June 18, 2024 • 50 mins
On June 4, 1974... all hell broke loose in Cleveland. You see the Stroh's Beer Co. parked a few of its trucks at the ballpark for a cheap beer promotion –– that culminated in a full-scale riot. Things got so bad Billy Martin had to lead an armed charge!
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
Elizabeth Dugszaron Burnett. Oh my god, to have a question
for you. Huh. Do you know what's ridiculous?
Speaker 3 (00:09):
I do funny? You should ask share it with me.
Grillo's Pickles.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Yes, we've talked about them before.
Speaker 3 (00:17):
It's ridiculous. They have this thing called Pickle Paradise.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
Uh huh.
Speaker 3 (00:21):
And it's June seventh, hit the twenty second, so I
think we missed it in New York. And it's like
a pop up, right, and they have all this, like,
you know, free hot dogs and burgers and what have you. Okay,
this was sent to us by a couple different people
just because they know that you and I, particularly you
love Grillo's Pickles.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
Yes.
Speaker 3 (00:41):
But then as I'm looking at it, then it said
Grillo's Pickles University, because like, the pop up's not ridiculous,
that's just cool.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
Yeah, this is cool.
Speaker 3 (00:49):
I'll give Rills Pickles University. And it said we're getting
ready to open applications for the fall twenty twenty four semester.
I don't understand, like, is it just open admission? Like
what goes on? So you click learn more?
Speaker 2 (01:01):
Of course you did it.
Speaker 3 (01:02):
Says, no exams, no stress, pickles, But then thanks for
your interest in Grillo's Pickles University. Submissions for this semester
are currently closed, but feel free to enter your information
below to be alerted of future opportunities. We appreciate your
interest in support. They just want your information, I guess,
but like, and then I tried to find information what
is Grillo's Pickles University and on their Instagram they just
(01:26):
said it's coming soon. Click to stay informed. But like,
what is it?
Speaker 2 (01:31):
So you learn to pickle? This is where you can
you get a major in picklemongering.
Speaker 3 (01:36):
I don't know. But you can sign up on the
Grillo's Pickle website to get a year's supply of pickles.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
Okay, so this is just like website like gaming.
Speaker 3 (01:46):
Guess, but the Pickle University. I don't know. I just zaren,
I just don't.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
Know now see listener. Aaron Mumford wrote to me personally
to warn me that you may be coming with so grillos,
pickles and madness at me, and I appreciate it. Thank you,
Aaron for the warning. The mashup protection, But it turns
out it wasn't the one you.
Speaker 3 (02:09):
Threw at was it like a perfume.
Speaker 2 (02:11):
It was a pickled gayo.
Speaker 3 (02:13):
Oh no, I have that in my refrigerator.
Speaker 2 (02:14):
Yeah, there you go, legit, I do.
Speaker 3 (02:20):
But yeah, apparently there's a perfume or what have you.
But anyway, the university that just struck me as ridiculous.
And on that note, I bid you ridiculous.
Speaker 2 (02:28):
Okay, ridiculous. Well, if you got a second, I do
you do nice? Okay? Do you remember? Well, you probably
don't remember, but if you were like seeing like in
videos and references and like sports highlights about how professional
sports in the US in the nineteen seventies had this
super high level of outrageousness and just general silliness.
Speaker 3 (02:47):
Yeah, I don't remember it.
Speaker 2 (02:48):
Personally, I think the San Diego chicken.
Speaker 3 (02:51):
Okay, yeah, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2 (02:52):
You're familiar with the San Diego chicken, right, like Tommylesortait exactly,
so you've seen images of the seventies. That's my idea. Okay,
Now for today's story, let's omit the chicken and in
his place will sub in a cheap beer promotion in
the Midwest. Okay, and instead of San Diego, we'll relocate
to Cleveland. Okay, Elizabeth, you ever heard the story of
(03:15):
ten cent beer night? No? Oh, have I got a
fun one for you?
Speaker 3 (03:18):
Like a disaster?
Speaker 2 (03:19):
Oh it is. This is Ridiculous Crime, a podcast about
(03:44):
absurd and outrageous capers, heists and cons. It's always nine
percent murder free and ridiculous. Yes, oh, Elizabeth, you love
the baseball I do, or at least you used to
love it before the A's broke your heart. Yeah's about
baseball these days?
Speaker 3 (04:01):
I've soured on MLB. I just think the whole thing
is a sham.
Speaker 2 (04:07):
So you're now down to minor league baseball.
Speaker 3 (04:08):
No, not even minor league. I'm into Pioneer League.
Speaker 2 (04:11):
Pioneer League wow, which is.
Speaker 3 (04:13):
Like minor minors. Yeah, but we have a new team here.
I don't know, it's like Z ball. They have a
team here in Oakland, the Ballers, Nice Oakland Ballers, And
I'm yeah, I haven't been able to because all the
games have been sold out. He just started. They're doing
really well and they seem really cool. And so that's
my new thing. Pioneer League.
Speaker 2 (04:33):
Nice.
Speaker 3 (04:33):
I'm into it for you, pure baseball.
Speaker 2 (04:36):
Well, do you mind hearing a baseball story?
Speaker 3 (04:38):
I love to hear baseball stories.
Speaker 2 (04:39):
Okay, Elizabeth. Do you know who the manager of the
Texas Rangers was back in nineteen seventy four.
Speaker 3 (04:44):
Glenn Ford.
Speaker 2 (04:47):
If only? No, it was the one and only Billy Martin.
Speaker 3 (04:51):
Oh okay, and then he later.
Speaker 2 (04:53):
Goes on to be Yes Yankees and Billy Ball exactly.
I didn't know he managed the Rangers seventy four. This
is a total shock to men.
Speaker 3 (05:02):
Obviously, I didn't know what and I thought.
Speaker 2 (05:03):
I knew some Billy Martin, you know, you know, more
than the average bear.
Speaker 3 (05:07):
A lot of us thought we knew Billy Martin.
Speaker 2 (05:08):
I know, right, So this one has just promise you,
because it has Billy Martin, it's gonna get good.
Speaker 3 (05:13):
Nice.
Speaker 2 (05:14):
Now, the story, even if the idea of ten cent
beer Knight starts like you know, you think, oh Cleveland,
it started in Texas, because of course it started in Texas.
This story the will begin it on May twenty ninth,
nineteen seventy four. The Cleveland Guardians, then known as the
Cleveland Indians. We're facing the Texas Rangers right now. The
game starts to get unruly in the fourth inning after
(05:36):
there's this hard slide play at second base on a
double play in the now in the bottom of the
eighth inning, the Cleveland players get their revenge. There's a
bunt and then there's a tag out at first base
and this batter leads with his elbow and he collides
with the first basement. Boom. He disrupts him. In response
to first basement, throws a punch. That's it. Both benches cleared.
(05:56):
Massive brawl in the diamond, and so the Cleveland players
eventually they get you know, pulled back to their dugout.
But the Texas fans they're not over it, right. So
as they're going back to their dugout, they're just getting
rained down on by hot dogs, beers, whatever they got, right.
So as he's half eaten hot dogs and half warm
beer from Texas or raining down to the Cleveland players,
they're just fuming. Right. One player, because you know there's
(06:18):
always at least one. The catcher for Cleveland, this dude
named Dave Duncan. He tries to go into the stands
and fight the foe. They're kidding, yes, because they've been
attacking his teammates with hot dogs and beers. Now you
can't stand Elizabeth. So the catcher he has to be
held back from climbing into the stands to beat on
these Texas fans. That's in May down in Texas. Now Elizabeth.
As wild as that game was, the game featured no suspensions,
(06:41):
no forfeiture of the game. No players were rejected.
Speaker 3 (06:45):
Even though he got all up in the stands exactly.
Speaker 2 (06:47):
Umpires were like, yeah, it's cool as you know whatever,
It's a bea chill. Nobody got hurt, right. It was
a different time, very different time. Now. In a few weeks,
Texas and Cleveland were set for a series up in Cleveland,
which is why after the game Texas ranged manager Billy Martin.
He's being interviewed by the reporters right in this Cleveland
sports writer he asked him, are you gonna take your
arm to Cleveland? Billy, and always quick to pop off,
(07:09):
Billy Martin's like, nah, they won't have enough fans there
to worry about. Oh ouch, okay, So a little context
about Cleveland Elizabeth in the nineteen seventies. Do you know
much about Cleveland in the nineteen seventies.
Speaker 3 (07:20):
I'm gonna guess it was awesome.
Speaker 2 (07:22):
Yeah, oh yeah. So in the nineteen seventies, the Cleveland
Ball Club at that point is the Cleveland Municipal Stadium,
huge cathedral to baseball, built in nineteen thirty two. The
depression was on, they still managed to make it be
built with public funds. Oh Rab Gik was nineteen twenty eight.
They approved the funds. But anyway, okay, this huge cathedral
to baseball stadiums. It seeded seventy four thousand.
Speaker 3 (07:44):
Right, seventy four thousand.
Speaker 2 (07:46):
Now, for it was the biggest one in baseball. For comparison,
the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, constructed a decade earlier, paled
in comparison when it came to seating in the LA
Coliseum or the USC they played also a really big one.
They would later host the thirty two Olympics, and many
people thought the Municipal Stadium would host the thirty two Olympics.
That's how grand this place was, right clean, exactly, But
(08:08):
it loses out to LA and of course the Coliseum.
Now that site decision, you could say the Olympics, like
Summer Olympics, choice to be in La not in Cleveland.
You could say that marked the end of Cleveland's era
of ascendants, right nineteen thirty because as soon as you basically, well,
I'll put it this way, in nineteen twenty eight, right Cleveland,
when it built Municipal Stadium, or started to build it,
(08:28):
the city had just passed Saint Louis to become the
fifth most populous city in the United States. Four years later,
nineteen thirty two, Cleveland is now looking to pass Detroit
to become the fourth most populous city in the United States.
We're talking up with the big kids now New York. Okay,
but you see Elizabeth the city, it had reached its zenith.
(08:49):
They didn't know this at the time, but from that
point on, Cleveland just starts to fall and fall and
just keep hitting harder times and harder times, losing people,
shaking them off.
Speaker 3 (08:58):
Now, somehow I think it just got oh totally in my.
Speaker 2 (09:01):
Opinion, you know same. Now today Cleveland is well here,
I'll let you guess where do you think Cleveland ranks
now on the list of the most populous cities in
the United States.
Speaker 3 (09:10):
Wow, twelve fifty fourth fifty four.
Speaker 2 (09:14):
For comparison's sake, that puts Cleveland just behind Wichita, Kansas
and Aurora, Colorado in terms of size, and just ahead
of Honolulu and Anaheim. Wow, Cleveland is now just a
little bigger than a city that was built to house Disneyland. Okay,
so basically Cleveland's heyday. As I pointed out, it's peak
with nineteen twenty nine, and if you just track like
one day before the Stark Market crash, that's Cleveland's peak
(09:36):
because from.
Speaker 3 (09:37):
That point on an upswing lately.
Speaker 2 (09:40):
Yes, I mean it has really come around a lot
of those old Roust Belt cities, Pittsburgh, same thing they have.
Definitely Cleveland has really tried hard.
Speaker 3 (09:47):
Cleveland, the one with the really dirty river.
Speaker 2 (09:49):
Just about it. Oh no, I'm glad you mentioned it.
The Cuyahoga River. Yeah, what do you know about the
Cuyahoga River? Li is, in nineteen fifty two, the Cyahoga
River caught fire. This was not the first time it
had caught fire. This is, in fact, the ninth time
it had caught fire. Now you have to understand, like
this river winds through downtown Cleveland, right, So when a
(10:10):
river catches on fire, and rivers are not supposed to
catch on fire, and it's in the middle of downtown,
it catches a lot of attention. Now, but obviously it
takes some oil and pollution to be on the you know,
top of the river. That's what catches fire? But this
happened over and over and over again. Now, surprisingly, at
the time, a river catching on fire was not really
a big deal. They're like, oh, I didn't catch fire again.
Oh ho ho ha. Right, people outside of Cleveland, they're like,
(10:33):
what the hell? And then in nineteen sixty nine, as
you know, attitudes about the earth are changing, the river
catches fire again. This time it's impossible to ignore because
in sixty nine the flames reached five stories high. Wait,
what you have flames as tall as a downtown building
burning on the river.
Speaker 3 (10:52):
I didn't know that huge. Oh my god.
Speaker 2 (10:54):
Now, I don't want to over exaggerate it, because the
fire only lasted a half an hour, so you know,
it wasn't like buiding for days.
Speaker 3 (11:01):
I have such a soft spot for places like this,
coming from like a hard scrabble industrial city like Oakland
and that. Yeah, it's a bad wrap, and yet there's
a lot of cool, loot of heart people.
Speaker 2 (11:14):
If you stay, you stay for a reason. Yes, my
mom lived in Cleveland. I've been there a bunch.
Speaker 3 (11:19):
I have simpatico.
Speaker 2 (11:20):
Yeah exactly, you know. So okay, Well we have also
the Cuyahoga River catching on fire, in nineteen sixty nine.
We have to thank it because it was a hugely
influential event to the passage of the Environmental Protection Act
in nineteen.
Speaker 3 (11:33):
Seventy Yeah, I would imagine.
Speaker 2 (11:34):
So it was also a perfect symbol in indication of
how far Cleveland had fallen. So we got you know,
ups and downs in either way. Yeah. Throughout the sixties,
Cleveland has been watching its factories and its industrial base
basically close up shop and move out of state or
out of overseas. I'm talking, like I say, factories. We're
talking six hundred factories left town. Yeah, that's a lot, right,
(11:57):
So how does all this connect to ten cent beer nights? Zarin?
