Stuff You Should Know - Short Stuff: Cleveland’s Infamous 10-Cent Beer Night

Episode Date: June 8, 2022

In 1974, the Cleveland (then Indians) baseball club held an unlimited 10 cent beer promotion to attract fans to the game. An actual riot broke out.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart podcast Frosted Tips with Lance Bass. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation? If you do, you've come to the right place because I'm here to help. And a different hot sexy teen crush boy bander each week to guide you through life. Tell everybody, yeah, everybody about my new podcast and make sure to listen so we'll never, ever have to say bye, bye, bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Hey, and welcome to the short stuff. I'm Josh, and there's Chuck, and this is short stuff. And

this is yet another chapter in our ongoing coverage of Cleveland, Ohio history. Because I love it. When you dive into all of the stuff we've talked about, Cleveland has come up a surprising amount of times. It has. And we got great listeners in Cleveland. Shout out to our buddy, Gail Coonson, our husband, Mark. And we sold out there and we love our Clevelanders, so we're not making fun of you. Definitely. But we can't not talk about Tencent Beer Night. Yeah, yeah. So Tencent Beer Night is a legendary night in Cleveland. If you live in Cleveland, you know all about this. And it took place in June 1974. And it wasn't that the Cleveland, at the time they were called the Indians, now they're called the Guardians. It wasn't that the

baseball stadium was giving away beer for Tencent's that made it so remarkable. That was actually like a fairly routine promotion. If you do the inflation math that's equal to about 57 cents today. Yeah, all over baseball, not just Cleveland. Right, exactly. And if you went to the stadium, they weren't keeping track of how many you had or how many you bought at one time. It was basically an open invitation to come get very drunk at the baseball stadium. That was the promotion, right? So it wasn't just that they had a Tencent beer night. It was this particular night underscored how bad an idea Tencent beer nights at the baseball stadium actually were. That's right. And it had to do with in particular a lot of things. I watched a little video about

this and they did point out that the mood in Cleveland at the time, given the pollution and laid off factory workers and the Indians not being very good, it just, it all sort of culminated on this night that they played the Texas Rangers who a week prior at their Tencent beer night. Yeah. This is just crazy to think about now. If they had 57 cent beer night, you know, I would be down there. Unlimited 57 cent beer night during nine innings at least. Yeah. And I did see for the Cleveland one, they had a limit of six cups per person at a time. So they did. Okay. Well, they did have some rules then. All right. That's respectful. I figured that's just, they figured that's as many as you can carry at once. I don't know.

Probably. They didn't want you to strain yourself. So a week before in Dallas, Fort Worth at their stadium, they had Tencent beer night. And there was a, there was a brawl on the field. There was a hard slide by the Rangers, retaliation by Cleveland's pitcher, which is what usually happens in baseball. And they charged the mound and a fight breaks out. And it was, you know, it was a pretty good baseball brawl. And Billy Martin was coaching Texas at the time. And he said that he wasn't worried about the next week in Cleveland because they were asking about retaliation. He said they don't have enough fans to worry about, which did not help the matter. No. And if you know Billy

Martin, that's a total Billy Martin thing to say, right? Yes. So Billy Martin says this just offhandedly. And also by the way, during that brawler, after the brawl, the fans at the Rangers stadium through trash and all sorts of stuff beat dump beer onto the Indians as they went back to their dugout. So there was a lot of ire about this in Cleveland, not the least of which was Billy Martin's little quip. And there was at the time a sports talk radio personality named Pete Franklin. And if you're familiar with sports talk radio, they talk a lot of trash. They don't, you know, suffer a lot of idiots, I guess you could put it. And this Pete Franklin seems to have, if not been the origin of the modern sports talk radio personality, he was definitely one of the

early people who was doing this. That's right. So I think he just sort of riled people up even more on the radio, right? And what happened over the following week, he spent most of his sports line show on WWE, just getting everybody riled up to get to this game and to show the Rangers what we thought about them. All right, I think that's a great time for a break. And we'll get to what happened on June 6 right after this. Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart podcast Frosted Tips with Lance Bass. The hardest thing could be knowing who to turn to when questions arise or times get tough, or you're at the end of the road. Okay, I see what you're doing. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands

