The Dollop with Dave Anthony and Gareth Reynolds - 15 - Ten Cent Beer Night

Episode Date: August 4, 2014

Dave Anthony and Gareth Reynolds discuss the Cleveland Indians famous 10 Cent Beer Night in 1974.Tour DatesSources - Main - Article - "Remembering 10 Cent Beer Night" by Paul Jackson on ESPN.com Dollop MerchPatreon

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Gira. Stay okay. Someone or something is tickling people. Is it for fun? And this is not gonna come to Tickly podcast. Okay. You are queen fakie of made-up town. All hell queen shit of Liesville. A bunch of religious virgins go to Mingle. And do what? Pray. What? That's the beginning. Ah, it's a horrible beginning. Girl! Um, this one's about baseball too. Okay. The roof went over so well. The roof, the roof is gold. There have been 128 forfeits in 139 years of professional baseball. Okay. The last one was on January 4th, 1974. Okay. Also known as Tencent Beer Night

in Cleveland. Right. I knew it. I assumed you've heard this story. Yes. I don't know everything, but I know I know that's when you said the last forfeit was that year. That's how you make me think of that. Um, on May 29th, 1974, the Cleveland Indians lost a game to the Texas Rangers in Texas. It included a bench-clearing brawl, and the fans threw beer and food on the Indians. Well, that's out of context. That sounds awful. Thanks for the land, dickhole. Pour beer on him. I didn't mean the team. They went on, just found American Indians. They called him ketchup in his hair. So Indian fans are holding a grudge against the Rangers when they came

to town a week later, right? So they come to Cleveland and, and you know how, you know, these fights work. It was a real fight. You know, some fights, okay, so a ranger slid hard, which means he went into the second baseman really hard. Yeah. And the players thought it was too hard. That's part of baseball, though. Yeah. But some, but there's this weird line you can cross. There is a lot of weird etiquette in baseball. There's a lot of, it's like literally like one thing is fine and the next thing that's the same thing. Yeah. That's fucking bullshit. There's just, there's just a, there's just the thing about it when you watch it, you go, well,

that's horseshit. And then someone has to get hurt. Yeah. Okay. Sure. That's baseball. Sounds like sense. Sounds like laws. So the Indians thought that he slid in too hard. And the next guy, the next time that guy came up to bat, they, they, you know, threw one at his head or his head. Give him a little chin music. A little chin music. It's called message scent, right? And then he is next pitch. He bunted, pitcher picked it up. He gave the pitcher a little forearm. Then the first baseman came down and punched him in the face. And then, and then it was on. And then everybody leaves. And that's like a real brawl. Like that. So there's certain

brawls in baseball. There's some brawls are like, like in the movie Animal House at the end when the band goes into the alley and just slowly squishes in. And some fights are like that, where everyone's just kind of pushing against each other. Nobody really wants to fight. My horn is bent, but nobody, nobody actually fights. Caught in your zipper there, my friend. And then, and then there's fights like this where it's real and the players get all fucking fired up. Yeah. Fire up and the fans get super into it. There's brawls for me. Like when the Giants played the Cardinals in 87 or 88. I still remember this fight to this day

because August Smith was one of the best short stops defensively ever. And Will Clark slid in a second and Aussie punched him in the back of the head. And for this whole for the rest of my life, like he is one of the best ball of baseball players all the time. And anytime someone says anything, yeah, but he's a bitch. Like it just like I still hold a little. Yeah, but that guy's a fucking bitch. And everyone's like, what? I'm like, we fucking pushed Will Clark in the back of the head. When in 1987, was that Rain Man? It's just very forth 1987. As you've probably been in the backers had. Definitely contusion. So

held on. So you hold on to shit like it just sinks in there as a baseball fan. Yeah. And especially a week later, it's fresh. And the fans go there expecting like the fans go there expecting there to be violence. They want their team to do something back. It's true, right? Yeah. They're like, oh, no, I'm paying them. This ticket's not just for games for revenge. I went to a fight in a baseball game broke out. So so that so it's one of those kind of brawls. Like it's it's a serious one. It sticks with them. And when everything calmed down a little bit, the Indians went back to their dugout. Then they

were the the the the fans just threw beer and threw shit at him. So it was like a little bit. It's a little bit worse. Yeah. Yeah. A little bit worse. An Indian player had to be held back from going into the stands to fight a fan. Always. Always a great. That was till 70s and early 80s, though. They were they were always baseball players like, oh, Reggie Smith went into the crowd and beat up a guy. Yeah, okay, that may okay. Yeah, I get it. As a fan that has to be kind of awesome. You're like, I got to him so much that he crossed the professional line with me. Okay, once I was in college and Larry Johnson, who's became a famous

basketball players was on UNLV. And I yelled something about him about his mom on the court. He turned and started walking towards me. I contact huge man. I mean, a monster. The monster of a human being just walking towards me. I contacted two of the players, graduated and pulled away. He was about to punch me in the face. You know, I think I like his chances in that. I think he was. I don't think I like my face's chances. Yeah. What's that? I don't think there's a podcast with that. 20 years later, still have like a fish-shaped mark in your head. Well, now Dave, why do you only eat mush? What is that about? What is it

about mush that really gets you? My like mush is a mushy. You're gonna punch him in the back of his head. Okay, so to top it all off, Billy Martin was the manager of the Rangers, which brings in a whole new I guess we should get into Billy Martin. Billy Martin was like no other manager that has ever been involved. I don't think I know Billy. Okay. Billy Martin was was fucking incredible. So he would win any way he could. He was a huge alcoholic. Like like he should have gotten used at the end of every year. They should have been like and the most alcoholic he goes to Billy come on up here and he'd fall over and they'd put

a crown on his head. He won again, guys. He's really drinking, guys. He's a real drinker. So when he was a player in 1952, he was given the job as the Yankees enforcer. So whenever someone needed to be hurt, not even the pitchers, they would have him do it. He was the second baseman, right, which is unheard of. It's harder. It's harder to be suddenly aggressive. That's the second baseman. Exactly. And I'll give you one example. Here's a quote from him with a fight he started. Courtney was coming down to second. Instead of tagging him, I wound up and hit him right between the eyes with the ball. I knocked off his cap and

broke his glasses. Okay, that's so he's throwing the ball at guys running around. He's just a crazy asshole and he's to start fights all the time like off. He'd always get in fights in bars. He was that guy. He's always fighting. Okay. So he would also he would cheat as a manager. He was such a fucking cheater. And then he would always say he was cheating and then he would get fired for it. See, that's a dead giveaway. Like he would be like he like he would hate that another player on another team is throwing a spitball. So then he'd have his team throw spitballs the whole game and then he'd after the game, they go, that's right.