Speaker 3 (12:00):
Great question, Elizabe, really good questions.
Speaker 2 (12:02):
Obviously, nineteen seventy four, people in Cleveland were down to drink.
They had a first right after watching all the factories
close and the river and downtown burn over and over again,
people in Cleveland a feeling a little rambunctious.
Speaker 3 (12:12):
Then, you know, to weather that you got to be
made a tough stuff and you gotta, you know, like
to get down with ten cent beer.
Speaker 2 (12:20):
Yeah, exactly, maybe laugh at the blakness of life sometimes.
So meanwhile, they had not been going to ball games.
They weren't typically in the mood for a ball game
because everybody's on hard times, right, so they're like, oh,
I'm not going to go see these bummer you know,
Cleveland players.
Speaker 3 (12:33):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (12:34):
So in May, at the beginning of that baseball season,
Cleveland was seeing about an average of four thousand spectators
walk through the gates of their enormous cathedral.
Speaker 4 (12:43):
Exactly.
Speaker 2 (12:44):
I thought you'd recognize those numbers. Now, most of the
season the team because it ted their business attendance. Typically,
they were having about eighty five percent of the seats
go unsold. Okay, so one day, executive vice president Ted
Bonda takes a look at the ledger. His eyes grow
wide at the sight of all that red. He's like,
we're gonna lose the franchise.
Speaker 3 (13:02):
Oh yeah, totally.
Speaker 2 (13:02):
The team is losing money faster than you can say, like,
I don't know, mc hammerton, Yes, there you go. So
this cat Ted Bond. He's desperate to turn around the
fortunes of his team. He looks around, he sees this
idea that seems to be an answer to his prayers.
Texas Rangers hold this promotion. He gets butts in the
seats fills the whole place. They call it ten cent
Beer Night. So it's exactly as advertised. It's all the
(13:25):
beer you can drink for ten cents, no limit. Oh,
Ted Bond says to himself.
Speaker 3 (13:30):
No limit soldiers on that one.
Speaker 2 (13:31):
What if we threw our own ten cent beer night?
We could do that. So in the meantime, Cleveland goes
down to Texas and gets into that bench clearing brawl.
Speaker 3 (13:39):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (13:39):
In response to the Cleveland sports radio talk show hosts
Pete Franklin and Joe Tait, they fire up the fandom.
They have this home stand coming up, and so Cleveland
could be playing host to the Rangers. Now the team
can get its revenge before the home field fans. Elizabeth
the Cleveland Plain Dealer, the newspaper, they get involved on it.
They're like, oh, we gotta hype this right. They print
a cartoon of the Cleveland mascot, Chief Wahoo, and he's
(14:02):
got boxing gloves. The caption reads, be ready for anything.
Oh God. So this is now six days after the
bench clearing brawl, not even a full week. The Texas
Rangers come to Cleveland. Coincidentally, they arrive on ten cent
beer Night.
Speaker 3 (14:16):
Oh coincidence.
Speaker 2 (14:17):
Yes, the promotion totally works. Twenty three thousand, five hundred
fans show up. That's six times their average it The
beer sponsor for this promotion is Stros, Remember Stros?
Speaker 3 (14:29):
Yes? Right, Oh, this is getting better.
Speaker 2 (14:32):
The promotion offers beers at ten cents each, as I said,
with a limit of six beers per purchase, but no
limit on how many purchases can be made for how
many beers can be purchased by any individual outside of
that six per.
Speaker 3 (14:44):
Time, six at a time.
Speaker 2 (14:46):
Now, the stage for the June fourth, nineteen seventy four
ten cent beer Night is set. God, take a little break,
Elizabeth after this. Let's play ball, Elizabeth. We're back, yay, Okay,
(15:18):
So let's get into this game.
Speaker 3 (15:19):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (15:20):
So, when the Texas Rangers manager Billy Martin he comes
out to present his lineup card to the umpires for
the game, the Cleveland fans start booing him, just mercilessly. Right,
This sets the tenor for the game. Now, when it
comes to accounts of what's to come, we're lucky because
we have not just a few eye witnesses, we actually
have this story told from the perspective of the very
guy who starts the riot. Oh yeah, there's a riot
(15:43):
at some point. Yeah. This dude's name. He's nineteen year
old fan named Terry Yerkic, And in two thousand and seven,
his story was told in the Cleveland magazine by writer
Andy Netzel. So, according to Terry Yerkich's account, I was
nineteen and in my first year in college. This was
like no game I'd ever been through, and I've been
through a lot of Indian games. I went to the
game with five friends. We're sitting up in the center
(16:05):
field bleachers, right. So he's enjoying. So he's enjoying this game.
He's from Chicago. What can I tell you, Darry Yurkich.
He also remembered the beer trucks. A beer truck was
set up right behind the home run fence. Truck looked
like a big box, like a U haul truck. They
had all the kegs inside the Spickett's coming out this side.
At first people paid attention to the game, but eventually
(16:27):
most people were more concerned about getting their beer. Now. Also,
we know that without prompting, hundreds of fans had all
arrived at the game. No one told him to do this,
and they all bring pocketful of fireworks. Oh yeah, right.
So as chief wa who told the fans be ready
for anything, well, yeah, he loved So starting from the
first pitch, fireworks start popping off right. The smoke and
(16:49):
the bangs and the smell of gunpowder. It's giving Cleveland
Municipal Stadium the feeling of a war zone, Elizabeth. Now,
according to my man Terry Yurkicic, people were blowing off
firecrackers in the bleachers. They weren't big, but they were
big enough. Everyone was trying to steer clear of them.
But the security never even gotten involved. No, since it's
nineteen seventy four, there's other smoke coloring the air. Pot smoke, Elizabeth,
(17:12):
clouds of it.
Speaker 5 (17:13):
Right.
Speaker 3 (17:13):
It is like you could in Oakland totally to today.
This is yet every week tonight the cops do absolutely
nothing about people breaking the law. Yeah, I love it.
Speaker 2 (17:25):
So there's, as I said, there's this recognizable lawless vibe
that you would know from Oakland. And this vibe starts
to spread through the crowd. By the top of the
second inning, things are already becoming a little unhinted. After
the designated hitter for Texas Rangers hits a home run,
this very large breasted woman seated on the first baseline.
She jumps over the wall, runs out onto the diamond.
She stops at the on deck circle and then flashes
(17:47):
her breasts out the crowd. Oh god, it already now
starting to get drunk. Buzzing crowd essentially responds exactly how
you might imagine bunch. Also, a very young crowd will say,
is attracted to ten cent beer.
Speaker 3 (17:59):
Night, But yeah, because you normally are pulling in like
four thousand people, and now you're almost a twenty four thousand,
So you've got twenty thousand people. Basically, we're not your
regular sport who were there for beer.
Speaker 2 (18:10):
Yeah. Yeah, and now they're getting bare breasted women, so
they hoot, they haul, they're loving it. Then she tries
to run up and kiss the umpire This guy Nestra Shilac.
He's not down, Elizabeth. The woman gets escorted from the Diamond.
But now she started a whole mood because throughout the
second inning, other fans were like, I would also like
to hop onto the field and get naked.
Speaker 3 (18:29):
And show my bazoo.
Speaker 2 (18:30):
So men, women, everyone just starts streaking across the field
right stark naked one Texas ranger player my cargroup. He
recalls how and I quote started out with a couple
of people doing it. Then it was five, then ten,
then it was a whole bunch. I don't know how
many a whole bunches, but it's more than ten. Anyway,
high school fan named Jack Barno who was there with friends.
He's seated in the upper deck that day, and he
(18:53):
remembers how people were streaking across the field and cops
are chasing them. They were laughing like you can't catch me.
There were a handful of cops on the other side
with billy clubs, and when they came over that fence,
they met them with a couple of wax to the
head and drag them off. So now we got violence
popping off, ye right.
Speaker 3 (19:08):
And that's only gonna stoke violence in the crowd, yes, of.
Speaker 2 (19:11):
Course A right. And they're like bringing up the billy clubs,
whacking people drunks on the head. Right, So there're people
are like, oh, I see what how this is turning?
Speaker 5 (19:18):
Well?
Speaker 3 (19:18):
It makes me think of the A's had Novelty bat night. Yes,
and that's just basically handing out billy clubs Like so yeah,
it's a bad combo.
Speaker 2 (19:27):
So fourth inning, that same Texas Ranger DH hits a
second home run. After he's rounding second base on his
way to third base, a naked man joins him on
the diamond, also trying to round second base. Yes, but
the streaker decides, you know what, well, I'm here, I'm
gonna take my one chance at a major league slide.
He goes through, sliding face first into second base, totally naked. Elizabeth,
(19:48):
you know how baseball gravel is and how like it's like, oh,
that looks like red clay or whatever. Yeah, no, it's
gonna rip you up right. So the streaker sliding into
second The local papers put in a quote, probably getting
dirt in places unsuitab for speculation.
Speaker 3 (20:01):
Oh damn right, that's he just needs to blame stros
for that.
Speaker 2 (20:04):
So at this point in the fourth inning, we have
fireworks going off every few minutes, women flashing their breast,
young men running naked across the field showing off their
bait and tackle, and damn near, everyone's getting drunker and
drunker and drunker. Then a Cleveland player hits a rocket
shot right back at the Rangers pitcher Ferguson Jenkins Old
Fergie Jenkins hits him square in the gut, drops him
on the mound.
Speaker 3 (20:25):
Right.
Speaker 2 (20:25):
While Fergie Jenkins is lying there on the mound, writhing
around an obvious pain, a chant breaks out amongst the
Cleveland fans. Hit him again, Hit him again, harder, harder,
hit him again, hit him ahead, harder, harder.
Speaker 3 (20:39):
So, hey, I would I would pay money to go
back in time and go to this game.
Speaker 2 (20:43):
It sounds so that's same inning. Right. There's a play
at third and a Cleveland based runner is called safe.
So manager for the Texas Rangers, Billy Martin, does what
Billy Martin does, storming out of a dugout full speed,
just kicking. Yes, you know his move, right, So he's
attacking the ump, kicking dust on him, ruining his socks.
He's the best, right, so Billy Martin arguing the call.
(21:04):
We're deep in the game now, right, So fans are
deep in their cups. They have a shot at him
on the field, so they start chucking beers at Billy Martin.
The umpire starts catching strays. It's getting bad. Hot dogs
are hitting them right. So Billy Martin, being the peach
that he is, he refuses to get mad. Most of
the beer is missing him anyway, So while he walks
back to the dugout, he's blowing kisses at the Cleveland
(21:25):
fans like eat it up, gotta love anyway. The next inning,
the fifth inning, a father and son Elizabeth, taking a
part in that long beloved American tradition of enjoying a
baseball game together. They stand up, they jump over the
wall and run onto the field.
Speaker 3 (21:40):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (21:41):
Then they lower the pants and they moon the Texas
Ranger outfield. No. The crowd and the bleachers watching goes nuts.
The drunken fans they love it more. More flesh on
the field, the Texas Ranger players not so much hands,
hands on hips, ted's down, they're just like humiliated. Security
runs onto the field. They chased the father and son
(22:02):
as they yank up their breeches and try to get away.
At this point, like I said, it's the fifth inning.
What's the beer situation like on ten cent beer Nights,
Arin Greig.
Speaker 3 (22:11):
Question, Elizabeth, Yes, yeah.
Speaker 2 (22:13):
So at this point, according to Terry Jerkic, it was
taking twenty minutes to get a beer. People started to
get pretty impatient. Tables surrounded the truck right the workers
pouring the bill would fill up any container you brought them.
I had a big dog in sudsmug, maybe thirty two ounces.
It looked like a little mini keg. So now people
(22:34):
are sucking out all the they could get into their heads. Right,
people are filling whatever they can bring in front of
the strows. People didn't take long to turn into just chaos.
Right back to Terry Yerkic, the crowd crew in more patient,
and they threw the tables to the side. The people
were manning the truck basically abandoned it. The police were
standing right there. They didn't seem to care, or maybe
they thought they couldn't handle that many people. So now
(22:56):
the cops scared out. Number were still only in the
fifth inning.
Speaker 3 (23:00):
Oh my god, and they kicked over the tables in
front of the Oh oh boy.
Speaker 2 (23:04):
As Terry Yerkis says, some guys stop filling their containers
and just put their mouths right under the taps on
the field. The streakers just keep running. Thanks for escalating,
you think so Around this point in the game, right,
one fan he throws a tennis ball down onto the field, right,
just I don't know, a joker a little bit of
he throws it into center field. But he's one of
your people, Elizabeth. He doesn't want to leave his mess
(23:25):
for someone else to clean up, so instead he hops
down onto the field. He runs over the middle of
the game, grabs his tennis ball, and he throws it
back to his friends in this dance like I got
the ball. Guys. At this point, Elizabeth, stadium security there
on him. They know they got to be quick on this,
so this guy he sees the security coming, so he
gives him a little headfake. He dishes. One security guard
(23:45):
gets chased by another. Now while he's running, this fan
sees him and shouts at this ball retriever guy, Elizabeth.
This may be my favorite part of this entire story.
The guy in the stands who shouts is a long
lost relative of the ball retriever and recognizes him on
the diamond. Oh my god, a retriever guy points at
his like fan and realizes that he's his family, and
(24:07):
then he runs over towards him. At the same time,
the long lost relative comes down the steps and he
hops the fence and he runs onto the field. The
two relatives hug on the diamond in the middle of
the game. It's impromptu family reunion so good. It's the
security guards catch up to them, because remember he gave
him the head fake before. Yeah. Now the two guys
are hugging. They get tackled by securitys with it. The
(24:29):
ball retriever guy shoves security off of him. He hops
back into the stands where his family just came from.
