Here is a topic for debate while the burgers are sizzling on the grill or while you are sitting on one of those padded benches, waiting for your name to be called so you can be led to a table at your favorite restaurant:
Which event created more ignominy for the city of Cleveland: The Cuyahoga River catching fire on June 22, 1969, or 10-cent Beer Night at old Cleveland Municipal Stadium on June 4, 1974, when the Indians and Rangers played one of the most memorable games in the history of Major League Baseball?
I know about the river catching fire only from what I’ve read. The blaze was extinguished in about 30 minutes, but it lasted long enough to become fodder for stand-up comedians and late-night talk show hosts for months.
I have direct knowledge of 10-cent Beer Night because I was there with my buddy Kevin. We sat in the puke-yellow general admission seats very near the Rangers’ bullpen down the right-field foul line. I was 21 and less than two years into my career at The News-Herald. But on that night I was just a fan.
It is difficult to believe, but Tuesday will mark the 50th anniversary of the night the Indians had to forfeit the game to the Rangers because fans, some more inebriated than others, stormed the field and attacked the Texas players in the bottom of the ninth after the Tribe scored twice to tie the score 5-5.
Mob rule is scary. It can sweep normally rational people into doing things they never would do on their own no matter how sloshed they are. And I don’t believe all the people who ran onto the field were as drunk on alcohol as they pretended to be. They might have been drunk on the emotion of the moment, but not on watered-down 3.2 beer sold in opaque 12-ounce cups.
Since I was 21, I was old enough to legally drink, but, with Kevin as my passenger, I drove to the game in my forest green Chevy Vega — the worst car ever produced — and was content drinking co*ke, which I still prefer over beer. But that doesn’t mean I just sat there for three hours only cheering when a player from the Indians did something well.
It was 82 degrees that Tuesday night. The Indians were 24-25 and going nowhere in the American League East. One week earlier, the Indians and Rangers got into a brawl in a game at Arlington, Texas.
Pete Franklin, a pioneer in sports talk radio, urged his listeners in his Monday night broadcast to go to the game to give the Rangers a hard time. A flash crowd of 25,134 showed up for the beer bargain and to respond to Franklin’s call.
Early on it was evident it would not be an ordinary game. As the night wore on and drunken fans got louder and louder with their derisive remarks directed at the Rangers, tension built like an approaching thunderstorm.
A woman ran onto the field in the second inning, stood in the Indians’ on deck circle, lifted her top and tried to kiss home plate umpire Nestor Chylak. The crowd cheered. We cheered.
A streaker, wearing only one sock, sprinted across the outfield. The crowd cheered louder while slower, older security guards chased him. Another streaker slid feet first into second base. More cheers from the crowd.
Fans kept drinking. A limit was set of six beers a purchase, but there was no limit on how many times one could walk back to the concession stand, hand over another 60 cents and walk away with six more beers in one of those flimsy cardboard containers. Normally, by the way, one 12-ounce beer 50 years ago cost 65 cents.
The longer the game went, the rowdier fans got. During the seventh inning, fans in the upper deck started throwing firecrackers. Some landed in the lower deck. Some were directed to both bullpens. I have no idea where the firecrackers came from; they were not a concession stand item. But as I mentioned, we were in right field, close enough to converse with the players in the Rangers bullpen. The firecrackers were exploding right in front of us.
The Texas relievers ran to the Rangers dugout for cover. The Cleveland relievers headed to the Cleveland dugout for the same reason. Fans got louder and more obnoxious. Every close pitch that was called a strike when the Indians were batting, every close pitch called a ball when the Rangers were batting, elicited boos from the crowd. The thunderstorm was getting closer.
The Indians, trailing 5-1 heading to the bottom of the sixth inning, clawed back and eventually tied the game at 5-5 in the bottom of the ninth on a sacrifice fly by John Lowenstein. That was when one fan jumped from the stands onto the field and tried to steal the cap off the head of Rangers right fielder Jeff Burroughs. He also tried to swipe Burroughs’ mitt. We were close enough to see the look of shock on Burroughs’ face.
Rangers manager Billy Martin thought Burroughs was being attacked. He led a charge from the dugout, his players following their leader, sprinting to the outfield to defend Burroughs. Some players carried bats.
It turned into a melee. Fans ripped out stadium seats to use as weapons before running onto the field. Some fans, choosing to get into the action from the sanctuary of their seats, threw hot dogs and other debris onto the field.
The Indians’ players, led by their manager Ken Aspromonte, ran into the fray to defend the Rangers players — ironic since a week earlier the Indians and Rangers got into their own shoving match in Arlington. Indians relief pitcher Tom Hilgendorf was hit in the head with a folding chair.
Eventually, both teams made it to their respective clubhouses.
It was at about that moment that the P.A. announcer informed those still in the stadium that crew chief Chylak, who by this time had escaped with his peers to the umpires’ locker room, was declaring the game a forfeit in favor of the Rangers.
The forfeit, obviously, was caused by the unruly fans (and security’s inability to control them), but fans were incensed about the forfeit anyway. Some fans stole the bases — literally — and some ripped out chunks of outfield sod.
Police arrived on the scene and finally order was restored, but not before Cleveland had another black eye for the entire nation to see.