I have my boys through spitballs. They'd be like, well, now you're fired. You lost by nine and you're fired. Because you can cheat in baseball, but you can't talk about it. It's not one of those stupid things. Like you can cheat. Everyone expects you to cheat. But if you say you're cheating, then everyone's like, Oh, come on. Yeah, it's like when a politician gets busted for something. Exactly. Every other politician's like, how dare he? Oh my lord. How dare he? I can't believe he's on horse with money. I've never done that. But he was a great manager. Okay. So he kept getting fired and hired. He used to order his players

to purposely try to hit opposing players when they were running. He used to order his pitcher to hit the batters, you know, when they're throwing the ball. He was rehired and fired by the Yankees five times alone in like six years, not like over like a 40 year span in like six years. Baby, I'm sorry. Take me back one more time. I don't know, Billy. He got into a fight with one of his own pitchers at a hotel and ended up breaking an arm and the pitcher broke a rib as the manager as the manager. So the manager's fighting the player. Yes. I was on a nationally televised baseball game. I think it was in 79. The best player in baseball was

Reggie Jackson. Him and Reggie Jackson had to be restrained from each other in the dugout while I mean 20 million people are watching. So who like if you're in charge and someone's trying to break it up, like you have authority to be like, no, you're fired. Let me hit him. Let me hit him. I can still remember it like vividly and it was in 79 because I was a kid and I was like, what's happening? What's wrong with these grownups? Daddy, what's going on? I don't know. I need a drink. Shut up and eat your mush. You're the wrong daddy. So that's so that's like the level of guide that we're looking for sure in this situation where you want you want to calm cool sort of

head to deal with things. Yeah, that's not really what we guide what we got. After the game, a reporter asked Billy Martin, are you going to take your armor to Cleveland to which Martin replied, nah, they won't have enough fans there to worry about. So he's like, you know, yeah, he's digging in. He's digging in. Bulletin board material. Cleveland now is not a very good team. So they when you're not a very good team and you get into fight with another team, then the fans have something to cheer about. Yeah, totally. And all of a sudden, everyone goes to the game to watch whatever's going to happen. Yeah, there's something to do, at least.

Right. Yeah. So the Cleveland radio guys jump on it and they're getting everyone all fucking fired up. Pete Franklin, his famous radio guy there on his sports lab program just keeps talking about it and talking about there's gonna be revenge. We're going to get these guys. So he was like, you know, inciting a brawl. Sure. Local newspaper printed a cartoon of the game showing Chief Wahoo, which was there. Is there a mascot horribly racist mascot holding a pair of boxing gloves with the caption, be ready for anything. So everybody was not right about this. Oh, my God. And this chief Wahoo. It's so I know a white guy's first attempt at a

mascot man. What's going on? Chief Wahoo. What's for lunch? Wait, are we gonna do two and three now? So we're done there. Good. Okay, you should when you got the perfect name, you know it. Okay, I feel like I'll see you guys later. Okay. Bye guys. All right. Thanks for coming by. You're welcome. Can I call you chief? Absolutely not. That's racist. Alright, so let's talk about Cleveland at the time, because I think that also went into this. So if you want to talk about the state of Cleveland, you have to talk about the Cuyahoga River, which runs through downtown. Sure. It was so polluted that in the 50s, 1952, it caught on fire for the

ninth time. Now, Dave, I am not a smart man, and I've never claimed to be. So go ahead. One thing I'm not used to hearing is about water catching on fire. Well, what are we gonna put it out with? No, the river. No. Oh, shit. It's making it worse. Oh, this is such a catch point. This fire loves water. Put more fire on it. No. I think we just let her burn. The fire comes up. He's like, boy, I am baffled. This is, you know, this is the ninth time it happened and every single time I am confused. You know, should we just let it burn again? I really don't know. I just

let it cry it out normally. I let the fire cry it out. In 1952, it didn't get that much national attention, which to me is the most amazing thing. That's amazing. No one, everyone was like, yeah, hey, cheer, river caught fire in Cleveland. Cleveland? Oh, really? What do you think the weather's gonna be like? Like, no one gave a shit. Of course, the river caught fire in Cleveland. It's fucking Cleveland. It's a river. That's on fire. 18's supposed to burn. They're supposed to burn, right? Mississippi burning. The list goes on and on. I'm from Pittsburgh. I have all of my rivers are on fire. Oh, yeah. Lakes don't burn. Rivers burn. I bet we

could find a lake that's burned in America. I bet we could find a lake that's burned. We'll try it. We'll look for one. A burning lake. So in 1969, it caught fire again. Congratulations. And then it was 69, so people were like, whoa. Yeah, we've been we've been reading books and stuff. Right. Earth's pretty cool. We're not supposed to have it on fire. The flames reached five stories high. Oh my god. So it like exploded. So this river is just so full of shit. Yeah, it's just gas and flammable. Yeah, it's everything you can think of. It's just not even a rich river. It's not even really fair. I'm sure if you jumped in it, you'd be like, I can feel my

bones. You just come out glowing and floating. It burned for about 30 minutes. Just think about the guy who was like walking over a bridge and just tossed a cigarette. It lit. I should probably get the fuck out of here. That's not good. I thought that thing about the river catching on fire was a rumor. I owe my mom an apology. She was not lying. Oh my. Oh, there goes my boat. Oh boy. Some guys in a row boat. Oh, Jesus. Oh, my options are not good here. So environmentalists targeted Cleveland like it was like the and it still is Cleveland is like the dirty city when you think of the city. Outrage led to the the creation of the