He escapes that he gets shielded by all the drunk fans.
They won't let security chase because they love his scoffs
and his family's story. I mean, it's beautiful, it's heartwarming.
The long lost relative, though, he gets grabbed by security.
So the fans they don't like this outcome.
Speaker 3 (24:48):
Elizabeth as a sacrifice.
Speaker 2 (24:51):
They let the security have it. Beers come raining down,
but also golf balls. Now they wait. They found small
rocks from like the stadium floor, the pieces of cement.
A shoe comes down, hits one guy. These people are drunk,
so they're throwing out whatever they can reach.
Speaker 3 (25:06):
They brought equipment for other sports. They brought tennis fall
golf balls.
Speaker 2 (25:12):
Exactly that hockey puck can come on, be ready, exactly,
Cleveland listens, Cleveland. True. So at this point, the PA
announcer comes on the stadium speakers ask the fans please
do not throw letter.
Speaker 3 (25:24):
Onto the dormond right, oh yeah, that'll stop.
Speaker 2 (25:26):
Crowd response is to throw way more stuff onto the field,
so now it's just like a rain. Immediately time ground
crew is like, oh my god, you guys cured me.
They go out that have to clear the field of
all the larger objects of the game can go on.
So now the fans use the ground crew as target,
like it's duck hunt. They got these guys going back
and forth. They're like, yeah, tag them. So now they're
throwing more stuff at the guys cleaning up the stuff
they've been throwing. One woman looking to get her piece
(25:48):
of the spotlight Elizabeth, She hops the low fence, runs
onto the diamond. She waves at her fellow fans as
she runs across the ballpark. She's not a streaker, she's
fully dressed. But when she stops running, because you know
why not, she wants to at her time on the spotlight.
Before the security can get to her, the crowd dorges
her take it off, so she pretends to do a
strip tease for the crowd. Security gets to her first
(26:10):
before any clothes come off. When they do, the woman
then turns and attacks the security like a cat throwing pause.
She's just crawling at the air. Security forces her to
the grass. Crowd goes nuts. We're like police brutality, probably fertality.
Firecrackers get thrown onto the field at the security. That
feels fun. So someone's like, what if we throw them
into the dugout. They're like, oh, we can't reach that.
(26:32):
We can reach the bullpen. So they throw them at
the Texas Rangers bullpen.
Speaker 3 (26:36):
Oh no, this.
Speaker 2 (26:37):
Big boy, long daddy of a firecracker, Elizabeth. When it
goes off, it sounds like her grenade. Players are hitting
the deck. The umpire Nestor Chilac stops the game because
now he's got like warfare, like real warfare. He orders
the Rangers bullpen evacuated for the player's safety. He tells
the maners, I'll let him warm up on the mound.
It's fine. So around this point, I.
Speaker 3 (26:56):
Mean, at what point do you say that's it. We're
calling No, No.
Speaker 2 (27:00):
We're just get We still have a couple mornings before
it really gets loose. Yeah, we're about the sixth of
this point, coming into the seventh. So at this point,
Mike Hargrove gets brought into the game as a substitution,
and he plays first base, and for his intro into
the game, he has to dodge a half gone jug
of Thunderbird wine. The thunderbird, oh my god, apparely misses
his head by inches. That's his intro to the games.
(27:22):
They go take first. He's like, okay, I'll said them
so Elizabeth, nothing really says, I want to get stupid
drunk tonight, like a half drunk bottle of Thunderbear. Anyway,
jug as I said, misses him, but the hot Dogs don't.
So he's getting pelted by hot dogs. Some bears are
hitting him his feet right. So before Hargrove's first inning
is over, a new group of Streakers runs out onto
the field and they come from the third base side,
(27:44):
and they run onto the field dressed, but then they
quickly decide to get undressed. Once they're on the field,
they're like, well, let's do it here. I think they
were envious of the woman who got all the collapse
and attention. They're like, we can do that too, guys,
And so they go out to left center field and
they strip right. So they started then also like, you know,
we need some to defend ourselves against the security now
that we're you know, defenseless. So they grab the padding
off the left field wall and start ripping that down,
(28:07):
and then the people in the crowds are like, give
us some, so they throw some of the pads up
into the bleachers and then they start running around the
fields with some of the other chunks they've ripped off
the walls. Security is exhausted by this, so they're like,
who wants to go, Steve, do you? So they go
running back out on the diamond. They chase these nude
helions all around the ball bark. The crowd is cheering
and clapping. Radio guys Herbscore and Joe Tait, who've been
(28:27):
amused at first by all this, they're now commenting on
the families gathering up and fleeing the stadium and scared groups. Right. So,
now we're in the seventh inning and the beer is
still somehow flowing stross Elizabeth trucks. So the cops have
given up, some of em started drinking. They're now enjoying
the game. It's in the eighth inning. The Cleveland front
(28:50):
office is notably seen getting up and easing out of
the scene. Are kidding, Oh yeah? Like we no longer
want to be involved with what we started. So it's pandemonium, Elizabeth,
and everyone is sobered, point is leaving. Then comes the
ninth inning. The game, by the way, is close. The
Rangers are up in the bottom of the ninth Cleveland
rallies and ties the game five to five. We got
(29:12):
a tie game, folks, bottom of the night tie game.
Speaker 3 (29:14):
So it's not like I mean, if it were a blowout.
Speaker 2 (29:16):
Yeah, yeah, you could call it. He's we got it,
you know. Years later, the substitute first Basement, Old Mike Cargo.
He recalls, how I remember nothing about the game other
than in that inning we were in trouble. They had
runners on and it looked like they were getting ready
to score and go ahead. Then all of a sudden,
all hell broke loose. So before the game is over,
Old Terry Yerkic he wants to grab a souvenir from
(29:39):
the ten cent beer night fiasco. So what's he doing?
Hops down onto the field, and he's a big boy, Elizabeth,
like a big Serbian boy. So he tries to drunkenly
sneak up and steal the hat off the head of
a player. While the game is going off that. I'll
tell you. I'll let Terry Yerkiz tell you. So in
the ninth inning, I hopped the fence and I ran
up to text this outfielder, Jeff Burrows. When I jumped,
(30:02):
I was the only one on the field. I came
running up behind him. He never saw me coming. I
grabbed the hat right off the top of his head.
Now Mike Cargove remembers it a little differently, and Margrove said,
some big, great guy, drunk guy took Jeff's hat. I
was one of the first ones to get there, right,
So back to Terry Jerks. I had it in my hand,
(30:22):
but I dropped it. It landed right by his foot.
He didn't say a word. Our eyes met. I looked
at him, and he looked at me, and I said, oh, hell,
Jeff Burrows right rangers right field? Are professional athlete sick
of it all?
Speaker 3 (30:38):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (30:38):
He's over and wasn't that he just needs one out
to go home. So this professional athlete, he rears up
and he kicks this big trunk nineteen year old and
boots him backwards away from him, like get the hell
off my field. As Terry Jerkich puts it, he kicked
me right in the thigh. I had perfect spike marks
in my thigh. A few more people were now piling
onto the field at that point, I wasn't going to
(31:00):
down and get the hat. I was in retreat mode.
I wasn't trying to hurt him. I was just trying
to get a little souvenir. So Mike Hargrove runs from
first base and he's gonna go defend the outfielder, right, So,
Hargrove says, I tackled him and knocked him down, and
it took like three chops to handcuff him. Thank goodness,
he was on the ground. I took off or else.
So the cops do not actually successfully handcuff him because
(31:21):
Terry Yerkic slips away, big serbian kid. What can I
tell you, Elizabeth. So he runs towards the Texas Rangers dugout.
That's his escape plan is I'm gonna get through out
through the tunnels. So he's drunk, right, So, and there
are fans everywhere now because they're streaming onto the field.
Don't think the game is verty much over Urkic. He
still wants a little something for the.
Speaker 3 (31:39):
Effort, and it's tied up, tied up, five to.
Speaker 2 (31:41):
Five to bottom the ninth. It's there, it's their stand. Yeah,
they can have a walk off win, right, Terry Yurkic,
He recalls my brother and another friend. They tried to
get in. The Rangers dugout to get souvenirs too. So
now they've jumped down and they joined him. Right, but Elizabeth,
Biddy Martin, he don't play like that, No, Terry Yorkistru calls.
The players started swinging bats, the fans got chased into
(32:04):
the outfield. Well that's right, Billy Martin. He decides he
won't let a bunch of Cleveland fan hippie kids play
him like he's a punk. So armor, no armor, whatever,
He's ready to take on all of Cleveland Municipal Stadium.
Speaker 3 (32:17):
Well they're armed. The baseball players have bats.
Speaker 2 (32:19):
Oh yeah, Well well wait a minute, I should have
told you that the fans are also jumping down. Well armed,
some have knives. They've taken stadium seats and ripped them out,
and they're using them like clubs. It's a fair fight
except for the numbers. So let's take a little break,
and after this I'll tell you what happens when bad
Billy Martin goes to war against Cleveland. Oh good, Elizabeth, Yes,
(33:01):
where were we? Oh that's right, all hell broke loose,
So now we've got hell turned loose. Elizabeth. I'd like
you to close your eyes as a kid. I'd like
you to picture it. Elizabeth. It's warm spring night in Cleveland,
stars above, a soft breeze blowing through your hair. You
were invited to a Cleveland baseball game by a friend
from work. You've been working at a home for retired
(33:23):
seeing eye dogs. It's been a long week, and you
thought a ballgame sounded fun. A night out at the ballpark.
You have been to a game in forever. Only when
you get there you find out it's ten cent beer Knight.
So now you and your work friend groom Hill both
play along. You have a few ten cent beers, and
then you have a few more, because why not win
in Rome and all that. By the end of the game,
(33:44):
much like the twenty thousand other fans in Cleveland Municipal Stadium, Elizabeth,
you are now drunk. When you look down at your feet,
you see that you're standing in grass in right center field.
Oh that's right. You came over the outfield fence with
a rush of people. You leapt down into the outfield.
It wasn't that first group who stripped off their clothes
and got nude and are still running around. No, you're
(34:05):
with the second, maybe the third, fourth group, who knows,
who cares? What you know for certain is you're running
and laughing, drunk in Cleveland and on the field. Meanwhile,
Texas Ranger Billy Martin is in his dugout with his
team and he can see his right fielder getting surrounded
by drunk and now armed Cleveland fans. Billy Martin decides
he's seen enough. Billy Martin pops up off the bench.
(34:25):
He grabs a fungo bat for batting practice. He turns
to his team and addresses them like they're his men
and this is war. Billy Martin says, let's go get
them boys. The Texas Rangers, true to their name, follow
their leader into the fray, all of them ready and
prepared to hurt some people to get their man back safely. You, Elizabeth,
are in a happy, drunken nude. You're dancing with Darunhild
(34:46):
in right field with linked arms. You both spin around, run.
Hild is startled, and she lets go of your arm
and you try to take a few steps and regain
your balance. You barely do, just in time to see
Billy Martin coming flying out of the dugout like he's
ready to argue with some umpire over a blown call,
Only this time he has a fungal back over his
head and he's running right towards you, and the Texas
Rangers are right behind him. They also have bats in
(35:08):
their hands and they're using them, swinging them. One drunk
fan who charges Billy Martin, he goes down with a
good swing of the fun go back. Billy Martin has
good reason. They're facing down a mob of drunken fans, Elizabeth,
not you, but the ones around you, the ones who
are armed with bottles, knives, chains, pieces of stadium seating.
Oh yeah, seeing all this, Elizabeth, you also start to
(35:28):
half panded. You're still very drunk, so you quickly look around,
eyes swimming, and you see you're approximately with I don't
know two hundred drunken fans and your coworker, Drunehild, plus
Billy Martin and the Texas Rangers now rushing into the scene,
bats swinging, throwing fists. There's one Texas Ranger there near you,
the right fielder burrows. He's also surrounded. Elizabeth. You duck
as Billy Martin takes a swing at you with his
(35:49):
fungo matt and then he runs past you at age
at some hippie kid. You lie there in the outfield
grass as the Texas Rangers surround their man. The grass
feels cool and soft as you like there. You consider
just staying there in the grass as the fight goes
on above you, but you change your mind after a
pair of nudists streak past, and one waves at you
and looks like they're coming back. The Texas Rangers have
(36:11):
been ambushed. You lying in the cool grass, you watch
this crazy fight going on above you, and the stars
above the fight, you think to yourself, Ah, Cleveland. You
see some fans start throwing red clay dirt from the
warning track at the Texas Rangers. Now you have cheap
fireworks coloring the sky as red dirt explodes against Billy
Martin's angry, shouty face. He's standing just above you, waving
(36:32):
the fun go bat. Can you hear him shout? Let's
get out of here, boys, Elizabeth, you lie in the grasses.
The drunken fans chase Billy Martin and his Texas Rangers
out of the right field. Do you also wonder where
groom Hilda if you haven't seen her? And up there
she goes dancing past with another woman who's stolen a
Texas Rangers ball cap. At least someone got their souvenir
hat good. At this point, Elizabeth, seeing Billy Martin and
(36:54):
the Texas Rangers retreat to their dugout, the Cleveland manager
ken Espermante, he leads a chart of his own to
save and protect Billy Martin and the Texas Rangers. He's
gonna save him for the drunken mob that threatening them.
So Aspermante tells his team to grab their bats, their
fungo bats, whatever they can swing, and it's time to
go to work on their own fans.
Speaker 3 (37:12):
Oh your kidds.
Speaker 2 (37:13):
So the Cleveland players clear the batracks, they charge out
of the dugout, and they fight their own fans all
across the ballpark to right field to help defend the
retreat of Billy Martin and the Texas Rangers.
