RETRO SHOUTOUT: TEN CENT BEER NIGHT

In 1972 the Cleveland Indians had a disastrous promotional night

Ten cent beer night. Sign me up. I wonder what the equivalent would be if a promotion like this were to be held today. Somewhere in the range of dollar beers I think. I’m not really interested in working it out and it doesn’t propel this story in anyway at all, so let’s pretend that the math is right. What is or what was ten cent beer night? Let’s get into it.

The ten cent beer night was an awesome and terribly misguided promotional event held by the Cleveland Indians during the 1974 season. The idea was to get more people to the yard by lowering the price of beer from sixty five cents down to just a dime. Just to provide some historical reference, in 1974, a dollar could get you a jar of peanut butter, a dozen eggs and a pound of ground beef. The promotion worked for so many reasons.

At this point you probably have some questions. Like “There must have been restrictions right?” or “what was the catch?”. There weren’t any. There wasn’t one.The only stipulation was that you could only buy six at a time. Which means nothing really. In theory you could a) drink one while you’re waiting for the other five to be poured b) drink another on your way back to your seat. c)spill one on your neighbour while your’e joining in the wave d) kick one over when a fly ball went to the warning track e) sullenly sip one when the girl in the seat in front of you rebuffs your advances f) drink three quarters of another one as you climb the stairs for refills and then polish it off while you’re in line for a fresh batch.

You see where I’m going with this. The Cleveland Indians served 10 cent beer and wow who would’ve guessed it? There was a riot.

Part of the problem was that a lot more people showed up to the game than the club anticipated. Part of the reason was the promotion the other part was that Cleveland players and their fans were nursing a serious grudge that dated back to last time the two clubs met.

The beef started a week earlier when Cleveland’s road trip landed them in the lone star state. Texas player Lenny Randle slid hard to break up a double play. The following inning he was thrown at intentionally but the ball missed his legs. On the ensuing play he laid down a bunt and when Cleveland pitcher Milt Wilcox fielded the bunt while he was clipped pretty good with Randles forearm. The benches cleared, punches were thrown and the game was eventually finished. After the game, legendary drinker/manager/instigator Billy Martin said this when asked if he would be bringing armour to Cleveland on their next road trip. “Naw, they don’t have enough fans there to worry about”.

Let the games begin.

Things started to get pretty gross pretty early. Let me also interject here and say that although I in no way condone this type of thing I would have loved to have been there. I’m a junkie for passion in kind of an objective non judgmental way.

So back to the game.

Texas jumped out to an early 5–1 lead and kind of set the tone of the night. The crowd of twenty five thousand (double the expected amount) started to get restless and drunk. Then it just got batshit crazy. So crazy that the next section of this story needs bullet points.

-Fergie Jenkins gets hit in the stomach with a line drive and fans in the upperdeck begin to chant “hit em again!” and “hit em harder!”

-A woman runs out on to the on deck circle and flashes her breasts

-A mans strips naked and runs across the infield right after a home run

-A father and son duo run out onto the field and moon the fans in the bleachers

-A Rangers player is pelted with hotdogs and nearly misses being hit by an empty jug of wine

I’m sure there are things that happened that I haven’t mentioned but the picture has been painted clearly enough I think. Let’s fastforward to the ninth inning.

Somehow, amidst all the chaos the Indians had rallied and tied the game and had the winning run on second base. That’s as far as the game got.

While the winning run stood on second a 19 year old came to the conclusion that this was the perfect time to run on the field and grab the left fielders hat right off his head. From manager Billy Martin’s vantage point it looked like his player was being attacked,and like a general leading his troops, instructed everyone in the dugout to grab a bat and head out onto the field to rescue them. Chaos ensued.

Fans were all over the field. Police were on the field. Both teams were on the field wielding bats for protection against “spectators” who were now armed with anything they could get their hands on including pieces of the stadium. The players eventually made it to the tunnels, for the most part unscathed but the game was forfeited.

Aftermath. None really to speak of. Cleveland held another ten cent beer promotion later that year and the attendees doubled to a 48,000 people. The only “modification” to the event was that fans were now limited to two beers at a time. God bless America.