environmental protection agency which forwarded in 1970. So Republicans say we don't need the APA. It's just, you know, hurting businesses. You can say rivers were on fire. Well, I think they've also they don't need the APA. They've made that pretty clear. They have made it because they would like rivers to be on fire. Yes, that's that's fine. You know what you're doing? You're stopping me from making money and being able to have rivers be on fire. Look, fiery rivers lead to bridges leads to jaws. Thank you. Thank you. Who puts out the fires fire. Fire River put her out of the river. Think about the fire River put her out

is the don't have job. That's what happens is when the fireman comes to the scene of the rivers on fire, he's like, I think this is more the river guys the party. Don't we got those river fire put out especially guys called the river man. The river man are coming. That's fine. So Cleveland lost about 600 factories in the decade before the 10 cent beer game. Jesus Christ. So all the big industrial operations. Oh, we can't dump shit in the river. Let's go somewhere else. Oh, so they all bailed. That's Cleveland lost

about 170,000 people live in there between 70 and 80. So they totally bottomed out the city council was discussing bankruptcy. That's a city. Yeah, the whole city. I think I think Cleveland is the first city to ever declare bankruptcy. Well, there's something. So they're fucked up. So it's a fucked up city. Yeah, the rivers are on fire and they have no money. And now this team is coming to town that everyone wants to beat up. So what you're telling me is there's a lot of brewing. Yeah, there's a people in general. There's a brewing tension. Not the city you want to bump shoulders. No, there's a brewing tension. Yeah. And in

Cleveland and what could go better than 10 cent beer night? So can you see anything that might go wrong? No, absolutely not. No, I think when you have cheap alcohol and angry people and a crowded environment, good things happen. Oh, OK. Yeah, you're gonna like this story. Now, wait a minute. Are you trying to tell me something to the contrary? So the idea behind the promotion was to track more fans to the game by offering 12 ounces of beer for just 10 cents, which a limit with a limit of six per purchase. OK, so. No, hold on. What? You you heard six per purchase. Yeah. And you thought I said

six per person. I said six per purchase. Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't think you said six per person. I thought that's what that meant. No, that means one dude could only buy six at a time. Oh, that's it. OK. Holy shit. Why is that even a fucking rule? What is that like? Like, how could you carry if you want to get like alcohol poisoning, you have to walk twice to the stand four times. Like, well, how is that? You can tell you never came up with 10 cent beer nights of fucking moron. Six per purchase, too. All right, we got it. Sounds good. We got it. We got this thing shut down tight. Cross the teeth at the eyes. There was no

system in place to stop someone from buying beer and handing it to a teenager and then buy more beer. There was literally no control. They were just taking dimes and handing people beers. I mean, dimes. Dimes. Dimes. And tickets to get to the game where I think 50 cents, bleach your seats for 50 cents so you could get plowed on a dollar and get a seat. Bleach your seats are the worst seats in a baseball stadium. They're in the outfield. There were all the ra- that's where, even to this day, most people, if you're in a family, you're not going to sit in the bleachers because bad shit still happens in the bleachers. Totally.

So people are sleeping from like vodka somehow. Yeah. Yeah. Last time I was in the bleachers at Dyer Stadium, there's a guy in front of me on heroin falling asleep. Cool. Like, that's the bleachers. Well, that was the mascot. That says LA. Okay, so it was hot. Okay, good. Oh, even better. Early June humidity is when humidity hits Cleveland. Yep. So there was a big clog of the concession stands. But, Dave, they were allowed to do six per purchase. Why was there a clog? I don't understand. It is weird. It is weird. They'd already thought this through. Right. Yeah. Okay. It was the wrong time to do it because that's right when college gets out. So every college

kid in the world was like, let's go to this fucking game and get plowed. So, and you can show up at a baseball game two hours early. Yes. And get in. So they have been drinking forever and also a lot of them, by all the reports, already came plowed. Right. So it started out as like a booze cruise before it even. You imagine having to play that night. You'd probably be like, this is just not good. This is gonna go well. It's got a bad feeling. Bad feeling about tonight. Okay, so go. The number was twice as expected of people. They expected that normally they

got about 10,000 or under. And because of the promotion, they expected a couple more thousand. This thought to be like 12,000, 25,000 plus show up. So they're already like, hey, successful. Yeah. Technically. Now to the game. Oh, good. Out of the game. I forgot there was a game. Oh, this is quite a ball game. The Rangers took the lead in the second inning on a home run. Just a few pitches later, a heavy set woman sitting near first base jumped the wall. Oh my god. Ran to the Indians on deck circle, Baird her enormous breasts to an appreciative applause from all the teenagers.

The umpire is like, well, this is just not a, I mean, what are we, an inning one? Second inning. Second inning. And the only reason I waited until the second is because they had to wait that long to get their beers to their seats. Yeah, true. Yeah. So I've seen pictures of this woman. She is like a middle aged. She looks like somebody's mom. She's like a middle aged woman with a hair all done up in a big leg. Just flashing the crowd. It's fucking crazy. Because she's shitfaced in the second inning. She's, and then she's like smiling. And then they had to haul her off because she tried to kiss the head umpire. It was like, I can't be kissed right now. It was like, I just kissed me behind here after the game. Kiss me or whatever. Meet me

there, but you're out of here right now. Right now. I'm going to do something. You're out of here, but don't believe that. I love you. I love you. I love you. Your breasts are huge. You're out of here. Call me as soon as you can. Right away when you get out of here. So um, she looked like, she looked, she literally looked like she was like 40, 40 ish. She, it's crazy. The moment caught her. Rivers are on fire and it's a different time. So then the stadium had the, uh, the announcer, Herb, uh, implore Herb scored, implore the fans not to run on the field. Uh, attention everybody, please. Let's not run on the field tonight. Yeah, file this under announcements. We didn't think we had to make. Don't run on the field. Don't show your tits and don't try to kiss the

officials. I can't believe I'm making this announcement on 10 cent beer night. I cannot for a second guess there's new rules for 10 cent beer night. There's no murdering. Oh, we'll get to that. Oh boy. Um, murder. Now I should add firecrackers were going off the whole time. Shit show. So whether it was a coincidence or just lucky, all of these kids brought firecrackers. Now when I was growing up back then, uh, firecrackers started firecracker season started like June 1st and went till August the end of August. Like you just had firecrackers. Yeah, they were just fucking everyone. Someone would always go to Chinatown, pick up a bunch of bricks, bring it back. I also might have been one of those guys who went to Chinatown and made a little bit

