec (755 seconds)

Published: Fri May 31 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/pianistafj]

Was there a riot? Yes.

Did the home team take bats out on the field to protect our Rangers? Yes.

Was this the last 10¢ beer night? No, they did it a month later, but limited everyone to two beers.

[u/qwertythe300th]

That picture of the Rangers taking the field with Bats ready to fucking fight is severely underrated.

[u/poindexterg]

This guy is one of my favorite Youtubers. I saw this one when he originally uploaded it, and it's really one of the best tellings of the story, probably only second to Tom Grieve.

[u/Brolympia]

The book Seasons in Hell is a must read. It talks about this.

[u/Grimwulf]

How have I not heard about this before? How did they think it was smart to do beer night again?