Speaker 3 (37:26):
The baseball brotherhood is stronger totally, Okay.
Speaker 2 (37:29):
Okay, They're on the same level, so elizabe at this
point the game is functionally over. It's a full blown
drunken riot in the Cleveland Municipal Stadium. The crowd has
taken over the field and they're not giving it back.
The local Cleveland radio guys, Herb Score and Joe Tate,
they begin to call the riot for the radio audience.
They're like, why not. Yeah, their talk gets recorded in
the Acron Beacon Journal, so I have some of it
(37:49):
here for you. Oh yeah, Joe Tate will say he's
the first one to start, and then the other guy
is obviously Herb Score. Dom Hilgendor has been hit on
the head. Hilgy is in definite pain. He's bent over
holding his head. Oh. That is an absolute tragedy, absolute tragy.
I've been in this business for over twenty years and
I have never seen anything as disgusting as this. And
(38:10):
I'll be perfectly honest with you. I just don't know
what to say. I don't think this game will continue, Joe.
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 gonna run onto the field.
If I see some baseball player waving a beat out
there looking for somebody, Oh, this is tragic. The whole
(38:33):
thing is degenerated now into just Oh now we've got
another fight going with fans and ballplayers. Oh, Hargrove has
got some kid on the ground and he is administering
a beating. Well, that fella came up and hit him
from behind, is what happened. Boy, Hargrove really puts a
piece of him, and I don't blame him. Look at
Dick Simms out there. He's doing it at it. Yeah,
(38:53):
Duke is in on it. Oh, here we go again,
my god. At this point, Terry Yerkic has escaped them. Okay,
he's now looking on from a safe distance at what
all he started? Then everybody discharges the field and everybody
everybody's on the field. It was out of control. The
police were overwhelmed. So the Cleveland players, the Texas players,
along with their managers Aspermanty and Billy Martin, they fight
(39:15):
their way through the drunken crowd with the bats swinging
fist the whole bit. Some players are hurt at this point.
Other players, regardless of what team they're on, they help
the wounded ones off the field into the tunnels like
they're surviving the beaches of Normandy. Right, the less injured
ones act as a rear guard, and they're swinging the
bats and to keep the crowd from overtaking them. Right,
the players a manager. Their plan is to safely make
(39:37):
it into the dugout, get into the tunnels, and then
lock the doors once they're in the stadium bowels. So
they got to keep the fans off them so they
can get the door locked. Oh god, the players disappeared.
They must have gone into their clubhouse. All over stadium.
So many people were drunk. Somebody threw second base into
the stands. It just did seem dangerous to me at
the time. Terry Yerkisch's gett worried at this point. Right.
(40:00):
Interesting In the Elizabeth, Mike Cargo said nearly the same
kind of thing. Well, he said, and I quote, I
don't remember being scared. I don't remember feeling I was threatened.
I didn't feel that way when it was going on
until we got to the clubhouse. Looking back out there
and what went on and could have gone on, then
I got a little shaky. So they're all seeing their
(40:21):
lives flash before them once they're in safety. At this point,
the teams they lock the doors to the clubhouse. They
bunk are down and they hide out from their drunk,
rampaging Cleveland fans. They can hear them in the hallway
banging on the walls. Oh yeah. Outside on the field,
the fans are ripping apart the field. They've stolen all
the bases. They rip up seats, they throw them onto
the field. They destroy the grass, they take grass for souvenirs.
(40:41):
Hot dogs and beer are still filling the air. Fans
are throwing them out, just at each other, like what
the heck. Souvenir hunters are pocketing anything they can, bats, gloves,
batting gloves, fungo bats. They are like rifling through everything. Right,
the teams barricaded themselves, and they said in their clubhouse,
drunken Cleveland fans are banging on the walls and in
the doors, looting, wilding out. So the radio guys continue
(41:03):
to call this postgame chaos. The security people are just
totally incapable of handling this crowd. They just well, sort
of the National Guard. I'm not sure they can handle
this crowd, right, It's unbelievable, just unbelievable. People will go
back to their seats and others jump down to take
their place. The bases are gone, so they're just losing
it because now you know, they're watching the cathedral get
torn down by the vandals. At this point, the organists
(41:26):
save up there in her perch. She begins to play
take me out to the ballgame, just to Marcus. Meanwhile,
the umpire old nestor Chilac. He has to decide what
to do, right, He's like, I don't want to end
the game. Cleveland's just tied it. Runners were in scoring
position when the game got disrupted in the bottom of
the ninth. Surely these hometown fans, no matter how drunk
(41:47):
and unruly they they telled, just return to their seats
or just clear the field and the home team can win. Nope,
these Cleveland fans well past that, Elizabeth. Yeah, they just
want grass, souvenirs. Blood. Finally, a hunting knife gets at
the umpire and it lands at his feet like blade,
into the grass like hilt, standing up, and then he
gets hit by a piece of stadium seating in the head.
Speaker 3 (42:08):
Ohms like the game.
Speaker 2 (42:10):
Okay, okay, that's it. He forfeits. He calls the game
and he forfeits it in favor of the Texas Rangers. Yeah,
then he high tails it out of the stadium. The
game is now officially over as far as MLB is concerned.
Nineteen year old who started all this, Terry Yurkic. Yeah,
he's watching the drunken chaos consume all before him. People
were on the field for a long time. They announced
the game was being forfeited, and it got even crazier.
(42:31):
It didn't even into our mind that they had forfeit.
We were all disappointed. But the Indians weren't very good
then anyway. It's like, it's not like it cost him
a pennant or anything.
Speaker 3 (42:40):
What do they think would happen?
Speaker 2 (42:42):
No, No, they're drunk, Elizabeth, They're very drunk. Pay through anyway.
For twenty minutes, the fans continue to run amok. Now
everyone's gone. That's a long time, Oh totally. Cleveland PD
finally arrives and they now have numbers large enough and
sober cops to calm things down. Nine fans get arrested
for god knows what I mean, Like, I don't know
how you make a distinction of who to arrest. In
(43:03):
the scene, they must have been like absolutely, just murdering
a child or something. Yeah, like exactly. I have no idea.
The Cleveland players, they escorted the Texas Rangers to their
team bus to ensure they can safely escape the stadium. Meanwhile,
localan sportswriter trying to cover the story, Dan Goughlin from
the Chronicle Telegram. He interviews fans streaming out of the stadium.
This sports writer, Elizabeth. He gets punched, not once, but twice,
(43:25):
right in the face. Now back to mad cap Serbian
Terry Yurkic. Nobody in my group was arrested, but we
all got home separately. We didn't watch the news or anything.
We were not in much condition to watch TV. You know,
we weren't worried about getting in trouble once we got
out of the stadium without being arrested. So he made
it out safely. I knew you'd be worried about Terry. Terry,
(43:45):
So when he's asked about the what all just went
down in Cleveland, the Texas Rangers manager Billy Martin says
in his postgame press conference that was the closest you're
ever going to get to seeing someone get killed in
this game of baseball. Burrows seems to be surrounded. Maybe
it was silly for us to go out there, but
we were about to leave a man on the field unprotected.
It seemed that he might be destroyed. He sounds like
(44:08):
Rick Moran's now the manager for Cleveland, asked Bermandi. When
he gets asked about the drunken ambush and like leading
a melee against his own fans, he says, it's not
just baseball, it's a 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 to fight, But look at our people. They
(44:28):
were worse. I don't know what it was, and I
don't know who's to blame, but I'm scared.
Speaker 3 (44:33):
He's not mad, he's disappointed.
Speaker 2 (44:35):
Yeah, but I've got some bad news for you about
the future, and more personally, at the end of the season,
I got some other bad news. He becomes the ex manager.
He's fired after Cleveland goes seventy seven and eighty five.
So after the game, the Empire Old Nestor Chilac. He's
interviewed by the press like everybody else, and he holds
a bloody compress to his head during his Intervieweah, in fact,
(44:55):
totally he's notably heated. And he says, and I quote animals,
you can't just you just can't pull back a pack
of animals. But on control beasts are out there. You
gotta do something. I saw two guys with knives and
I got hit with a chair. So the umpire. At
this point, he pauses Elizabeth, he thinks for a hot second.
Then he adds, without any explanation, if the war is
(45:18):
on tomorrow, I'm gonna join the other side to get
a shot at them. Who wants to fight the fans too,
Like Dave Duncan over there. So I like to think
that he's prepared to join the comedies against the USIA.
But I'm guessing he really means like helping the cops
put down the hippie case. So anyway, the Cleveland PD, they,
as I said, they arrived in time to keep things
(45:38):
from getting too far out of control, Like we're still
within our ninety nine percent murder free So in the end,
the cops show up, they turn off the lights, and
they tell everyone to go home. Like Cleveland Municipal Stadium
is a bar, like I'm not even kidding. The cops
is going, they go, you don't have to go home,
but you can't stay here, and they turn off the
lights and it worked. All the drunk people they acted
just like it was a bar kicking in the mouth.
They knew exactly what to do. No quick question. Yeah,
(46:02):
can you imagine the sheer number of drunk drivers on
the road that stadium. I'm thinking like sixteen thousand.
Speaker 5 (46:09):
Oh god.
Speaker 3 (46:10):
Well, you know it's like anytime there's some big crazy
thing I always think about, like that's the place for
DUI checkpoint.
Speaker 2 (46:15):
Oh completely. But then then this is before drunk driving
was even like really a concept people talked about. That's
what people will still go.
Speaker 3 (46:24):
Hey, a beer for the road bomb, Yeah, exactly, the
road soda.
Speaker 2 (46:28):
So as a post mortem on the riot and the
chaos and Cleveland for their ten cent beer knight, the
American League president Lee McPhail, he comes out, he issues
this edict for all of baseball. All promotional events are
canceled pending league review. And then Elizabeth. One month later
in July, Cleveland holds another ten cent beer knight. No
where did god?
Speaker 3 (46:47):
No?
Speaker 2 (46:49):
And that time we went off with with that, well,
less of an incident. It wasn't this, So there you go.
And finally, just as our little coda, in nineteen ninety one,
Mike Cargrove returned to Cleveland to the team's manager no
and in his office on his wall he kept a
frame photo of ten cent beering Hight. So, what's our
ridiculous takeaway here, Elizabeth?
Speaker 3 (47:10):
Those kind of like crazy events make great stories later on,
but in the moment, it could. I mean, I think
it'd be hilarious. I would love to have been there,
but I think that you know, if you're in the
middle of it and the adrenaline kicks in and it's
could be very scary.
Speaker 2 (47:23):
Oh yeah, these were all people were all like one
decision away from like accidentally killing themselves, like falling off something. Really,
I mean, it was a lot of luck in this place.
Speaker 3 (47:32):
Yeah, Zarin, what's your ridiculous.
Speaker 2 (47:34):
Take Oh my goodness, can I hear that again?
Speaker 3 (47:36):
Zaren?
Speaker 2 (47:38):
I can't, Dave, she almost did it anyway, I'm just
gonna play that again for myself. One second. Oh that
is nice, Okay, Yeah, my ridiculous takeaway is, you know,
we don't really give baseball it's due for how many
great stories it brought to Americas. We just think like, oh, hockey,
so violent, football, so violent? Man baseball, I.
Speaker 3 (47:56):
Love a bench clearing brawn.
Speaker 2 (47:58):
I'm telling you right, or coming in like the spikes
out on a slide. I mean, just like, we don't
get baseball enough credit.
Speaker 3 (48:03):
You know, everyone thinks it's a slow game. Yeah it is.
Don't and that's why I like it. You know it
has its moment.
Speaker 2 (48:11):
Yeah, like don't charge the mound against jan mirishal see.
I'm talking about anyway, you in the mood for a talkback, Elizabeth.
Speaker 3 (48:17):
I have always in the mood for a talkbag.
Speaker 2 (48:21):
Oh my god. I went get.
Speaker 4 (48:31):
Hey, Elizabeth and Zaren. It's Wendy in Baltimore. I listened
to a lot of true crime podcasts. Of course, yours
is ninety nine percent murder free. A lot of the
other ones I listen to are pretty much one hundred
percent murdery. So I was listening to one of those
murdery ones.
Speaker 5 (48:46):
And they're setting the stage in the beginning, and in
their very serious, somber tone, they said something like, you know,
it's June twenty first, nineteen ninety one, And immediately my
brain said nineteen ninety one play break.
Speaker 2 (49:00):
Yes, this is incredible, you know, that's when that came out, Elizabeth,
nineteen ninety one point break came out.
Speaker 3 (49:06):
One point break came out.
Speaker 2 (49:08):
So thank you for that talkback. That was fun. And
as always, you can find us online Ridiculous Crime that
all the social media is, or at least half of them. Anyway,
we have a website, Ridiculous Crime dot com and obviously
we love your talkback, so please hit up the iHeart app,
download it, record a message and maybe you'll hear your
voice on the show. And of course also emails if
(49:30):
you like Ridiculous Crime at gmail dot com and that's
always typed to your Elizabeth. Now there you go. So
that's all I got for you. Thanks for listening. We'll
catch you next crime. Ridiculous Crime is hosted by Elizabeth
Dutton and Zone Burnette, produced and edited by the fearless
manager of the Ridiculous Crime All Stars, Dave Houston. Research
(49:53):
is by Billy Martin's biggest fans of Marissa Brown and
Andrea Song sharpened to hear our theme song is by
Thomas the Diego Chicken, Lee and Travis formerly Stopper the
A's Elephant Dunney, the host wardrobe providing by Botany five hundred,
guest hair and makeup by Sparkleshot and mister Andre. Executive
producers are Ben I'm an oil Can boyd Man my Self,
(50:15):
Bowlin and Nol I Prefer Mookie Wilson Brown Clime Say
It One More Time.
