Annual attendance at Cleveland’s Municipal Stadium (referred to by wags as “The Mistake by the Lake”) had failed to break 1 million since 1959, and in the 1974 season, attendance averaged a little south of 8,000 a game. Not surprisingly, Indians owner Vernon Stouffer, presumably desperate to increase the number of fans going through the turnstiles, embraced a suggestion to offer a “10 Cent Beer Night” during a three game series against the Texas Rangers.
I don’t know what improvident fool originally offered up the idea of discounting booze at a baseball game, but Stouffer was taking a cue from the Rangers themselves. In a bid to attract fans to Arlington, Rangers management authorized “cheap beer” nights, which help lift turnout to marginally profitable levels. Cleveland’s “10 Cent Beer Night” was designed as reply to the Rangers.
In the week before the game, during a “cheap beer” night, there was a donnybrook between Indian and Rangers players at Arlington Stadium (after a hard slide turned into bad pitch which led to a tackle at first base and then a melee). Inebriated Texas fans showered Indian players with epithets and barley-pop, and the Tribe vowed revenge.
On Tuesday June 4, 1974, “10 Cent Beer Night” began, and 23,134 fans arrived for an evening that the Indians front office still calls “ignoble.” The largest crowd of the season did not turn out to see former Cy Young winner Gaylord Perry throw heat, but for the promise of contretemps between the players and the allure of 10 cent Strohs. It is estimated that the crowd that night consumed over 65,000 10-ounce containers of beer in less than 4 hours.
The game began inauspiciously, with several smoke bombs deflagrated in the stands during the first inning. This was followed by a tubby shirtless female fan’s attempt to smooch the umpire-in-charge, Nestor Chylak, in the second. With the Rangers in command, a steady string of smaller, but no less ridiculous incidents marked the alcohol soaked night. Tom Grieve’s second homer of the evening prompted a streaker to join him in the fourth. In the fifth, with Mike “The Human Rain Delay” Hargrove interminably sizing up the batter’s box, a father-and-son duo in the front stands dropped their drawers to welcome the AL’s Rookie of the Year to Cleveland. By the seventh, fans were popping over the right field wall to shake hands with AL MVP Jeff Burroughs, which prompted Rangers manager Billy Martin (preparing for a career, as I remember him, playing Richard Burton to George Steinbrenner’s Liz Taylor) to move his bull-pen crew into the dugout.
It was, however, the bottom of 9th, for which “10 Cent Beer Night” will always be remembered. Down 5-3, Cleveland had tied the game up after outfielder John Lowenstein popped a sacrifice fly to bring in Ed Crosby. With slugger Leron Lee poised to bring in the game-winning run (Rusty Torres on third), a fracas broke out in right field, after a fan’s attempt to pinch Jeff Burroughs’ glove. Despite the few gestures of friendliness, Burroughs had endured nine innings of being pelted by rocks, golf balls, and batteries, in addition to the steady stream of empty 10 oz. plastic cups.
When Burroughs chased the fan off the grass, a passel of Cleveland fans retaliated by wrenching their seats from their bearings and hurling ‘em at Burroughs. The dexterous Burroughs managed to dodge most of the projectiles. He eventually received backup from Billy Martin, who, banishing a broken bat, was swinging wildly to deter blotto fans from getting their hands on his prize right fielder. The corybantic crowd surged, spilling on to the field, and surrounded both dugouts. The fans, indiscriminate in their violence, whacked Indians pitcher Tom Hilgendorf with a steel chair and knocked ump Nestor Chylak in the head with a rock. To Chylak, that was the fatal mistake.
With two outs, and two runners on base, he called the forfeit, awarding the game to the Rangers, 9-0. Chylak had invoked Rule 3.18, which allows the chief ump to declare a forfeit if the field isn’t cleared for sufficient police protection for the players (at the behest of their manager, Ken Aspromonte, Cleveland players shepherded the Rangers bullpen out of the stadium). Chylak later groused, “[The Cleveland fans] were just uncontrollable beasts … I've never seen anything like it except in a zoo.”
The forfeit was the first since 1971, at the last Washington Senators game (just before they moved to Texas), with overzealous fans charging the field and denuding the stadium for any souvenirs. But, it was also only the fourth AL forfeit ever (the fifth, of course, being the second game of the Disco Demolition doubleheader), and a continued source of embarrassment for the Indians. Although Cleveland returned the next night to soundly defeat the Rangers 9-3, only 8,101 showed up for a markedly more low key affair. The Indians GM, Phil Seghi, unsuccessfully challenged the forfeit, but also wanted to continue the campaign.
The net result of “10 Cent Beer Night” was to lead AL President Lee MacPhail to suspend all promotional ticket offers. “There was no question that beer played a great part in the affair", MacPhail noted with profound understatement. In the New York Times, sports writer Dave Anderson sententiously mused, “surely the nation needs a good five cent cigar but baseball doesn’t need ten-cent beer.” But, perhaps, the most apposite, if not most unselfconsciously humorous assessment came from Rangers outfielder Cesar Tovar. Comparing Cleveland fans to the soccer hooligans of his native Venezuela, Tovar remarked, "these people are different, very different. Got no respect for the police -- they'd shoot the people who tried that at home."