of money. Maybe who knows? I might have made a little bit of money on the set. Maybe you were selling firecrackers. So there's just dudes loaded with firecrackers just throwing them everywhere and setting them off. Okay. Sounds like a lot of fun. Sounds great. Sounds like what you want in a ball game. That's not scary. No, not at all, especially for the families going there. Uh, so explosions are just going off. There's smoke. Um, so it created like a, like a war zone sort of, they have to be careful feeling because they could relight the river on fire if they're not careful. Fire river guys. Come on. So smoke was just dripping through the stadium from the exploding gunpowder. There's also a lot of pot smoke. And then my favorite thing

of all is the war drums. Okay. So it's, it's the Cleveland Indians. So these idiots bring war drums and they sit up in the bleachers and they go, that's a better name. The Cleveland idiots. Better. Less offensive. So the idiots, so these, so these, they would, so wild, they're wild as all going on. There's like this weird. So there's firecrackers. Right. Smoke. Smoke. People are wasted. It's hot as fuck. And there's war drums. Everybody's angry. Yeah. I mean, can you imagine staying for more than like, I'd be like, get the fuck out of here. No. And nobody was like, we should wrap this up, right? This seems like it's going. Am I just crazy or is this horrible? This seems like it's going in a really bad direction. I mean, those

are war drums. Are you hearing the war drum? I'm the only one who feels like Jews in Poland right now. Get the fuck out, maybe. So it's like a fucking war, right? The Rangers hit their second home run on the fourth inning. To fans delight, I'm sure. That's when a man entirely naked, oh boy, ran onto the field. Oh God. And slid into second. Oh, okay. So I can't, this guy, you started that wasn't a fan by the end. I love this. Oh, do you know how slid? Do you know how in pain he was? Oh, the dirt, the gravelly. Oh, it's all up. You can't slide on that. No, it's all up in your ass. Like stuck in there. It's just horrifying. That poor son of a bitch. And then he ran off. They didn't catch him. How did they not catch him?

He naked and like bloody. They also might not have wanted to catch him. That's fair too. I guess you let him run at that point. So early on, the demand for the beer surpassed the Indian 's ability to give it out of concession stands. So they ran out of beer. No. Okay. So someone decided to have the fans line up outside the outfield fences and drive the beer trucks up. So they drove the beer trucks directly to people. So they're out of beer in the stadium. Well, not out, but they're not able to keep up with it. There's just the lines are so huge people get more hands on deck. Yeah, they need more hand. They need more beer on deck. They need more hands on deck. Yeah,

not more drunks on deck. They got a lot of those. So they're like, let's get a beer. Let's get three beer trucks. Put them outside the fence. And then people can line up down there too. Okay. Are you not? How are you not on board with that? I just it doesn't seem like a good call. It seems like it sounds like that's gonna go badly. It sounds like it's gonna work out fine. Well, I think you know, and I feel like you're lying. I'm not lying is the right word. Okay. Making stuff up. Sure. So the the people serving the beer at each beer truck. Uh, it's two teenage girls. What? The seventies were so fucking insane. I mean,

but honestly, I mean, who they like girls after after school, their job. Can you imagine like even in the heat of all this, the planning of all this, get the beer trucks for the outfield? Who's who's serving up giant men there to take care of the situation giant men. Yeah. And just and just like five of them just standing there not doing anything. Yeah, you have giant men and teenage girls. And I'm sure they're dressed in like little tops. Oh my god. Hey, you want to be here? Like shut up and kiss me. Give me my six per purchase. So the line started to back up because the girls can't deal with the crush of idiots needing 10 cent beers, you know, because they're walking up with a, where they're walking up with 50 cents

and say, give me five because they don't even care if they all get back to their seat. Like you can drop four and still have a really good time game. There's no game at this point. I mean, this, uh, the problem I think is that they're not going to be able to meet the demand. Oh, that's what I feel like is happening. That is so that is such an optimistic idea of how this turns out. So the guys in line can't take it at the beer trucks. So they pick up the table in front of the girls and throw it over the beer truck. So just get that out of the way. We don't need this divider. You know, this is making it harder for us to get all the beer fast. Hey Larry,

there's something between me and the beer. Throw it. So the girls just all walk off. Oh, the girls are like, yep, I gotta go. Oh, I am 17 and not interested. This ends in death. This is getting rapey. Yeah. So now it's free beer. It's free beer night. Now the guys aren't even using cups and they're just drinking straight out of the tap. Like it's just dudes lined up taking hits off the tap. Men are just monsters. Oh my God. If you've ever been into a public bathroom for men, then you'll know everything you need to know about how horrible we are as creatures. They're just sucking down the beer out of the taps. No, it's like vikings pillaging it down. They're celebrating. Yeah. They've won. They threw the table.

So now is when Billy Martin gets into the act. Okay. So a normal manager would serve the environment and say, okay, I'm going to hang back on this one. I'm not going to do my usual Billy Ball stuff. Right. I'm just going to be really calm because his whole thing was about agitating the other team and getting them upset and off their game. Like that was his game. Sure. But he. So he didn't. He didn't do that. This is like he's also probably plowed. Like, yeah, I'm giving the odds like 80 percent that Billy is off. There's a picture of him in this whole melee standing out in front of the dugout smoking a cigarette and looking back at the crowd. Oh my God. Yeah. So there's a close call at third in which one of his players got spiked.

Right. So he runs out and starts arguing with the umpires. And now when he argued, it was like one time he threw dirt at an umpire like he threw dirt. Yeah, he picked up dirt and threw it at the umpire's chest. Very aggressive. And then he tried to and then he tried to later get a friend to take out a hit on that. Well, you know what? That makes me feel like maybe the first thing wasn't that aggressive. Now that I in retrospect, I know the comparison. Um, yeah. Did I read all the stuff that Billy did? No, it's OK if I didn't. He said he did a lot of shit like that. So but he really tried to take he really tried to get a hit man to kill an umpire. I mean, this is a very horrible thing to do.