Speaker 1 (50:30):
Cry Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio four more
podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
Elizabeth Dugszaron Burnett. Oh my god, to have a question
for you. Huh. Do you know what's ridiculous?
Speaker 3 (00:09):
I do funny? You should ask share it with me.
Grillo's Pickles.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Yes, we've talked about them before.
Speaker 3 (00:17):
It's ridiculous. They have this thing called Pickle Paradise.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
Uh huh.
Speaker 3 (00:21):
And it's June seventh, hit the twenty second, so I
think we missed it in New York. And it's like
a pop up, right, and they have all this, like,
you know, free hot dogs and burgers and what have you. Okay,
this was sent to us by a couple different people
just because they know that you and I, particularly you
love Grillo's Pickles.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
Yes.
Speaker 3 (00:41):
But then as I'm looking at it, then it said
Grillo's Pickles University, because like, the pop up's not ridiculous,
that's just cool.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
Yeah, this is cool.
Speaker 3 (00:49):
I'll give Rills Pickles University. And it said we're getting
ready to open applications for the fall twenty twenty four semester.
I don't understand, like, is it just open admission? Like
what goes on? So you click learn more?
Speaker 2 (01:01):
Of course you did it.
Speaker 3 (01:02):
Says, no exams, no stress, pickles, But then thanks for
your interest in Grillo's Pickles University. Submissions for this semester
are currently closed, but feel free to enter your information
below to be alerted of future opportunities. We appreciate your
interest in support. They just want your information, I guess,
but like, and then I tried to find information what
is Grillo's Pickles University and on their Instagram they just
(01:26):
said it's coming soon. Click to stay informed. But like,
what is it?
Speaker 2 (01:31):
So you learn to pickle? This is where you can
you get a major in picklemongering.
Speaker 3 (01:36):
I don't know. But you can sign up on the
Grillo's Pickle website to get a year's supply of pickles.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
Okay, so this is just like website like gaming.
Speaker 3 (01:46):
Guess, but the Pickle University. I don't know. I just zaren,
I just don't.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
Know now see listener. Aaron Mumford wrote to me personally
to warn me that you may be coming with so grillos,
pickles and madness at me, and I appreciate it. Thank you,
Aaron for the warning. The mashup protection, But it turns
out it wasn't the one you.
Speaker 3 (02:09):
Threw at was it like a perfume.
Speaker 2 (02:11):
It was a pickled gayo.
Speaker 3 (02:13):
Oh no, I have that in my refrigerator.
Speaker 2 (02:14):
Yeah, there you go, legit, I do.
Speaker 3 (02:20):
But yeah, apparently there's a perfume or what have you.
But anyway, the university that just struck me as ridiculous.
And on that note, I bid you ridiculous.
Speaker 2 (02:28):
Okay, ridiculous. Well, if you got a second, I do
you do nice? Okay? Do you remember? Well, you probably
don't remember, but if you were like seeing like in
videos and references and like sports highlights about how professional
sports in the US in the nineteen seventies had this
super high level of outrageousness and just general silliness.
Speaker 3 (02:47):
Yeah, I don't remember it.
Speaker 2 (02:48):
Personally, I think the San Diego chicken.
Speaker 3 (02:51):
Okay, yeah, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2 (02:52):
You're familiar with the San Diego chicken, right, like Tommylesortait exactly,
so you've seen images of the seventies. That's my idea. Okay,
Now for today's story, let's omit the chicken and in
his place will sub in a cheap beer promotion in
the Midwest. Okay, and instead of San Diego, we'll relocate
to Cleveland. Okay, Elizabeth, you ever heard the story of
(03:15):
ten cent beer night? No? Oh, have I got a
fun one for you?
Speaker 3 (03:18):
Like a disaster?
Speaker 2 (03:19):
Oh it is. This is Ridiculous Crime, a podcast about
(03:44):
absurd and outrageous capers, heists and cons. It's always nine
percent murder free and ridiculous. Yes, oh, Elizabeth, you love
the baseball I do, or at least you used to
love it before the A's broke your heart. Yeah's about
baseball these days?
Speaker 3 (04:01):
I've soured on MLB. I just think the whole thing
is a sham.
Speaker 2 (04:07):
So you're now down to minor league baseball.
Speaker 3 (04:08):
No, not even minor league. I'm into Pioneer League.
Speaker 2 (04:11):
Pioneer League wow, which is.
Speaker 3 (04:13):
Like minor minors. Yeah, but we have a new team here.
I don't know, it's like Z ball. They have a
team here in Oakland, the Ballers, Nice Oakland Ballers, And
I'm yeah, I haven't been able to because all the
games have been sold out. He just started. They're doing
really well and they seem really cool. And so that's
my new thing. Pioneer League.
Speaker 2 (04:33):
Nice.
Speaker 3 (04:33):
I'm into it for you, pure baseball.
Speaker 2 (04:36):
Well, do you mind hearing a baseball story?
Speaker 3 (04:38):
I love to hear baseball stories.
Speaker 2 (04:39):
Okay, Elizabeth. Do you know who the manager of the
Texas Rangers was back in nineteen seventy four.
Speaker 3 (04:44):
Glenn Ford.
Speaker 2 (04:47):
If only? No, it was the one and only Billy Martin.
Speaker 3 (04:51):
Oh okay, and then he later.
Speaker 2 (04:53):
Goes on to be Yes Yankees and Billy Ball exactly.
I didn't know he managed the Rangers seventy four. This
is a total shock to men.
Speaker 3 (05:02):
Obviously, I didn't know what and I thought.
Speaker 2 (05:03):
I knew some Billy Martin, you know, you know, more
than the average bear.
Speaker 3 (05:07):
A lot of us thought we knew Billy Martin.
Speaker 2 (05:08):
I know, right, So this one has just promise you,
because it has Billy Martin, it's gonna get good.
Speaker 3 (05:13):
Nice.
Speaker 2 (05:14):
Now, the story, even if the idea of ten cent
beer Knight starts like you know, you think, oh Cleveland,
it started in Texas, because of course it started in Texas.
This story the will begin it on May twenty ninth,
nineteen seventy four. The Cleveland Guardians, then known as the
Cleveland Indians. We're facing the Texas Rangers right now. The
game starts to get unruly in the fourth inning after
(05:36):
there's this hard slide play at second base on a
double play in the now in the bottom of the
eighth inning, the Cleveland players get their revenge. There's a
bunt and then there's a tag out at first base
and this batter leads with his elbow and he collides
with the first basement. Boom. He disrupts him. In response
to first basement, throws a punch. That's it. Both benches cleared.
(05:56):
Massive brawl in the diamond, and so the Cleveland players
eventually they get you know, pulled back to their dugout.
But the Texas fans they're not over it, right. So
as they're going back to their dugout, they're just getting
rained down on by hot dogs, beers, whatever they got, right.
So as he's half eaten hot dogs and half warm
beer from Texas or raining down to the Cleveland players,
they're just fuming. Right. One player, because you know there's
(06:18):
always at least one. The catcher for Cleveland, this dude
named Dave Duncan. He tries to go into the stands
and fight the foe. They're kidding, yes, because they've been
attacking his teammates with hot dogs and beers. Now you
can't stand Elizabeth. So the catcher he has to be
held back from climbing into the stands to beat on
these Texas fans. That's in May down in Texas. Now Elizabeth.
As wild as that game was, the game featured no suspensions,
(06:41):
no forfeiture of the game. No players were rejected.
Speaker 3 (06:45):
Even though he got all up in the stands exactly.
Speaker 2 (06:47):
Umpires were like, yeah, it's cool as you know whatever,
It's a bea chill. Nobody got hurt, right. It was
a different time, very different time. Now. In a few weeks,
Texas and Cleveland were set for a series up in Cleveland,
which is why after the game Texas ranged manager Billy Martin.
He's being interviewed by the reporters right in this Cleveland
sports writer he asked him, are you gonna take your
arm to Cleveland? Billy, and always quick to pop off,
(07:09):
Billy Martin's like, nah, they won't have enough fans there
to worry about. Oh ouch, okay, So a little context
about Cleveland Elizabeth in the nineteen seventies. Do you know
much about Cleveland in the nineteen seventies.
Speaker 3 (07:20):
I'm gonna guess it was awesome.
Speaker 2 (07:22):
Yeah, oh yeah. So in the nineteen seventies, the Cleveland
Ball Club at that point is the Cleveland Municipal Stadium,
huge cathedral to baseball, built in nineteen thirty two. The
depression was on, they still managed to make it be
built with public funds. Oh Rab Gik was nineteen twenty eight.
They approved the funds. But anyway, okay, this huge cathedral
to baseball stadiums. It seeded seventy four thousand.
Speaker 3 (07:44):
Right, seventy four thousand.
Speaker 2 (07:46):
Now, for it was the biggest one in baseball. For comparison,
the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, constructed a decade earlier, paled
in comparison when it came to seating in the LA
Coliseum or the USC they played also a really big one.
They would later host the thirty two Olympics, and many
people thought the Municipal Stadium would host the thirty two Olympics.
That's how grand this place was, right clean, exactly, But
(08:08):
it loses out to LA and of course the Coliseum.
Now that site decision, you could say the Olympics, like
Summer Olympics, choice to be in La not in Cleveland.
You could say that marked the end of Cleveland's era
of ascendants, right nineteen thirty because as soon as you basically, well,
I'll put it this way, in nineteen twenty eight, right Cleveland,
when it built Municipal Stadium, or started to build it,
(08:28):
the city had just passed Saint Louis to become the
fifth most populous city in the United States. Four years later,
nineteen thirty two, Cleveland is now looking to pass Detroit
to become the fourth most populous city in the United States.
We're talking up with the big kids now New York. Okay,
but you see Elizabeth the city, it had reached its zenith.
(08:49):
They didn't know this at the time, but from that
point on, Cleveland just starts to fall and fall and
just keep hitting harder times and harder times, losing people,
shaking them off.
Speaker 3 (08:58):
Now, somehow I think it just got oh totally in my.
Speaker 2 (09:01):
Opinion, you know same. Now today Cleveland is well here,
I'll let you guess where do you think Cleveland ranks
now on the list of the most populous cities in
the United States.
Speaker 3 (09:10):
Wow, twelve fifty fourth fifty four.
Speaker 2 (09:14):
For comparison's sake, that puts Cleveland just behind Wichita, Kansas
and Aurora, Colorado in terms of size, and just ahead
of Honolulu and Anaheim. Wow, Cleveland is now just a
little bigger than a city that was built to house Disneyland. Okay,
so basically Cleveland's heyday. As I pointed out, it's peak
with nineteen twenty nine, and if you just track like
one day before the Stark Market crash, that's Cleveland's peak
(09:36):
because from.
Speaker 3 (09:37):
That point on an upswing lately.
Speaker 2 (09:40):
Yes, I mean it has really come around a lot
of those old Roust Belt cities, Pittsburgh, same thing they have.
Definitely Cleveland has really tried hard.
Speaker 3 (09:47):
Cleveland, the one with the really dirty river.
Speaker 2 (09:49):
Just about it. Oh no, I'm glad you mentioned it.
The Cuyahoga River. Yeah, what do you know about the
Cuyahoga River? Li is, in nineteen fifty two, the Cyahoga
River caught fire. This was not the first time it
had caught fire. This is, in fact, the ninth time
it had caught fire. Now you have to understand, like
this river winds through downtown Cleveland, right, So when a
(10:10):
river catches on fire, and rivers are not supposed to
catch on fire, and it's in the middle of downtown,
it catches a lot of attention. Now, but obviously it
takes some oil and pollution to be on the you know,
top of the river. That's what catches fire? But this
happened over and over and over again. Now, surprisingly, at
the time, a river catching on fire was not really
a big deal. They're like, oh, I didn't catch fire again.
Oh ho ho ha. Right, people outside of Cleveland, they're like,
(10:33):
what the hell? And then in nineteen sixty nine, as
you know, attitudes about the earth are changing, the river
catches fire again. This time it's impossible to ignore because
in sixty nine the flames reached five stories high. Wait,
what you have flames as tall as a downtown building
burning on the river.
Speaker 3 (10:52):
I didn't know that huge. Oh my god.
Speaker 2 (10:54):
Now, I don't want to over exaggerate it, because the
fire only lasted a half an hour, so you know,
it wasn't like buiding for days.
Speaker 3 (11:01):
I have such a soft spot for places like this,
coming from like a hard scrabble industrial city like Oakland
and that. Yeah, it's a bad wrap, and yet there's
a lot of cool, loot of heart people.
Speaker 2 (11:14):
If you stay, you stay for a reason. Yes, my
mom lived in Cleveland. I've been there a bunch.
Speaker 3 (11:19):
I have simpatico.
Speaker 2 (11:20):
Yeah exactly, you know. So okay, Well we have also
the Cuyahoga River catching on fire, in nineteen sixty nine.
We have to thank it because it was a hugely
influential event to the passage of the Environmental Protection Act
in nineteen.
Speaker 3 (11:33):
Seventy Yeah, I would imagine.
Speaker 2 (11:34):
So it was also a perfect symbol in indication of
how far Cleveland had fallen. So we got you know,
ups and downs in either way. Yeah. Throughout the sixties,
Cleveland has been watching its factories and its industrial base
basically close up shop and move out of state or
out of overseas. I'm talking, like I say, factories. We're
talking six hundred factories left town. Yeah, that's a lot, right,
(11:57):
So how does all this connect to ten cent beer nights? Zarin?
Speaker 3 (12:00):
Great question, Elizabe, really good questions.
Speaker 2 (12:02):
Obviously, nineteen seventy four, people in Cleveland were down to drink.
