This Day in Booze: 10 Cent Beer Night

On June 4th 1975, in an effort to boost ticket sales, the Cleveland Indians held a 10 cent beer night. The promotion allowed fans to purchase as many 8oz cups of Stroh's Beer as they could hold down for just 10 cents a piece. As you could probably guess, what followed was a massive case of Fail.

The Municipal Stadium was packed with over 25,000 fans, compared to the previous season's average of only 8,000 per game. The Indians were up against the Texas Rangers, who not but a week earlier had gotten into a bench clearing brawl with the Indians during a "cheap beer night" game at Arlington Stadium, which ended with the crowd storming the field. So naturally, the most sensible thing to do is to one-up the Rangers and host an even more idiotic promotion of their own only one week later.

As the game progressed, the fans got drunker an drunker. Players were getting pelted with hot dogs, and one of the Rangers was almost struck with a one gallon jug of Thunderbird (don't ask me why someone would sneak a gallon jug of Thunderbird into a baseball game, or how. But he sounds like a guy I wanna party with).


When the Indians managed to rally in the 9th to tie the game at 5-5, the crowded was past gone and had reached its boiling point. A fan ran onto the field and attempted to steal an outfielders cap. In attempting to confront the fan, the player tripped, leading the Ranger's manager to think that his player had been attacked. The manager and the entire Ranger's bench stormed onto the field, some wielding bats. The fans in turn also charged to field armed with everything from knives, chains, broken bottles, and even parts of the stadium seats they had torn apart. The Indians, fearful of the rioting fans, actually picked up bats of there own and went out to DEFEND the opposing team.


Realizing that nothing could be done to restore order, the umpire called the game and forfeited the win to the Rangers.

And if you think that Cleveland learned their lesson, you'd be wrong. No, Cleveland decided to hold 3 more such events throughout the season. They changed the promotion so that a fan was limited to a max of four 10 cent beers, but still. Cleveland's got to be denser than a brick.

In modern times, such occurrences are practically nil, thanks to such ingenious ideas as not allowing fans to bring any outside food or drinks, except for enough peanuts and water to make a dixie cup look like a generous portion, and requiring fans to take out a second mortgage if they want to have more than two beers.


...Cleveland Sucks