In the fourth inning when the Indians batter smacked a line drive only at the fourth fucking inning. Fuck me. In the fourth inning when the Indians smacked a line drive back to the Rangers pitcher. Frickie Jenkins Jenkins can not get out of the way and the ball hit him in the stomach as he writhed in pain. The fans began to clap and then chant hit him harder, hit him harder, hit him harder. It's the whole stadium. Oh my God. Now it's like a gladiator death. Yeah, you're the Rangers. It definitely now feel. Oh, you're not entertained. Tatters fucking eyes out. What? He hit him harder. He was like, what a bunch of savage. Got it off. Got it off. What's happening? In the fifth inning, two men in the outfield got into the act, jumping the wall

and moaning the outfields, the Rangers outfielders. Love them. The players watched hands on hips, shaking their heads as Park Security chased chased one after another across the diamond. I mean, so so far, there's four people. And they've all been pretty crazy and naked. So then when Billy comes out to argue, yeah, because the building happens in the sixth, I think, so he comes out to argue and, you know, if their players hurt, they have to take them out of the game. So now the Rangers are upset. The fans are, you know, cheering it. Yeah. Awesome. So now plastic cups start raining down. Oh, God. On the on the field while the argument's happening, mostly still full of beer

because because it's worth who gives a fuck. It's tap water. It's the cheapest beer ever. Yeah. Oh my God. Yeah. The beer quality. I would just buy eight and then just throw them all and go buy eight more. It's not even for drinking. I need eight there for washing. I'm going to go wash up. We're washing with beer. It's cheaper. So and remember, this is a time when they didn't shut down beer sales. Oh, there was a time when now they shut them down in the seventh inning. Yeah. But back in the old days, you could order a beer on your way out, which is not good. It really is smart to go to your car. They have a beer. But it is like it is true. Your mentality and like the last inning of a baseball game, if you can drink, would just be like a plow. Oh, yeah. Get plowed.

Get plowed. And it's always fun when you watch people's reaction to you can't buy beer past the seventh. Oh my. What the fuck? Not even one. So she's, Christ, what the fuck happened to this country? If I was an American, I might check. Oh, OK. I guess I'll just go piss or fuck you. Can I have a hot tub? A hot tub? That's the round meat thing. I think you should go. I'm going to the bathroom. I know. We can see. So as Martin returned to the dugout, classic Billy Barton, he blew kisses into the stands. Oh boy. Oh boy. Then someone tossed a bunch of firecrackers into the Rangers bullpen. Oh no. So that's where all the pitchers sit. That's where the pitchers are warming up, throwing the ball. So it was not going well. The bullpen

was ordered evacuated by the umpires. These umpires must have just been like this. I wish somebody would take a hit out of me. But you know, umpires also have this thing where they're like, we're going to finish this goddamn game. We're going to, no matter what, I can have one arm and I'll finish the fucking game. So the public address announcer. So also that means the pitchers have to warm up on the mound instead of in the bullpen, which would take longer. So it's all delaying. I think they'd rather that. It's delaying everything. The announcer, meanwhile, is like, what do you need me to say? The announcer came on and reminded spectators not to litter the field. What do you think happened? I bet they listened and ceased. This massive rain of cups

just flew down. The next thing is throw as many cups as you can on the field, please. So they decided that they couldn't make any more announcements. We're going well. Well, this crowd's, you can't announce things to these people. They don't take kindly to announcements. The ground screw had not sat down since the second inning. And now the outfield fans were just using them as targets, trying to hit them with beer. They took all the Rangers away from them. So whenever they went to clean up beer, they just got hit by more beer. So it really sounds like you just don't want to try to solve things here. Solving is the wrong move. It's the unwinnable situation. It's allowing. Just allow.

Get out of the way. It could not be less winnable. Yeah. So I imagine the ground screw guys just stopped going out there. Oh my God. Another woman jumped out of the stands waving, although she didn't take her clothes off. The crowd chanted her for her to when she's arrived, she attacked them. Oh my God. The surprised ushers forced her to the ground, prompting the crowd to boo and start shouting police brutality. This is the same crowd that just said hit him harder, right? Yes. Moments earlier. There's not a lot of logic going on at this point. You'll find there was a dime of beer that night. So logic, not big, not a big thing. Now this is an interesting time to point out that it did not occur to the Indians organization

to request an additional police presence at the ballpark for Tencent beer night. If any municipal police were in the stadium that night, they were off duty and quite possibly as drunk as anyone else. And even if you had John McClain in the fucking stands, you don't want to be like, I'm a cop. Everyone will die. You're a dead man. No. Guess how many security they had present? How many actual guards? How many security guards? Oh, Jesus. Well, 25,000. I mean, they had to have 50. They had 50. Oh my God. So few. One per 500. But this is not a regular 500. This is like a 500. That's like the 300. Yeah. This army is mighty. And the fact that cops haven't been called yet is remarkable.

Why are they still doing it? I have no idea. Do you feel this? At some point, what do you do? You can't stop. You can't stop it. If you shut everything off, that is just a riot heading downtown that started at your ballpark, right? So, but we're in the unsolvable situation. Oh, we are. There's no solution. No, there's no solution. I'm pretty glad there's no solution. This is that point in the movie where the two characters look at each other and go, well, I think we're both going to die solving this. Get the two main characters. Wait, that's not supposed to happen. Wait a minute. One man tossed a tennis ball in a center field, then scrambled after it. I love this guy.