They had a first right after watching all the factories
close and the river and downtown burn over and over again,
people in Cleveland a feeling a little rambunctious.
Speaker 3 (12:12):
Then, you know, to weather that you got to be
made a tough stuff and you gotta, you know, like
to get down with ten cent beer.
Speaker 2 (12:20):
Yeah, exactly, maybe laugh at the blakness of life sometimes.
So meanwhile, they had not been going to ball games.
They weren't typically in the mood for a ball game
because everybody's on hard times, right, so they're like, oh,
I'm not going to go see these bummer you know,
Cleveland players.
Speaker 3 (12:33):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (12:34):
So in May, at the beginning of that baseball season,
Cleveland was seeing about an average of four thousand spectators
walk through the gates of their enormous cathedral.
Speaker 4 (12:43):
Exactly.
Speaker 2 (12:44):
I thought you'd recognize those numbers. Now, most of the
season the team because it ted their business attendance. Typically,
they were having about eighty five percent of the seats
go unsold. Okay, so one day, executive vice president Ted
Bonda takes a look at the ledger. His eyes grow
wide at the sight of all that red. He's like,
we're gonna lose the franchise.
Speaker 3 (13:02):
Oh yeah, totally.
Speaker 2 (13:02):
The team is losing money faster than you can say, like,
I don't know, mc hammerton, Yes, there you go. So
this cat Ted Bond. He's desperate to turn around the
fortunes of his team. He looks around, he sees this
idea that seems to be an answer to his prayers.
Texas Rangers hold this promotion. He gets butts in the
seats fills the whole place. They call it ten cent
Beer Night. So it's exactly as advertised. It's all the
(13:25):
beer you can drink for ten cents, no limit. Oh,
Ted Bond says to himself.
Speaker 3 (13:30):
No limit soldiers on that one.
Speaker 2 (13:31):
What if we threw our own ten cent beer night?
We could do that. So in the meantime, Cleveland goes
down to Texas and gets into that bench clearing brawl.
Speaker 3 (13:39):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (13:39):
In response to the Cleveland sports radio talk show hosts
Pete Franklin and Joe Tait, they fire up the fandom.
They have this home stand coming up, and so Cleveland
could be playing host to the Rangers. Now the team
can get its revenge before the home field fans. Elizabeth
the Cleveland Plain Dealer, the newspaper, they get involved on it.
They're like, oh, we gotta hype this right. They print
a cartoon of the Cleveland mascot, Chief Wahoo, and he's
(14:02):
got boxing gloves. The caption reads, be ready for anything.
Oh God. So this is now six days after the
bench clearing brawl, not even a full week. The Texas
Rangers come to Cleveland. Coincidentally, they arrive on ten cent
beer Night.
Speaker 3 (14:16):
Oh coincidence.
Speaker 2 (14:17):
Yes, the promotion totally works. Twenty three thousand, five hundred
fans show up. That's six times their average it The
beer sponsor for this promotion is Stros, Remember Stros?
Speaker 3 (14:29):
Yes? Right, Oh, this is getting better.
Speaker 2 (14:32):
The promotion offers beers at ten cents each, as I said,
with a limit of six beers per purchase, but no
limit on how many purchases can be made for how
many beers can be purchased by any individual outside of
that six per.
Speaker 3 (14:44):
Time, six at a time.
Speaker 2 (14:46):
Now, the stage for the June fourth, nineteen seventy four
ten cent beer Night is set. God, take a little break,
Elizabeth after this. Let's play ball, Elizabeth. We're back, yay, Okay,
(15:18):
So let's get into this game.
Speaker 3 (15:19):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (15:20):
So, when the Texas Rangers manager Billy Martin he comes
out to present his lineup card to the umpires for
the game, the Cleveland fans start booing him, just mercilessly. Right,
This sets the tenor for the game. Now, when it
comes to accounts of what's to come, we're lucky because
we have not just a few eye witnesses, we actually
have this story told from the perspective of the very
guy who starts the riot. Oh yeah, there's a riot
(15:43):
at some point. Yeah. This dude's name. He's nineteen year
old fan named Terry Yerkic, And in two thousand and seven,
his story was told in the Cleveland magazine by writer
Andy Netzel. So, according to Terry Yerkich's account, I was
nineteen and in my first year in college. This was
like no game I'd ever been through, and I've been
through a lot of Indian games. I went to the
game with five friends. We're sitting up in the center
(16:05):
field bleachers, right. So he's enjoying. So he's enjoying this game.
He's from Chicago. What can I tell you, Darry Yurkich.
He also remembered the beer trucks. A beer truck was
set up right behind the home run fence. Truck looked
like a big box, like a U haul truck. They
had all the kegs inside the Spickett's coming out this side.
At first people paid attention to the game, but eventually
(16:27):
most people were more concerned about getting their beer. Now. Also,
we know that without prompting, hundreds of fans had all
arrived at the game. No one told him to do this,
and they all bring pocketful of fireworks. Oh yeah, right.
So as chief wa who told the fans be ready
for anything, well, yeah, he loved So starting from the
first pitch, fireworks start popping off right. The smoke and
(16:49):
the bangs and the smell of gunpowder. It's giving Cleveland
Municipal Stadium the feeling of a war zone, Elizabeth. Now,
according to my man Terry Yurkicic, people were blowing off
firecrackers in the bleachers. They weren't big, but they were
big enough. Everyone was trying to steer clear of them.
But the security never even gotten involved. No, since it's
nineteen seventy four, there's other smoke coloring the air. Pot smoke, Elizabeth,
(17:12):
clouds of it.
Speaker 5 (17:13):
Right.
Speaker 3 (17:13):
It is like you could in Oakland totally to today.
This is yet every week tonight the cops do absolutely
nothing about people breaking the law. Yeah, I love it.
Speaker 2 (17:25):
So there's, as I said, there's this recognizable lawless vibe
that you would know from Oakland. And this vibe starts
to spread through the crowd. By the top of the
second inning, things are already becoming a little unhinted. After
the designated hitter for Texas Rangers hits a home run,
this very large breasted woman seated on the first baseline.
She jumps over the wall, runs out onto the diamond.
She stops at the on deck circle and then flashes
(17:47):
her breasts out the crowd. Oh god, it already now
starting to get drunk. Buzzing crowd essentially responds exactly how
you might imagine bunch. Also, a very young crowd will say,
is attracted to ten cent beer.
Speaker 3 (17:59):
Night, But yeah, because you normally are pulling in like
four thousand people, and now you're almost a twenty four thousand,
So you've got twenty thousand people. Basically, we're not your
regular sport who were there for beer.
Speaker 2 (18:10):
Yeah. Yeah, and now they're getting bare breasted women, so
they hoot, they haul, they're loving it. Then she tries
to run up and kiss the umpire This guy Nestra Shilac.
He's not down, Elizabeth. The woman gets escorted from the Diamond.
But now she started a whole mood because throughout the
second inning, other fans were like, I would also like
to hop onto the field and get naked.
Speaker 3 (18:29):
And show my bazoo.
Speaker 2 (18:30):
So men, women, everyone just starts streaking across the field
right stark naked one Texas ranger player my cargroup. He
recalls how and I quote started out with a couple
of people doing it. Then it was five, then ten,
then it was a whole bunch. I don't know how
many a whole bunches, but it's more than ten. Anyway,
high school fan named Jack Barno who was there with friends.
He's seated in the upper deck that day, and he
(18:53):
remembers how people were streaking across the field and cops
are chasing them. They were laughing like you can't catch me.
There were a handful of cops on the other side
with billy clubs, and when they came over that fence,
they met them with a couple of wax to the
head and drag them off. So now we got violence
popping off, ye right.
Speaker 3 (19:08):
And that's only gonna stoke violence in the crowd, yes, of.
Speaker 2 (19:11):
Course A right. And they're like bringing up the billy clubs,
whacking people drunks on the head. Right, So there're people
are like, oh, I see what how this is turning?
Speaker 5 (19:18):
Well?
Speaker 3 (19:18):
It makes me think of the A's had Novelty bat night. Yes,
and that's just basically handing out billy clubs Like so yeah,
it's a bad combo.
Speaker 2 (19:27):
So fourth inning, that same Texas Ranger DH hits a
second home run. After he's rounding second base on his
way to third base, a naked man joins him on
the diamond, also trying to round second base. Yes, but
the streaker decides, you know what, well, I'm here, I'm
gonna take my one chance at a major league slide.
He goes through, sliding face first into second base, totally naked. Elizabeth,
(19:48):
you know how baseball gravel is and how like it's like, oh,
that looks like red clay or whatever. Yeah, no, it's
gonna rip you up right. So the streaker sliding into
second The local papers put in a quote, probably getting
dirt in places unsuitab for speculation.
Speaker 3 (20:01):
Oh damn right, that's he just needs to blame stros
for that.
Speaker 2 (20:04):
So at this point in the fourth inning, we have
fireworks going off every few minutes, women flashing their breast,
young men running naked across the field showing off their
bait and tackle, and damn near, everyone's getting drunker and
drunker and drunker. Then a Cleveland player hits a rocket
shot right back at the Rangers pitcher Ferguson Jenkins Old
Fergie Jenkins hits him square in the gut, drops him
on the mound.
Speaker 3 (20:25):
Right.
Speaker 2 (20:25):
While Fergie Jenkins is lying there on the mound, writhing
around an obvious pain, a chant breaks out amongst the
Cleveland fans. Hit him again, Hit him again, harder, harder,
hit him again, hit him ahead, harder, harder.
Speaker 3 (20:39):
So, hey, I would I would pay money to go
back in time and go to this game.
Speaker 2 (20:43):
It sounds so that's same inning. Right. There's a play
at third and a Cleveland based runner is called safe.
So manager for the Texas Rangers, Billy Martin, does what
Billy Martin does, storming out of a dugout full speed,
just kicking. Yes, you know his move, right, So he's
attacking the ump, kicking dust on him, ruining his socks.
He's the best, right, so Billy Martin arguing the call.
(21:04):
We're deep in the game now, right, So fans are
deep in their cups. They have a shot at him
on the field, so they start chucking beers at Billy Martin.
The umpire starts catching strays. It's getting bad. Hot dogs
are hitting them right. So Billy Martin, being the peach
that he is, he refuses to get mad. Most of
the beer is missing him anyway, So while he walks
back to the dugout, he's blowing kisses at the Cleveland
(21:25):
fans like eat it up, gotta love anyway. The next inning,
the fifth inning, a father and son Elizabeth, taking a
part in that long beloved American tradition of enjoying a
baseball game together. They stand up, they jump over the
wall and run onto the field.
Speaker 3 (21:40):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (21:41):
Then they lower the pants and they moon the Texas
Ranger outfield. No. The crowd and the bleachers watching goes nuts.
The drunken fans they love it more. More flesh on
the field, the Texas Ranger players not so much hands,
hands on hips, ted's down, they're just like humiliated. Security
runs onto the field. They chased the father and son
(22:02):
as they yank up their breeches and try to get away.
At this point, like I said, it's the fifth inning.
What's the beer situation like on ten cent beer Nights,
Arin Greig.
Speaker 3 (22:11):
Question, Elizabeth, Yes, yeah.
Speaker 2 (22:13):
So at this point, according to Terry Jerkic, it was
taking twenty minutes to get a beer. People started to
get pretty impatient. Tables surrounded the truck right the workers
pouring the bill would fill up any container you brought them.
I had a big dog in sudsmug, maybe thirty two ounces.
It looked like a little mini keg. So now people
(22:34):
are sucking out all the they could get into their heads. Right,
people are filling whatever they can bring in front of
the strows. People didn't take long to turn into just chaos.
Right back to Terry Yerkic, the crowd crew in more patient,
and they threw the tables to the side. The people
were manning the truck basically abandoned it. The police were
standing right there. They didn't seem to care, or maybe
they thought they couldn't handle that many people. So now
(22:56):
the cops scared out. Number were still only in the
fifth inning.
Speaker 3 (23:00):
Oh my god, and they kicked over the tables in
front of the Oh oh boy.
Speaker 2 (23:04):
As Terry Yerkis says, some guys stop filling their containers
and just put their mouths right under the taps on
the field. The streakers just keep running. Thanks for escalating,
you think so Around this point in the game, right,
one fan he throws a tennis ball down onto the field, right,
just I don't know, a joker a little bit of
he throws it into center field. But he's one of
your people, Elizabeth. He doesn't want to leave his mess
(23:25):
for someone else to clean up, so instead he hops
down onto the field. He runs over the middle of
the game, grabs his tennis ball, and he throws it
back to his friends in this dance like I got
the ball. Guys. At this point, Elizabeth, stadium security there
on him. They know they got to be quick on this,
so this guy he sees the security coming, so he
gives him a little headfake. He dishes. One security guard
(23:45):
gets chased by another. Now while he's running, this fan
sees him and shouts at this ball retriever guy, Elizabeth.
This may be my favorite part of this entire story.
The guy in the stands who shouts is a long
lost relative of the ball retriever and recognizes him on
the diamond. Oh my god, a retriever guy points at
his like fan and realizes that he's his family, and
(24:07):
then he runs over towards him. At the same time,
the long lost relative comes down the steps and he
hops the fence and he runs onto the field. The
two relatives hug on the diamond in the middle of
the game. It's impromptu family reunion so good. It's the
security guards catch up to them, because remember he gave
him the head fake before. Yeah. Now the two guys
are hugging. They get tackled by securitys with it. The
(24:29):
ball retriever guy shoves security off of him. He hops
back into the stands where his family just came from.
He escapes that he gets shielded by all the drunk fans.
They won't let security chase because they love his scoffs
and his family's story. I mean, it's beautiful, it's heartwarming.