give me in this situation? If you do, you've come to the right place because I'm here to help. This, I promise you. Oh, God. Seriously, I swear. And you won't have to send an SOS because I'll be there for you. Oh, man. And so my husband, Michael. Um, hey, that's me. Yeah, we know that, Michael, and a different hot sexy teen crush boy band are each week to guide you through life, step by step. Oh, not another one. Kids, relationships, life in general can get messy. You may be thinking, this is the story of my life. Just stop now. If so, tell everybody, yeah, everybody about my new podcast and make sure to listen. So we'll never, ever have to say bye, bye, bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast,

or wherever you listen to podcasts. I'm Mangesh Chitikler. And to be honest, I don't believe in astrology. But from the moment I was born, it's been a part of my life. In India, it's like smoking. You might not smoke, but you're going to get second hand astrology. And lately, I've been wondering if the universe has been trying to tell me to stop running and pay attention. Because maybe there is magic in the stars, if you're willing to look for it. So I rounded up some friends and we dove in and let me tell you, it got weird fast. Tantric curses, major league baseball teams, canceled marriages, K-pop. But just when I thought I had to handle on this sweet and curious show about astrology, my whole world came crashing down. Situation doesn't

look good. There is risk to father. And my whole view on astrology, it changed. Whether you're a skeptic or a believer, I think your ideas are going to change too. Listen to Skyline Drive and the iHeart Radio App, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. All right. So I said June 6th. You said June 6th. It was really June 4th. Yeah. Please don't get it wrong. We just got it wrong and didn't feel like re-recording the whole episode. Right. So it was June 4th that this game started. And it was the beginning of a three-game homestand. And by the time that this game rolled around, 26,000 Clevelanders showed up at the game for 10-cent beer night, angry at the Texas Rangers who the Indians were about to play.

That's right. And to say things got out of hand is, again, a pretty big understatement. The video I watched that told me about the six cups at a time said that at one point, people were buying so much beer, the vendors couldn't keep up. So they just pulled the beer trucks in just outside the outfield walls. And there were two teenage girls working the station that got so overwhelmed. They left. They just ran away. And all of a sudden there were beer trucks. They flipped over the table. And I don't know if this is true or not, but there were reports that some of them literally carried tapped kegs of beer into the stands. Okay. From everything that I've read about this night, that is 100% believable. It totally is. So in addition to

stuff like that happening, there was a lot of foreshadowing that this was not a normal game. A lot of people were running out onto the field more than normal. I mean, in the 70s, streaking on a baseball field wasn't just totally unheard of. There was a thing. There was a song about streaking. Yeah. The ones put me in coach. I'm ready to streak. Oh, not that one. Look at me. So there were two streakers at this game in the third and the sixth innings. And then there was another, I guess you could call them streakers that came out at, I'm not sure what inning, but it was a father and son duo who ran into the outfield and mooned everybody in the bleachers. Yeah. One of the streakers, this completely naked man, and this is not advisable, went in

and ran and slid while the game was going on, slid into second base, but naked. Yeah. So this is happening during this game. At a baseball game. This is while a lid is being kept on everything. This is like a simmering kettle at this point. And so you can make a case that all that's kind of in good fun, even though it's pretty ribald and a little unruly to say the least, but it kind of started to turn ugly. At one specific point when Laren Lee, who is a Cleveland player, hit a line drive back to the pitcher for the Rangers, Ferguson Jenkins, and it hit him in the stomach and dropped Ferguson Jenkins like a sack of potatoes. And rather than, you know, show any kind of concern or anything like that, that set off the fans to chant, hit him again, hit him again,

which kind of ticked the Rangers off a little bit. Yeah. So that riles people up even more. They start throwing stuff. They start throwing hot dogs, batteries, beer, the usual stuff. Billy Martin comes out and starts blowing kisses into the crowd, apparently. There's a picture of him doing so. This is like classic Billy Martin again. That riled up people even more, and they started shooting, they brought fireworks and started shooting fireworks into the Rangers dugout. Yeah. This is during a baseball game that's going on, everybody. Yeah, they were still trying to play the game. Yeah. So as this game's going on, the Rangers are winning most of the time. I think by the, I think the sixth, they had a