Who is this guy? He threw a ball in a center field. He brought a tennis ball to a baseball match. He threw the tennis ball out and then he ran after it. Yeah. Did he say go get it, boy, in between? After throwing the ball back into the seats, he led park security on a little jog pausing at one point to hug another fan who jumped out to greet him. The ashes grabbed the other guy away while the duty threw the ball leap back into the stands and the junkie mass. So now there were people like, oh, we can get away with this shit. Well, that right, that is sort of the thing. Like normally at like a sporting event, if there's like a streak or something like the fans and the teams don't, they don't like that person. They

want it over. They want to get back to the game. Yeah. This guy's fucking running around like Rob Ford. He's getting hugs, fucking partying. Then a rain of beer became rocks, batteries and golf balls and anything else that those are harder than liquid. They seem a little bit batteries. Batteries. Well, you know, give me your remote control car. People used to bring batteries to games. Remember Santa Claus got hit with batteries in Philadelphia. I do not remember that. We'll talk about Philadelphia fans at one point. Santa got it with batteries. It was batteries. It was also with snowballs. It was really hard snowballs. Guaranteed. Guaranteed coal. Probably. That's coal. The next inning Ranger Mike Hargrove went into first base. So he's playing

first base in the outfield and he was pelted with hot dogs and cups of spit. That's tough. What would you rather be hit with? That is tough. I'd rather get hit with a hot dog. Much rather. The other one's like prison. That's like insult. Like that's just that's like, you know, you know that we're guys peeing in cups and throwing. Oh yeah. There's no anyone can get near a bathroom. Oh my God. A bathroom. Imagine. Imagine that bathroom's throwing up situation. You just walk in there. It's going to sound like a fucking vomitorium. Like a nine dimes lift. That threw up a dime. He said, and I quote, he was surrounded by pounds and pounds of meat estimating he had 20 pounds of hot dogs thrown at him. 20 pounds. How many

I mean, that's like 800. I mean, that's a lot of hot dogs. At one point he was at one point he was nearly struck with an empty gallon jug of Thunderbird. Oh, that one was in the rain. That was when the Rangers actually started to get worried for their safety. So this is the first time they're like, if that had hit me, I could be a dead guy. But a gallon jug of Thunderbird batteries was cute. It's 10 said beer night. Why are you bringing it? And how are you getting a gallon jug of Thunderbird? It is a fucking stadium. Put a wig on it and be like my son and I are excited for the first game. That's Bobby. This is Bobby, my boy. You like Bobby, take a whiff of his head. Oh, he's potent. No beer for me. Thank

you. I'm I'm drinking my boy tonight. Now streeters were stripping leisurely on the field of play while the game went on, abandoning their clothes in a pile in left center field. So they're just running out and taking off their clothes. And there's so many of them that no one can stop them. So there's so many of them that they've like created an area for clothes on the field. Throw your clothes over there. That's what the dirty clothes go before you streak. Run around here. Do whatever. But the main rule is just get your clothes in the pile. There's like no rules at all at this point. There's a dig. But at least on the field, there was some sort of thing. But now it's just like, world's people taking off their clothes.

Fans are athletes tonight. One night only. Oh, fuck me. Okay. A contingent of fans along the third base side began removing the padding on the left field wall either through numbers or sheer force of will. They nearly succeeded in taking a large chunk into the stands. The grounds crew abandoned its trash collection duties in the field. And for the rest of the game tried to save the padding. So they're out of the equation. Running out of fingers to plug the damn thing. Trying to save the thing that will cost a lot of money. Remember, we just wanted the field to be clean. Now let's just make sure there's a field tomorrow. Almost got it into the stand. As the night wore on. War is the right word. War is completely

correct. The crowd grew bolder. Impacts of fans frequently screwed across the outfield. Entire packs. At this point, they would just try and just let them go. Just like, have you played a game? Just a whole herd of dudes. They outnumber us asshole. There's 80 in their pack. I ain't doing shit. I'm not going after that pack. No, man, that's a pack. I ain't going to your pack. I told you, I can't just drink one. One at a time. I'm not going after the pack. I don't do packs. I don't do packs. Oh, fuck me. Newt packs. In the seventh inning, radio announcers described the baseball fans in the crowd gathering their families and leaving the stadium like refugees. So the normal people are like,

let's get the fuck out of here. Thought this would be more fun. This is not as fun as I thought. Let's go to the river. Hey, Larry, remember what I said when I said tear is ten, cent beer night a good idea? And you were like, yeah? Yeah. You go fuck yourself. Oh, fuck you, bitch. The children are crying. The children in my crying. You're like a river on fire. That's a good song. That's a Billy Joel album. In the eighth, the announcers noticed owner Ted Bonda and other members of the Indian's front office leaving the ballpark doing their best to look casual. So everybody. Yeah, who came up with this idea? Well, apparently this was sort of a common idea back then. Oh, really? Yeah, we'll get to

that at the end. I'm guessing this is kind of where they stopped thinking that was a good idea. Now we're on to the eighth and ninth innings. Some fans started throwing cherry bombs into the Rangers dugout. So now it's like the movie Warriors, where is anybody going to live? Yeah, yeah, no. Somebody killed Cyrus. The baseball fairies are going to fucking get revenge. I get you. In the ninth, the Indians mounted a rally scoring two runs to tie the game at five. So everyone should be happy. Well, the fans don't know there's a game. So that's part of the problem. And they're the winning runners at second base. When a young man named Terry Yerkick jumped from the outfield seats and ran toward Rangers outfield outfield their Jeff Burroughs.

During the circuit. Now we all know there's one thing you don't do in these situations and that's touch a player. Yes. Because that's the thing that's going to cause. That's going to be bad. Yeah. Very bad. Terry said I just wanted to get his hat. Oh God. So I ran up behind Burroughs and grabbed it and had it in my hand. And then I dropped it, which is surprising. You wouldn't think a really drunk kid. Yeah, it was also he was drunk probably and that he was like, I got it. I'm sure he looked back at his friends and he went. I went down to pick it up and Burroughs kicked me. Oh my God. Then Burroughs fell down. Okay. So now where the Rangers are in their dugout, you can't see everything. You can see like up

to people's wastes. Yeah. So all they see is their player going down. Okay. So now they think shit, it's on. Oh Jesus. So Billy Martin looks at his players, grabs a bat and says boys, let's go get him. What the fuck? The manager. There's an amazing shot of the Rangers running across the field, holding bats like they're going to war. Because they were. I hope that the guy beating the drum didn't stop. That guy's still buking and beating. In the name of Chief Wahoo, I command you to stop. So now the fans start pouring out of the stands. Oh boy. When Martin and his team reached the outfield, the Rangers found Burroughs upset but unharmed. But making things worse, Martin's army