The long lost relative, though, he gets grabbed by security.
So the fans they don't like this outcome.
Speaker 3 (24:48):
Elizabeth as a sacrifice.
Speaker 2 (24:51):
They let the security have it. Beers come raining down,
but also golf balls. Now they wait. They found small
rocks from like the stadium floor, the pieces of cement.
A shoe comes down, hits one guy. These people are drunk,
so they're throwing out whatever they can reach.
Speaker 3 (25:06):
They brought equipment for other sports. They brought tennis fall
golf balls.
Speaker 2 (25:12):
Exactly that hockey puck can come on, be ready, exactly,
Cleveland listens, Cleveland. True. So at this point, the PA
announcer comes on the stadium speakers ask the fans please
do not throw letter.
Speaker 3 (25:24):
Onto the dormond right, oh yeah, that'll stop.
Speaker 2 (25:26):
Crowd response is to throw way more stuff onto the field,
so now it's just like a rain. Immediately time ground
crew is like, oh my god, you guys cured me.
They go out that have to clear the field of
all the larger objects of the game can go on.
So now the fans use the ground crew as target,
like it's duck hunt. They got these guys going back
and forth. They're like, yeah, tag them. So now they're
throwing more stuff at the guys cleaning up the stuff
they've been throwing. One woman looking to get her piece
(25:48):
of the spotlight Elizabeth, She hops the low fence, runs
onto the diamond. She waves at her fellow fans as
she runs across the ballpark. She's not a streaker, she's
fully dressed. But when she stops running, because you know
why not, she wants to at her time on the spotlight.
Before the security can get to her, the crowd dorges
her take it off, so she pretends to do a
strip tease for the crowd. Security gets to her first
(26:10):
before any clothes come off. When they do, the woman
then turns and attacks the security like a cat throwing pause.
She's just crawling at the air. Security forces her to
the grass. Crowd goes nuts. We're like police brutality, probably fertality.
Firecrackers get thrown onto the field at the security. That
feels fun. So someone's like, what if we throw them
into the dugout. They're like, oh, we can't reach that.
(26:32):
We can reach the bullpen. So they throw them at
the Texas Rangers bullpen.
Speaker 3 (26:36):
Oh no, this.
Speaker 2 (26:37):
Big boy, long daddy of a firecracker, Elizabeth. When it
goes off, it sounds like her grenade. Players are hitting
the deck. The umpire Nestor Chilac stops the game because
now he's got like warfare, like real warfare. He orders
the Rangers bullpen evacuated for the player's safety. He tells
the maners, I'll let him warm up on the mound.
It's fine. So around this point, I.
Speaker 3 (26:56):
Mean, at what point do you say that's it. We're
calling No, No.
Speaker 2 (27:00):
We're just get We still have a couple mornings before
it really gets loose. Yeah, we're about the sixth of
this point, coming into the seventh. So at this point,
Mike Hargrove gets brought into the game as a substitution,
and he plays first base, and for his intro into
the game, he has to dodge a half gone jug
of Thunderbird wine. The thunderbird, oh my god, apparely misses
his head by inches. That's his intro to the games.
(27:22):
They go take first. He's like, okay, I'll said them
so Elizabeth, nothing really says, I want to get stupid
drunk tonight, like a half drunk bottle of Thunderbear. Anyway,
jug as I said, misses him, but the hot Dogs don't.
So he's getting pelted by hot dogs. Some bears are
hitting him his feet right. So before Hargrove's first inning
is over, a new group of Streakers runs out onto
the field and they come from the third base side,
(27:44):
and they run onto the field dressed, but then they
quickly decide to get undressed. Once they're on the field,
they're like, well, let's do it here. I think they
were envious of the woman who got all the collapse
and attention. They're like, we can do that too, guys,
And so they go out to left center field and
they strip right. So they started then also like, you know,
we need some to defend ourselves against the security now
that we're you know, defenseless. So they grab the padding
off the left field wall and start ripping that down,
(28:07):
and then the people in the crowds are like, give
us some, so they throw some of the pads up
into the bleachers and then they start running around the
fields with some of the other chunks they've ripped off
the walls. Security is exhausted by this, so they're like,
who wants to go, Steve, do you? So they go
running back out on the diamond. They chase these nude
helions all around the ball bark. The crowd is cheering
and clapping. Radio guys Herbscore and Joe Tait, who've been
(28:27):
amused at first by all this, they're now commenting on
the families gathering up and fleeing the stadium and scared groups. Right. So,
now we're in the seventh inning and the beer is
still somehow flowing stross Elizabeth trucks. So the cops have
given up, some of em started drinking. They're now enjoying
the game. It's in the eighth inning. The Cleveland front
(28:50):
office is notably seen getting up and easing out of
the scene. Are kidding, Oh yeah? Like we no longer
want to be involved with what we started. So it's pandemonium, Elizabeth,
and everyone is sobered, point is leaving. Then comes the
ninth inning. The game, by the way, is close. The
Rangers are up in the bottom of the ninth Cleveland
rallies and ties the game five to five. We got
(29:12):
a tie game, folks, bottom of the night tie game.
Speaker 3 (29:14):
So it's not like I mean, if it were a blowout.
Speaker 2 (29:16):
Yeah, yeah, you could call it. He's we got it,
you know. Years later, the substitute first Basement, Old Mike Cargo.
He recalls, how I remember nothing about the game other
than in that inning we were in trouble. They had
runners on and it looked like they were getting ready
to score and go ahead. Then all of a sudden,
all hell broke loose. So before the game is over,
Old Terry Yerkic he wants to grab a souvenir from
(29:39):
the ten cent beer night fiasco. So what's he doing?
Hops down onto the field, and he's a big boy, Elizabeth,
like a big Serbian boy. So he tries to drunkenly
sneak up and steal the hat off the head of
a player. While the game is going off that. I'll
tell you. I'll let Terry Yerkiz tell you. So in
the ninth inning, I hopped the fence and I ran
up to text this outfielder, Jeff Burrows. When I jumped,
(30:02):
I was the only one on the field. I came
running up behind him. He never saw me coming. I
grabbed the hat right off the top of his head.
Now Mike Cargove remembers it a little differently, and Margrove said,
some big, great guy, drunk guy took Jeff's hat. I
was one of the first ones to get there, right,
So back to Terry Jerks. I had it in my hand,
(30:22):
but I dropped it. It landed right by his foot.
He didn't say a word. Our eyes met. I looked
at him, and he looked at me, and I said, oh, hell,
Jeff Burrows right rangers right field? Are professional athlete sick
of it all?
Speaker 3 (30:38):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (30:38):
He's over and wasn't that he just needs one out
to go home. So this professional athlete, he rears up
and he kicks this big trunk nineteen year old and
boots him backwards away from him, like get the hell
off my field. As Terry Jerkich puts it, he kicked
me right in the thigh. I had perfect spike marks
in my thigh. A few more people were now piling
onto the field at that point, I wasn't going to
(31:00):
down and get the hat. I was in retreat mode.
I wasn't trying to hurt him. I was just trying
to get a little souvenir. So Mike Hargrove runs from
first base and he's gonna go defend the outfielder, right, So,
Hargrove says, I tackled him and knocked him down, and
it took like three chops to handcuff him. Thank goodness,
he was on the ground. I took off or else.
So the cops do not actually successfully handcuff him because
(31:21):
Terry Yerkic slips away, big serbian kid. What can I
tell you, Elizabeth. So he runs towards the Texas Rangers dugout.
That's his escape plan is I'm gonna get through out
through the tunnels. So he's drunk, right, So, and there
are fans everywhere now because they're streaming onto the field.
Don't think the game is verty much over Urkic. He
still wants a little something for the.
Speaker 3 (31:39):
Effort, and it's tied up, tied up, five to.
Speaker 2 (31:41):
Five to bottom the ninth. It's there, it's their stand. Yeah,
they can have a walk off win, right, Terry Yurkic,
He recalls my brother and another friend. They tried to
get in. The Rangers dugout to get souvenirs too. So
now they've jumped down and they joined him. Right, but Elizabeth,
Biddy Martin, he don't play like that, No, Terry Yorkistru calls.
The players started swinging bats, the fans got chased into
(32:04):
the outfield. Well that's right, Billy Martin. He decides he
won't let a bunch of Cleveland fan hippie kids play
him like he's a punk. So armor, no armor, whatever,
He's ready to take on all of Cleveland Municipal Stadium.
Speaker 3 (32:17):
Well they're armed. The baseball players have bats.
Speaker 2 (32:19):
Oh yeah, Well well wait a minute, I should have
told you that the fans are also jumping down. Well armed,
some have knives. They've taken stadium seats and ripped them out,
and they're using them like clubs. It's a fair fight
except for the numbers. So let's take a little break,
and after this I'll tell you what happens when bad
Billy Martin goes to war against Cleveland. Oh good, Elizabeth, Yes,
(33:01):
where were we? Oh that's right, all hell broke loose,
So now we've got hell turned loose. Elizabeth. I'd like
you to close your eyes as a kid. I'd like
you to picture it. Elizabeth. It's warm spring night in Cleveland,
stars above, a soft breeze blowing through your hair. You
were invited to a Cleveland baseball game by a friend
from work. You've been working at a home for retired
(33:23):
seeing eye dogs. It's been a long week, and you
thought a ballgame sounded fun. A night out at the ballpark.
You have been to a game in forever. Only when
you get there you find out it's ten cent beer Knight.
So now you and your work friend groom Hill both
play along. You have a few ten cent beers, and
then you have a few more, because why not win
in Rome and all that. By the end of the game,
(33:44):
much like the twenty thousand other fans in Cleveland Municipal Stadium, Elizabeth,
you are now drunk. When you look down at your feet,
you see that you're standing in grass in right center field.
Oh that's right. You came over the outfield fence with
a rush of people. You leapt down into the outfield.
It wasn't that first group who stripped off their clothes
and got nude and are still running around. No, you're
(34:05):
with the second, maybe the third, fourth group, who knows,
who cares? What you know for certain is you're running
and laughing, drunk in Cleveland and on the field. Meanwhile,
Texas Ranger Billy Martin is in his dugout with his
team and he can see his right fielder getting surrounded
by drunk and now armed Cleveland fans. Billy Martin decides
he's seen enough. Billy Martin pops up off the bench.
(34:25):
He grabs a fungo bat for batting practice. He turns
to his team and addresses them like they're his men
and this is war. Billy Martin says, let's go get
them boys. The Texas Rangers, true to their name, follow
their leader into the fray, all of them ready and
prepared to hurt some people to get their man back safely. You, Elizabeth,
are in a happy, drunken nude. You're dancing with Darunhild
(34:46):
in right field with linked arms. You both spin around, run.
Hild is startled, and she lets go of your arm
and you try to take a few steps and regain
your balance. You barely do, just in time to see
Billy Martin coming flying out of the dugout like he's
ready to argue with some umpire over a blown call,
Only this time he has a fungal back over his
head and he's running right towards you, and the Texas
Rangers are right behind him. They also have bats in
(35:08):
their hands and they're using them, swinging them. One drunk
fan who charges Billy Martin, he goes down with a
good swing of the fun go back. Billy Martin has
good reason. They're facing down a mob of drunken fans, Elizabeth,
not you, but the ones around you, the ones who
are armed with bottles, knives, chains, pieces of stadium seating.
Oh yeah, seeing all this, Elizabeth, you also start to
(35:28):
half panded. You're still very drunk, so you quickly look around,
eyes swimming, and you see you're approximately with I don't
know two hundred drunken fans and your coworker, Drunehild, plus
Billy Martin and the Texas Rangers now rushing into the scene,
bats swinging, throwing fists. There's one Texas Ranger there near you,
the right fielder burrows. He's also surrounded. Elizabeth. You duck
as Billy Martin takes a swing at you with his
(35:49):
fungo matt and then he runs past you at age
at some hippie kid. You lie there in the outfield
grass as the Texas Rangers surround their man. The grass
feels cool and soft as you like there. You consider
just staying there in the grass as the fight goes
on above you, but you change your mind after a
pair of nudists streak past, and one waves at you
and looks like they're coming back. The Texas Rangers have
(36:11):
been ambushed. You lying in the cool grass, you watch
this crazy fight going on above you, and the stars
above the fight, you think to yourself, Ah, Cleveland. You
see some fans start throwing red clay dirt from the
warning track at the Texas Rangers. Now you have cheap
fireworks coloring the sky as red dirt explodes against Billy
Martin's angry, shouty face. He's standing just above you, waving
(36:32):
the fun go bat. Can you hear him shout? Let's
get out of here, boys, Elizabeth, you lie in the grasses.
The drunken fans chase Billy Martin and his Texas Rangers
out of the right field. Do you also wonder where
groom Hilda if you haven't seen her? And up there
she goes dancing past with another woman who's stolen a
Texas Rangers ball cap. At least someone got their souvenir
hat good. At this point, Elizabeth, seeing Billy Martin and
(36:54):
the Texas Rangers retreat to their dugout, the Cleveland manager
ken Espermante, he leads a chart of his own to
save and protect Billy Martin and the Texas Rangers. He's
gonna save him for the drunken mob that threatening them.
So Aspermante tells his team to grab their bats, their
fungo bats, whatever they can swing, and it's time to
go to work on their own fans.
Speaker 3 (37:12):
Oh your kidds.
Speaker 2 (37:13):
So the Cleveland players clear the batracks, they charge out
of the dugout, and they fight their own fans all
across the ballpark to right field to help defend the
retreat of Billy Martin and the Texas Rangers.
Speaker 3 (37:26):
The baseball brotherhood is stronger totally, Okay.