five to one lead, but then the Indians scored two runs in the sixth, made it five to three, and then they scored two more runs in the ninth. So it was five to five. And they actually had the winning run on second base and were at bat when the incident that proved to be the straw that broke the camel's back and let all hellbreak lose happened. That's right. And it was, well, it shouldn't have happened, but it was a bit of a misunderstanding in that a fan ran out and tried to grab Jeff Burroughs hat off his head. Burroughs tripped and fell to the ground, but all the Rangers saw was Burroughs on the ground with a fan right there. And they thought he was attacked. And Billy Martin basically says, go get them guys and take your bats with you. So the Texas Ranger baseball

club streams out onto the field with baseball bats looking for vengeance. They're met by a flood of angry Cleveland fans who start streaming onto the field, and they have more than baseball bats. Bleacher Report says that they had knives, chains, and portions of the stadium seats that they had ripped off. This is like the Simpsons rumbling or something like that. It's cartoonish, but this is what happened in Cleveland on this night. That's right. I saw that there were 50 security guards in the whole stadium with 26,000 fans, so they did not adequately prepare for what ended up basically being a riot. They stole the bases, not like, hey, he stole second base. Nice job. They ripped the bases out.

Apparently those bases are still not recovered. So in garages in Ohio, someone has these bases still, I guarantee it. And I'm sure there's a tap keg right next to it. Oh, I hope so. So we should definitely point out that to their credit, the Indians streamed out on the field with bats of their own to defend the Rangers because these people might actually kill some of the Texas Rangers. So baseball players are getting in fights with rioters on the field. Baseball players from both teams. The guy who is actually the head official of the game, Nestor Chylac, suffered a head injury because he was hit by one of those stadium seats that had been ripped off. He also had to cut on his hand because he had been hit by a rock.

And finally, he calls the game and says this game is over, the Indians forfeit, and the Rangers are the winners, I guess. Yeah, there are a bunch of videos on YouTube that they don't show it live, but they show photos. It's hard to believe when you see this. This happened. I mean, it was a street brawl between professional athletes. It showed people, like, bleeding from the head and being carried off on stretchers. And, you know, today, like, an NBA player, you know, if he gets into like a yelling at a fan in the stands and there's a confrontation, it's a really big deal. This was a street fight on a baseball field during a baseball game. Yeah, it was like that scene in Anchorman. There was a guy on horseback with a trident,

you know? I mean, it was like that. But in Cleveland, and it was because everybody had drank so much beer. So the Indians very wisely went back to the drawing board, and they said, we've got three more of these beer nights scheduled, and we've already been publicizing them, so we can't really take them back because they'll probably riot again. So we're going to change it from unlimited beer to just four beers per person. And that was that for 10 cent beer night. Yeah, so instead of six at a time, four total. Yeah. I saw, and, you know, again, who knows what these YouTube videos, if these are accurate, but I saw 60,000 beers consumed, and how many people were there? 26,000. Yeah. You know, a lot of which were probably underage,

so you do the math. Yeah. And he said that there were 19 streakers total, so who knows? Man, isn't that just nuts? Yes. It is crazy to think about, and boy, if you were there, please, please email us. I would love to hear a story. Yeah, definitely. And spare a thought for those poor two teenage girls who were chased off of the beer trucks for their lives. Yeah. And anyone that got legitimately hurt, I mean, we're kind of laughing at all this, but I didn't see that anyone was like seriously, seriously injured. Right. They had blood streaking down their face from their scalp. Just like stitches and light stitches. They were in handcuffs being led away, had to call in late for work the next day.

I hope we find another good Cleveland topic. This is starting out to be quite a series. Yeah. It's a rich vein, isn't it? It is. You got anything else? I got nothing else. All right, everybody, then like beer night in June 4th, 1974, short stuff is out. Stuff you should know is a production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts, My Heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.