had changed the landscape. Suddenly, the wacky fun notice were gone. And the bad element was coming out of the stands. Oh boy. You know, the guys who sit in the stands going, look at that failure. Yeah. Those guys were now let's go down there and get some. Well, this just stopped being cute. I'm about to show you why you shouldn't make more than me working at a factory baseball boy. Give him the hat. Give him the hat. Boy wants the hat. Give it to your boy. What did I say? Because I can't remember. Hey, my boy wants to pitch for an in and Mr. Martin. I think you let him, right? Out of the stands poured a mob that replaced the others and they were terrifying. They were armed. The Rangers looked around and saw people wielding chains,

knives and clubs fashioned from pieces of stadium seats. So it's like the road warrior. It's like they have been out. It's like they've they forgot that they have homes to go back to. Yeah. And they've been fashioning weapons and getting ready for a battle. You know, how do you not notice a man's bringing chains into a game? You'd not know what a guy brings in a gallon jar of thunderbird. I mean, what is that a tiger bringing in like it? None of it made sense. What is that a nuclear bomb? Get it in here. Oh, you're Wolverine. Go ahead. He looks angry. Let him go. So the Rangers, 25 rangiers quickly found themselves surrounded by 200 angry drunks and more were tumbling over

the wall on left field. It was basically an ambush and the Rangers were about to fight for their lives. Oh, God. So the riot began. Players fighting with bats. Very matter of fact. Against anything they could do against the mob, a full-scale riot and there's no cops to be seen. So no one knows this is going on. So there's probably this point probably about 20,000 fans. I mean, I would imagine there had to have been cops listening on their radios just giggling, right? Like they had to have known what was happening. Imagine being a cop hearing that and thinking, I should get down there. No, you'd be like, my night is off. I'm going to sit here and I'm going to love this. I'm going to love it every minute of it. Okay, but now the Indian,

the Indian's manager had a realization. He's sitting in his dugout and he was like, I'm about to see a baseball team get killed. Oh my God. Or them kill other people. Yeah. So he ordered his players to grab their bats and run out and fight the mob. So, okay. So he, God love him. God love him. But his idea is that he needs to now join the side of the Rangers to fight the mob. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You know, I think when you're picking sides in this fight, I don't know. Okay. I think you pick the pony. But are the fans going to attack the Indians? I'm going to guess that they will. I'm going to guess they're not seeing uniforms at this point. Well, not everyone's out there. It's like

200 people. So the Indians charged onto the field with their bats and rescued the Rangers. Rescued? Well, they got them out of the circle they were in. Yeah. And now the ball players were on the offensive. What is going on? So the game is abandoned. I'm going to read the announcers now. I'll be Tom. I'll be Tayden. You'll be score. Okay. Tom Hilkeford has just been hit on the head. Hilkeford is in infinite pain. He's bent over holding his head. This is an absolute tragedy. Absolute tragedy. The unbelievable thing is people keep jumping out of the stands after they see what's going on. Well, that shows you the complete lack of brain power on the parts of some people. There's no way I'm going to run onto a field if I see

some baseball player waving a bat out there looking for somebody. This is tragic. The whole thing has degenerated now into just now we've got another fight going on with fans and ball players. Hargrove has got some kid on the ground and he's really administering beating. Well, that fella came up and hit him from behind is what happened. Boy, Hargrove really wants a piece of him. I don't blame him at all. Oh, look at Duke Sims down there going at it. Yeah, Duke is in on it. Here we go again. An actual transcript from the game. He beat the shit out of me. He's like, why have no choice? He had him. They're still competitive. They're still their play by play of a riot. Doing their job. They won't take the night off. So the side of 50 angry

professional athletes armed with bats slowly turned the tide and stopped the advance of the mob, taking advantage of what might have been their only opportunity to escape alive. The two managers led their players. This is the greatest part out of the dugouts and down in the tunnels assisting the wounded as they went. Jesus. Wow. The bench players formed a rear guard because those on the field that fought so hard to get out there. Sounds like Gettysburg. The ones that were out there were like the front line of the battle. So they were so wounded that the guys who were on the bench who were healthy players formed a rear guard like they're in the military to get out. The bench is the infantry, essentially. Helping the wounded. Helping the baseball game.

There had to be, I don't, the idea of watching, because it goes bad pretty much right away, but the idea when somebody who's, you know, works on the administrative level is like, oh, this is, this is like fucking nightmare. Like what, they probably spend a day being like, that'll be great. Yeah, we'll get them all out. We'll just get them in, dine beers, six per purchase. Exactly. That way we could keep mine. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And then they're just going to be having a great time. It's going to be a great time. Commentators being like, I just smacked them right in the back of his head. If I was in this game, I know exactly what it would have done because I, I've been to games that were remotely close to like where the riot

cops came down. Yeah. What would you have done? I know what I used to do was me and my friends used to grab a beer and go up to the very top of the stadium and just watch. That's smart. Yeah. I'd have left. Well, you want to see it. So after the teams got out and into their, down the tunnels, the mob found itself alone on the diamond. They stole everything that was not secured down. Anything that could be taken. They stole the bases. They swarmed the doors and banged on the doors and tried to get in. And the announcers just stared down at the melee, which continued for another 20 minutes. Oh my God. You score again. All right. Oh, they've stolen the bases. The security people are just totally incapable of handling this crowd. They just, well,

short of the national guard, I'm not sure what would handle this crowd right now. It's unbelievable, just unbelievable. People go back into the seats and others jump down to take their place. The bases are gone. The bases are gone. They're like, that is such a sacrilege to them with all this violence going on. The bases are gone. Jesus Christ. What happened to America? And now some are crawling back into the stands. New ones like my turn. Tag team wrestling. And now my favorite part of the story. So every stadium has an organist that plays different chants and cheers. I'm pretty excited. The organist does the only thing he can. He played. Take me out to the ball. Oh my God. He was like, you know what? I can do something. I can do something.