Speaker 2 (37:29):
Okay, They're on the same level, so elizabe at this
point the game is functionally over. It's a full blown
drunken riot in the Cleveland Municipal Stadium. The crowd has
taken over the field and they're not giving it back.
The local Cleveland radio guys, Herb Score and Joe Tate,
they begin to call the riot for the radio audience.
They're like, why not. Yeah, their talk gets recorded in
the Acron Beacon Journal, so I have some of it
(37:49):
here for you. Oh yeah, Joe Tate will say he's
the first one to start, and then the other guy
is obviously Herb Score. Dom Hilgendor has been hit on
the head. Hilgy is in definite pain. He's bent over
holding his head. Oh. That is an absolute tragedy, absolute tragy.
I've been in this business for over twenty years and
I have never seen anything as disgusting as this. And
(38:10):
I'll be perfectly honest with you. I just don't know
what to say. I don't think this game will continue, Joe.
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 gonna run onto the field.
If I see some baseball player waving a beat out
there looking for somebody, Oh, this is tragic. The whole
(38:33):
thing is degenerated now into just Oh now we've got
another fight going with fans and ballplayers. Oh, Hargrove has
got some kid on the ground and he is administering
a beating. Well, that fella came up and hit him
from behind, is what happened. Boy, Hargrove really puts a
piece of him, and I don't blame him. Look at
Dick Simms out there. He's doing it at it. Yeah,
(38:53):
Duke is in on it. Oh, here we go again,
my god. At this point, Terry Yerkic has escaped them. Okay,
he's now looking on from a safe distance at what
all he started? Then everybody discharges the field and everybody
everybody's on the field. It was out of control. The
police were overwhelmed. So the Cleveland players, the Texas players,
along with their managers Aspermanty and Billy Martin, they fight
(39:15):
their way through the drunken crowd with the bats swinging
fist the whole bit. Some players are hurt at this point.
Other players, regardless of what team they're on, they help
the wounded ones off the field into the tunnels like
they're surviving the beaches of Normandy. Right, the less injured
ones act as a rear guard, and they're swinging the
bats and to keep the crowd from overtaking them. Right,
the players a manager. Their plan is to safely make
(39:37):
it into the dugout, get into the tunnels, and then
lock the doors once they're in the stadium bowels. So
they got to keep the fans off them so they
can get the door locked. Oh god, the players disappeared.
They must have gone into their clubhouse. All over stadium.
So many people were drunk. Somebody threw second base into
the stands. It just did seem dangerous to me at
the time. Terry Yerkisch's gett worried at this point. Right.
(40:00):
Interesting In the Elizabeth, Mike Cargo said nearly the same
kind of thing. Well, he said, and I quote, I
don't remember being scared. I don't remember feeling I was threatened.
I didn't feel that way when it was going on
until we got to the clubhouse. Looking back out there
and what went on and could have gone on, then
I got a little shaky. So they're all seeing their
(40:21):
lives flash before them once they're in safety. At this point,
the teams they lock the doors to the clubhouse. They
bunk are down and they hide out from their drunk,
rampaging Cleveland fans. They can hear them in the hallway
banging on the walls. Oh yeah. Outside on the field,
the fans are ripping apart the field. They've stolen all
the bases. They rip up seats, they throw them onto
the field. They destroy the grass, they take grass for souvenirs.
(40:41):
Hot dogs and beer are still filling the air. Fans
are throwing them out, just at each other, like what
the heck. Souvenir hunters are pocketing anything they can, bats, gloves,
batting gloves, fungo bats. They are like rifling through everything. Right,
the teams barricaded themselves, and they said in their clubhouse,
drunken Cleveland fans are banging on the walls and in
the doors, looting, wilding out. So the radio guys continue
(41:03):
to call this postgame chaos. The security people are just
totally incapable of handling this crowd. They just well, sort
of the National Guard. I'm not sure they can handle
this crowd, right, It's unbelievable, just unbelievable. People will go
back to their seats and others jump down to take
their place. The bases are gone, so they're just losing
it because now you know, they're watching the cathedral get
torn down by the vandals. At this point, the organists
(41:26):
save up there in her perch. She begins to play
take me out to the ballgame, just to Marcus. Meanwhile,
the umpire old nestor Chilac. He has to decide what
to do, right, He's like, I don't want to end
the game. Cleveland's just tied it. Runners were in scoring
position when the game got disrupted in the bottom of
the ninth. Surely these hometown fans, no matter how drunk
(41:47):
and unruly they they telled, just return to their seats
or just clear the field and the home team can win. Nope,
these Cleveland fans well past that, Elizabeth. Yeah, they just
want grass, souvenirs. Blood. Finally, a hunting knife gets at
the umpire and it lands at his feet like blade,
into the grass like hilt, standing up, and then he
gets hit by a piece of stadium seating in the head.
Speaker 3 (42:08):
Ohms like the game.
Speaker 2 (42:10):
Okay, okay, that's it. He forfeits. He calls the game
and he forfeits it in favor of the Texas Rangers. Yeah,
then he high tails it out of the stadium. The
game is now officially over as far as MLB is concerned.
Nineteen year old who started all this, Terry Yurkic. Yeah,
he's watching the drunken chaos consume all before him. People
were on the field for a long time. They announced
the game was being forfeited, and it got even crazier.
(42:31):
It didn't even into our mind that they had forfeit.
We were all disappointed. But the Indians weren't very good
then anyway. It's like, it's not like it cost him
a pennant or anything.
Speaker 3 (42:40):
What do they think would happen?
Speaker 2 (42:42):
No, No, they're drunk, Elizabeth, They're very drunk. Pay through anyway.
For twenty minutes, the fans continue to run amok. Now
everyone's gone. That's a long time, Oh totally. Cleveland PD
finally arrives and they now have numbers large enough and
sober cops to calm things down. Nine fans get arrested
for god knows what I mean, Like, I don't know
how you make a distinction of who to arrest. In
(43:03):
the scene, they must have been like absolutely, just murdering
a child or something. Yeah, like exactly. I have no idea.
The Cleveland players, they escorted the Texas Rangers to their
team bus to ensure they can safely escape the stadium. Meanwhile,
localan sportswriter trying to cover the story, Dan Goughlin from
the Chronicle Telegram. He interviews fans streaming out of the stadium.
This sports writer, Elizabeth. He gets punched, not once, but twice,
(43:25):
right in the face. Now back to mad cap Serbian
Terry Yurkic. Nobody in my group was arrested, but we
all got home separately. We didn't watch the news or anything.
We were not in much condition to watch TV. You know,
we weren't worried about getting in trouble once we got
out of the stadium without being arrested. So he made
it out safely. I knew you'd be worried about Terry. Terry,
(43:45):
So when he's asked about the what all just went
down in Cleveland, the Texas Rangers manager Billy Martin says
in his postgame press conference that was the closest you're
ever going to get to seeing someone get killed in
this game of baseball. Burrows seems to be surrounded. Maybe
it was silly for us to go out there, but
we were about to leave a man on the field unprotected.
It seemed that he might be destroyed. He sounds like
(44:08):
Rick Moran's now the manager for Cleveland, asked Bermandi. When
he gets asked about the drunken ambush and like leading
a melee against his own fans, he says, it's not
just baseball, it's a 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 to fight, But look at our people. They
(44:28):
were worse. I don't know what it was, and I
don't know who's to blame, but I'm scared.
Speaker 3 (44:33):
He's not mad, he's disappointed.
Speaker 2 (44:35):
Yeah, but I've got some bad news for you about
the future, and more personally, at the end of the season,
I got some other bad news. He becomes the ex manager.
He's fired after Cleveland goes seventy seven and eighty five.
So after the game, the Empire Old Nestor Chilac. He's
interviewed by the press like everybody else, and he holds
a bloody compress to his head during his Intervieweah, in fact,
(44:55):
totally he's notably heated. And he says, and I quote animals,
you can't just you just can't pull back a pack
of animals. But on control beasts are out there. You
gotta do something. I saw two guys with knives and
I got hit with a chair. So the umpire. At
this point, he pauses Elizabeth, he thinks for a hot second.
Then he adds, without any explanation, if the war is
(45:18):
on tomorrow, I'm gonna join the other side to get
a shot at them. Who wants to fight the fans too,
Like Dave Duncan over there. So I like to think
that he's prepared to join the comedies against the USIA.
But I'm guessing he really means like helping the cops
put down the hippie case. So anyway, the Cleveland PD, they,
as I said, they arrived in time to keep things
(45:38):
from getting too far out of control, Like we're still
within our ninety nine percent murder free So in the end,
the cops show up, they turn off the lights, and
they tell everyone to go home. Like Cleveland Municipal Stadium
is a bar, like I'm not even kidding. The cops
is going, they go, you don't have to go home,
but you can't stay here, and they turn off the
lights and it worked. All the drunk people they acted
just like it was a bar kicking in the mouth.
They knew exactly what to do. No quick question. Yeah,
(46:02):
can you imagine the sheer number of drunk drivers on
the road that stadium. I'm thinking like sixteen thousand.
Speaker 5 (46:09):
Oh god.
Speaker 3 (46:10):
Well, you know it's like anytime there's some big crazy
thing I always think about, like that's the place for
DUI checkpoint.
Speaker 2 (46:15):
Oh completely. But then then this is before drunk driving
was even like really a concept people talked about. That's
what people will still go.
Speaker 3 (46:24):
Hey, a beer for the road bomb, Yeah, exactly, the
road soda.
Speaker 2 (46:28):
So as a post mortem on the riot and the
chaos and Cleveland for their ten cent beer knight, the
American League president Lee McPhail, he comes out, he issues
this edict for all of baseball. All promotional events are
canceled pending league review. And then Elizabeth. One month later
in July, Cleveland holds another ten cent beer knight. No
where did god?
Speaker 3 (46:47):
No?
Speaker 2 (46:49):
And that time we went off with with that, well,
less of an incident. It wasn't this, So there you go.
And finally, just as our little coda, in nineteen ninety one,
Mike Cargrove returned to Cleveland to the team's manager no
and in his office on his wall he kept a
frame photo of ten cent beering Hight. So, what's our
ridiculous takeaway here, Elizabeth?
Speaker 3 (47:10):
Those kind of like crazy events make great stories later on,
but in the moment, it could. I mean, I think
it'd be hilarious. I would love to have been there,
but I think that you know, if you're in the
middle of it and the adrenaline kicks in and it's
could be very scary.
Speaker 2 (47:23):
Oh yeah, these were all people were all like one
decision away from like accidentally killing themselves, like falling off something. Really,
I mean, it was a lot of luck in this place.
Speaker 3 (47:32):
Yeah, Zarin, what's your ridiculous.
Speaker 2 (47:34):
Take Oh my goodness, can I hear that again?
Speaker 3 (47:36):
Zaren?
Speaker 2 (47:38):
I can't, Dave, she almost did it anyway, I'm just
gonna play that again for myself. One second. Oh that
is nice, Okay, Yeah, my ridiculous takeaway is, you know,
we don't really give baseball it's due for how many
great stories it brought to Americas. We just think like, oh, hockey,
so violent, football, so violent? Man baseball, I.
Speaker 3 (47:56):
Love a bench clearing brawn.
Speaker 2 (47:58):
I'm telling you right, or coming in like the spikes
out on a slide. I mean, just like, we don't
get baseball enough credit.
Speaker 3 (48:03):
You know, everyone thinks it's a slow game. Yeah it is.
Don't and that's why I like it. You know it
has its moment.
Speaker 2 (48:11):
Yeah, like don't charge the mound against jan mirishal see.
I'm talking about anyway, you in the mood for a talkback, Elizabeth.
Speaker 3 (48:17):
I have always in the mood for a talkbag.
Speaker 2 (48:21):
Oh my god. I went get.
Speaker 4 (48:31):
Hey, Elizabeth and Zaren. It's Wendy in Baltimore. I listened
to a lot of true crime podcasts. Of course, yours
is ninety nine percent murder free. A lot of the
other ones I listen to are pretty much one hundred
percent murdery. So I was listening to one of those
murdery ones.
Speaker 5 (48:46):
And they're setting the stage in the beginning, and in
their very serious, somber tone, they said something like, you know,
it's June twenty first, nineteen ninety one, And immediately my
brain said nineteen ninety one play break.
Speaker 2 (49:00):
Yes, this is incredible, you know, that's when that came out, Elizabeth,
nineteen ninety one point break came out.
Speaker 3 (49:06):
One point break came out.
Speaker 2 (49:08):
So thank you for that talkback. That was fun. And
as always, you can find us online Ridiculous Crime that
all the social media is, or at least half of them. Anyway,
we have a website, Ridiculous Crime dot com and obviously
we love your talkback, so please hit up the iHeart app,
download it, record a message and maybe you'll hear your
voice on the show. And of course also emails if
(49:30):
you like Ridiculous Crime at gmail dot com and that's
always typed to your Elizabeth. Now there you go. So
that's all I got for you. Thanks for listening. We'll
catch you next crime. Ridiculous Crime is hosted by Elizabeth
Dutton and Zone Burnette, produced and edited by the fearless
manager of the Ridiculous Crime All Stars, Dave Houston. Research
(49:53):
is by Billy Martin's biggest fans of Marissa Brown and
Andrea Song sharpened to hear our theme song is by
Thomas the Diego Chicken, Lee and Travis formerly Stopper the
A's Elephant Dunney, the host wardrobe providing by Botany five hundred,
guest hair and makeup by Sparkleshot and mister Andre. Executive
producers are Ben I'm an oil Can boyd Man my Self,
(50:15):
Bowlin and Nol I Prefer Mookie Wilson Brown Clime Say
It One More Time.
Speaker 1 (50:30):
Cry Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio four more
podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Hosts And Creators
Zaron Burnett
Elizabeth Dutton
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