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I don’t know what improvident fool originally offered up the idea of discounting booze at a baseball game, but Stouffer was taking a cue from the Rangers themselves. In a bid to attract fans to Arlington, Rangers management authorized “cheap beer” nights, which help lift turnout to marginally profitable levels. Cleveland’s “10 Cent Beer Night” was designed as reply to the Rangers.
In the week before the game, during a “cheap beer” night, there was a donnybrook between Indian and Rangers players at Arlington Stadium (after a hard slide turned into bad pitch which led to a tackle at first base and then a melee). Inebriated Texas fans showered Indian players with epithets and barley-pop, and the Tribe vowed revenge.
On Tuesday June 4, 1974, “10 Cent Beer Night” began, and 23,134 fans arrived for an evening that the Indians front office still calls “ignoble.” The largest crowd of the season did not turn out to see former Cy Young winner Gaylord Perry throw heat, but for the promise of contretemps between the players and the allure of 10 cent Strohs. It is estimated that the crowd that night consumed over 65,000 10-ounce containers of beer in less than 4 hours.
The game began inauspiciously, with several smoke bombs deflagrated in the stands during the first inning. This was followed by a tubby shirtless female fan’s attempt to smooch the umpire-in-charge, Nestor Chylak, in the second. With the Rangers in command, a steady string of smaller, but no less ridiculous incidents marked the alcohol soaked night. Tom Grieve’s second homer of the evening prompted a streaker to join him in the fourth. In the fifth, with Mike “The Human Rain Delay” Hargrove interminably sizing up the batter’s box, a father-and-son duo in the front stands dropped their drawers to welcome the AL’s Rookie of the Year to Cleveland. By the seventh, fans were popping over the right field wall to shake hands with AL MVP Jeff Burroughs, which prompted Rangers manager Billy Martin (preparing for a career, as I remember him, playing Richard Burton to George Steinbrenner’s Liz Taylor) to move his bull-pen crew into the dugout.
It was, however, the bottom of 9th, for which “10 Cent Beer Night” will always be remembered. Down 5-3, Cleveland had tied the game up after outfielder John Lowenstein popped a sacrifice fly to bring in Ed Crosby. With slugger Leron Lee poised to bring in the game-winning run (Rusty Torres on third), a fracas broke out in right field, after a fan’s attempt to pinch Jeff Burroughs’ glove. Despite the few gestures of friendliness, Burroughs had endured nine innings of being pelted by rocks, golf balls, and batteries, in addition to the steady stream of empty 10 oz. plastic cups.
When Burroughs chased the fan off the grass, a passel of Cleveland fans retaliated by wrenching their seats from their bearings and hurling ‘em at Burroughs. The dexterous Burroughs managed to dodge most of the projectiles. He eventually received backup from Billy Martin, who, banishing a broken bat, was swinging wildly to deter blotto fans from getting their hands on his prize right fielder. The corybantic crowd surged, spilling on to the field, and surrounded both dugouts. The fans, indiscriminate in their violence, whacked Indians pitcher Tom Hilgendorf with a steel chair and knocked ump Nestor Chylak in the head with a rock. To Chylak, that was the fatal mistake.
With two outs, and two runners on base, he called the forfeit, awarding the game to the Rangers, 9-0. Chylak had invoked Rule 3.18, which allows the chief ump to declare a forfeit if the field isn’t cleared for sufficient police protection for the players (at the behest of their manager, Ken Aspromonte, Cleveland players shepherded the Rangers bullpen out of the stadium). Chylak later groused, “[The Cleveland fans] were just uncontrollable beasts … I've never seen anything like it except in a zoo.”
The forfeit was the first since 1971, at the last Washington Senators game (just before they moved to Texas), with overzealous fans charging the field and denuding the stadium for any souvenirs. But, it was also only the fourth AL forfeit ever (the fifth, of course, being the second game of the Disco Demolition doubleheader), and a continued source of embarrassment for the Indians. Although Cleveland returned the next night to soundly defeat the Rangers 9-3, only 8,101 showed up for a markedly more low key affair. The Indians GM, Phil Seghi, unsuccessfully challenged the forfeit, but also wanted to continue the campaign.
The net result of “10 Cent Beer Night” was to lead AL President Lee MacPhail to suspend all promotional ticket offers. “There was no question that beer played a great part in the affair", MacPhail noted with profound understatement. In the New York Times, sports writer Dave Anderson sententiously mused, “surely the nation needs a good five cent cigar but baseball doesn’t need ten-cent beer.” But, perhaps, the most apposite, if not most unselfconsciously humorous assessment came from Rangers outfielder Cesar Tovar. Comparing Cleveland fans to the soccer hooligans of his native Venezuela, Tovar remarked, "these people are different, very different. Got no respect for the police -- they'd shoot the people who tried that at home."
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