Maybe I can cheer everybody up. Take me out to the ball game. I like to picture a bunch of high level security officials having a huge conversation and him sneaking in and being like, hey guys, it's not going to matter once they hear this. Take me. Oh God, a man's been stabbed. A man's been stabbed. With a base. Oh God, a man got stabbed with a base. Oh God. After taking a chair to the head, Chief Umper, Charlie Shalak had a moment on the field when he looked down and saw a hunting knife had landed blade down in the grass behind his leg. He forfeited the game to the Rangers and ran. One of the Indian players. He should have done that in the opposite order. Start running and then forfeit it. One of the Indian players was hit on the head with a piece

of a chair from the stands. He was injured pretty bad. Now, the only way to clear the field was to bring in the Cleveland SWAT team who came in and went bug fuck with their Billy clubs and their tear gas and put an end to it. Oh my God. So after it's all. Great night. Oh yeah. Great night at the ball. Great night. Were you there last night? Holy shit. What a great game. I got the highlights. Boy, that guy got killed. That's the first game I've ever gone to that ended tight. No, I didn't like Cleveland's offense last night. Really wasn't there. They could have won it in the end until they get pushed out. So Dan Coughlin was a sports writer said, so now the sports writers are just up there watching it all in the press box. I had a few beers and I was leaving

the stadium. I had my reporter's notebook with but I had my reporter's notebook with me. A dozen high school kids were standing on top of the Rangers dug out yelling for them to come out and fight. I asked one of them what they thought they were doing. I told them the Rangers weren't even in the stadium anymore that everyone that everyone is gone. When a kid came out of the crowd and sucker punched me. Oh my God. It didn't faze me. I mean, I could take a punch bag that especially from a 15 year old. That's when I just decided to leave. Oh, come on and fight, you pussies. They left two hours. They won't kill you. Fuck you old man. Fuck no at all. Coughlin would be punched once more in the face while trying to interview a fan on his way out.

Billy Martin, manager of the Rangers said, it's the closest I've ever seen anybody come to getting killed in more than my 25 years in baseball. 60,000 beers were consumed. Oh my God. At 10 cents each, there were 19 streakers, seven emergency room injuries, and nine arrests. They only arrested nine people because they just want to clear it out. Nine. One of those guys like, really me, me, me, me. Wait, how many of us got arrested? Nine. What do you mean nine? What do you mean nine? Well, we can't arrest 20,000 people. Yeah, but what the fuck? I just punched a guy. I know. We know people got stabbed. All I did was hit a guy with a chair. All I did was punch a pregnant lady.

To this day, some Rangers say if the Indians had not come out and joined, it would have been a real tragedy. The Indians coach was shaken. This is not just baseball. It's the society we live in. Nobody seems to care about anything. We complained about their people in Arlington last week when they threw beer on us and taunted us into a fight. But look at our people. They were worse. I don't know what it was. And I don't know who's to blame, but I'm scared. I mean, as Chief Wahoo on record, what did he do? We have the chief umpire. Chief umpire. Fucking animals. You can't fucking animals. You can't just pull back a pack of animals. When uncontrolled beasts are out there, you got to do something. I saw two guys with knives and

I got hit with a chair. If the fucking war is on tomorrow, I'm going to join the other side and get a shot at them. He actually said that if the fucking war is on. So like these guys are all in PTSD and shit. All of a sudden, all the Indians took on the look of Asian people. We just got to get back to the base boss. Get Charlie out of the stands. What's that, sir? Nothing. Nothing. Sorry. The Indians players escorted the Texas players to their bus without incident. So that was nice. It sounds like these teams probably got brought a lot closer together. Jackie York and Carl Fazio were the Indians promotional team responsible for the event. The next morning, they were called into Indians management partner,

Ted Bondas off. So he's basically the owner. I smell a promotion. They were sure they would be fired. Yeah. He told them he had booked them both flights to Milwaukee where they would be having their 10 cent beer night in a couple of days. He said, go find out how they do it. They did. They did. Oh, at all. At all future promotions offering 10 cent beer, three more were planned. Fans would be restricted to four cups a piece per night. No exceptions. Wait, wait, per night or per night? Okay. But how do you even keep track? You can't. Right? There's so many fucking stuff. They just don't see that it's a flawed concept. This is my favorite. The guy who had his hat

stolen. Yeah. The outfielder. Burroughs asked one reporter whether the forefoot would erase his over three night at the plate when informed that when he was informed that it would not, he was upset. Little petty thing. Years later, Billy Martin was killed in a low speed. A single vehicle collision during an ice storm at the end of his driveway in Birmingham, New York on Christmas Day, 1989. He was drunk. Terry Yurkak. He was drunk when he got hit. No, Billy Martin was in his car and drove it into something at the end of his driveway and killed himself. Okay. Terry Yurkak, the kid who grabbed Bro's hat, grew up and became citizen of the year in 2000 in Richmond Heights, a suburb outside of Cleveland. Clearly they did not vet

their citizen of the year. The missing bases were never found. Shocker. Hey, I was at a Tencent Beer night last night. I got shitfaced. I just want to give you guys back your bases. I don't even know why I took them. That is one of those things when you get drunk. I'll just take it. Okay. So there's three families out there in Cleveland who are passing down the bases. Yeah. Like it's got to be like a huge thing. Yeah. Right? Yes. I mean, if my dad had one of those bases, it'd be fucking amazing. You know, Dave, don't tell anybody about this. My dad never did anything good when he was drunk. No. But we have to think what would have happened if Carrie A Nation had gotten her way. I believe she stormed the field in the first inning, right?

Shoulder tilt. Yeah, if Carrie was there, holy shit. So you've heard that story, but you never heard that story. I heard that there was a terrible Tencent Beer night in Cleveland. I didn't realize that it was so dangerous. No, it was like, it was like, it was like the Warriors. It was like a fucking movie where a bunch of guys were trying to survive. If you could go to that game knowing everything, would you go? Yeah, it's a way up top. It's 25,000 fans. The stadium holds like 50. I'd sit way up fucking top and just sip on a beer. I would get six beers. I would just line them up and I would just slowly sip on them. Six per purchase. Yeah. Whoa, you excited yourself. Yeah, come on in, bud. How's it going? My son's here, so we're wrapping up.

Hi, Gary. No. Nicely done, my friend. No, the next generation. Oh, no. Oh boy. All right, that was the dollop. The dollop ended with a bang.