Today marks the 40 year anniversary of the infamous “Ten Cent Beer Night” at Cleveland Municipal Stadium. The insensitively named Cleveland Indians hosted the Texas Rangers in a baseball battle that would feature 19 streakers. I was just perusing an article in the Plain Dealer that sums up the debacle and provides some background of which I wasn’t aware.
Apparently, the Rangers had hosted the Indians earlier in the 1974 season where they had their own ten cent beer night. And guess what, the Texas fans slung suds and refreshments at Cleveland players. Also, before the Rangers faced off against the Indians in Cleveland, Rangers Manager, Billy Martin, riled up the Indian’s fan-base by telling the press he didn’t think the Indian enthusiasts would retaliate because “Cleveland didn’t have enough fans for them to worry about.” Combine Martin’s taunt with 60,000 individual beer sales and a full moon hanging over municipal stadium, you get shenanigans.
The Plain Dealer rattles off some fun figures from “Ten Cent Beer Night” –
There were 25,134 fans
60,000 Genesee beers at 10 cents each.
50 cops
19 streakers
7 emergency room injuries
9 arrests
2 bare moons
2 bouncing breasts
1 sportswriter punched in the jaw
Here’s a video of some firsthand accounts of Ten Cent Beer Night. I don’t think baseball will ever be this cool again.