As Clevelanders well know, we are fast approaching the 40th anniversary of one of the most infamous days in Cleveland Indians history. Fabled in t-shirt, story and song, the events of June 4, 1974 will forever be a part of the history of the Indians and of Cleveland itself.
As part of my job with the Michael Schwartz Library of Cleveland State University, I got to write a little piece about the game and its aftermath for our library’s blog. Furthermore, along with IPL co-owner Stephanie Liscio and IPL intern Alex Kaufman, I had the chance to assist ESPN with some research for this video tribute to Ten Cent Beer Night, hosted by Bob Golic of the Cleveland Browns.
I was a junior in high school when the game took place. Our American history class was given the assignment of doing an oral history. We had to find someone older than ourselves and ask them questions about their life. Of course, I waited until the last minute to do this project, and I hit upon the original idea of interviewing my own parents. The game wasn’t televised that evening, but my family listened to it on the radio as I was doing my interview, recorded on my monaural GE cassette recorder. It’s long gone now, but what I wouldn’t give for a copy of that C-90 cassette, with my squeaky teen voice and vapid questions, my parents’ bemused responses, and the sounds of Joe Tait and Herb Score as they tried to describe what was going on at the Stadium that night.
Clearly this was not Cleveland’s finest hour. But it is part of who we are, or at least part of who we used to be.
Didn’t they give away bats that night too? What a great combination: alcohol and a weapon.
No, but close. The Indians held Bat Day on Sunday, June 2 in 1974.
A glorious night indeed…
I can’t believe this promotion went wrong. I mean, practically giving away alcohol in a city in the midst of a dramatic economic downturn a week after the same two teams had a bench-clearing brawl? Who could have seen this occurring? 🙂
I was at the game. I was in grad school at Ohio State, and my roommate and I took a break from studying for finals and drove up to see the game. We didn’t even know that it was 10 cent beer night.
It was mildly amusing early if a streaker ran across the field between innings, but it quickly degenerated into mass stupidity and began to hold up the game.
It was frustrating that we wasted an amazing 9th inning comeback – three consecutive pinch hit singles from unlikely hitters. At the end, we had the winning run on 3rd with 2 outs, the Texas pitcher Foucault was shook up, and I was pretty sure that we would win the game if one more hitter had been able to bat. Billy Martin could see that as well. Things had started to quiet down after the last disturbance, and the game was about to be resumed. There is no doubt in my mind that when he sent his players running onto the field with bats, he knew that it would lead to a victory by forfeit. I guess it was smart managing on his part, and the fans were obviously absurdly out of control.