October 23, 2023 • 10 mins
On this episode of Our American Stories, we hear how the June 4, 1974 night game between the Texas Rangers and the Cleveland Indians was one for the record books. To say there was a "buzz" in the crowd," would be an understatement. Here to tell the story is the History Guy.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
This is our American Stories, and we tell stories about
everything here on this show. Our next story comes to
us from a man who is simply known as the
History Guy. His videos are watched by hundreds of thousands
of people of all ages on YouTube. The History Guy
is also heard here in Our American Stories. The June fourth,
(00:30):
nineteen seventy four night game between the Texas Rangers and
the Cleveland Indians was won for the record books. Trouble
was a bruin, the bleachers were loaded, and there was
a distinct buzz in the air. Here's the History Guy
with that story of the ten cent beer night riot.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
Nineteen seventy four was a depressing news year in the
United States. President Richard Nixon was embroiled in the Watergate scandal,
which would eventually force him to resign in November, the
first US president to do so. The United States economy
was in a deep recession, the result of double digit
inflation in the ongoing energy crisis. Patricia Hearst, the granddaughter
of publishing magnet William Randolph Hurst, was kidnapped in February
(01:11):
and by April had claimed that she had joined her
captor's cause, leading to nightly news stories, and on June fourth,
in the event that perhaps best defined the trying times
of the day, beer was too cheap in Cleveland, Ohio.
It is history that deserves to be remembered. It was Tuesday,
(01:33):
June fourth, and the Texas Rangers were playing a night
game at Cleveland Stadium, the first of a three game series.
When configured for baseball, the stadium was seeded seventy four
than four hundred fans, making it the largest and professional
baseball in nineteen seventy four. But Cleveland was a struggling
city noted for its river pollution. The Cioga River through
the city was famous for literally catching fire when such
(01:55):
fire in nineteen sixty nine had caught the attention of
the nation via Time magazine, prompting the creation of the
Environmental Protection Agency. The Cleveland area had been a flashpoint
for anti Vietnam War sentiment after shootings by the National
Guard at nearby Kent State University in nineteen seventy. The
city was in financial difficulty.
Speaker 3 (02:13):
Crime was on the rise.
Speaker 2 (02:14):
In nineteen sixty two, there had been fifty nine murders
in Cleveland. In nineteen seventy two, there were three hundred
and thirty three the city had a difficult reputation and
people were leaving in droves. The city lost roughly one
hundred and seventy seven thousand inhabitants between nineteen seventy.
Speaker 3 (02:29):
And nineteen eighty, and the Cleveland Indians simply weren't very good.
Speaker 2 (02:33):
They finished at the bottom of the American League East
in nineteen seventy three, weren't doing much better in nineteen
seventy four. Commentator Paul Jackson of ESPN said of them,
the seventy four Indians were a smorgas board of mediocre
and forgettable talent. Playing in an open air mausoleum, it
had become difficult to fill the massive seventy four thousand,
(02:55):
four hundred seat stadium. A May thirteenth, a mere four thousand,
two hundred and thirty four had showed up on a
chilli night for a game against Boston. On average, eighty
five percent of the stadium's tickets went unsold, but the
game against Texas on the muggy night June fourth attracted
a respectable twenty five thousand, one hundred and thirty four crowd,
twice what was expected. The reason cheap beer. The club
(03:19):
was running a promotion twelve fluid ounce cups of Stroves
three point two percent beer for just ten cents each.
It was a limit of six beers per purchase, but
no limit on the number of purchases made during the game.
Bud Tucker, a calmness for the Independent Press Telegram of
Long Beach, California, equipped as a Frenchman is inspired by
flying wine or a Russian by classic vodka, so does
(03:40):
a Clevelander react to ten cent beer.
Speaker 3 (03:43):
The late Tim.
Speaker 2 (03:44):
Russer, known for being the longtime moderator of the show
Meet the Press, was twenty four at the time and
attended the game. In a statement that perhaps defined much
of the crowd that night, he said, I had two
dollars in my pocket.
Speaker 3 (03:54):
You do the math.
Speaker 2 (03:56):
Perhaps there was more going on that night than cheap beer.
It was particularly aut in Muggy. The June date caught
the college aged crowd just as they were coming home
for summer, and as Anthony Castrovanz of MLB dot Com
noted in twenty fourteen, it was a full moon that night.
In fact, witnesses note that much of the crowd seemed
to have not waited for the cheap beer, and many
seemed to have arrived already drunk or high, and for
(04:18):
some reason, they also showed up in their pockets stuffed
with firecrackers. The crowd started throwing them before the game
even started, and they continued throughout. The rowdiness may have
had something to do with the team's last meeting a
week earlier on May twenty ninth in Arlington, which had
had a bench emptying brawl. During the eighth inning of
what would be a Rangers three to zero victory. Rangers
fans had thrown beer and food at the Indians team
(04:39):
as they were returning to the dugout.
Speaker 3 (04:41):
The Indians were furious.
Speaker 2 (04:42):
Catcher Dave Duncan had to be restrained to keep him
from going into the stands to brawl with the crowd.
Indian second baseman Jay Brohammer, who had been at the
bottom of the pile, promised revenge.
Speaker 3 (04:52):
Rangers manager Billy Martin added to the fuel.
Speaker 2 (04:55):
After the game, a Cleveland reporter asked him if he
was afraid of fans retaliating in Cleveland.
Speaker 3 (04:59):
He responded, nah, they don't have enough fans to worry about.
Speaker 2 (05:03):
Cleveland media kept to see riled over the course of
the next week. Brohemmer was quoted As, saying that he
had cooled down and wasn't looking for a fight. Instead,
he hoped to get revenge by winning all three games
of the upcoming series. The Cleveland fans, on the other hand,
might have been making plans of their own. Texas quickly
cooked the lead in the second inning after a home
run by outfielder Tom Greave, but a buzz was in
(05:25):
the air, or rather in the crowd. The end of
the second inning, a woman hopped the fance, ran over
to the Indians on deck circle, ripped off her shirt,
bearing her breast to the raucous approval of the crowd,
and then tried to kiss the umpire. Amazingly, it wasn't
the weirdest thing that would happen that night, nor the
only act of exhibitionism. The fund was not all good natured.
(05:48):
Not only was the crowd throwing firecrackers and keeping the
groundscrew busy throwing garbage under the field, but when Rage's
pitcher Fergie Jenkins got hit in the stomach with a
line drive, the crowd started chanting hit him again.
Speaker 3 (05:59):
Meanwhile, the beer kept flowing. Unable to keep up.
Speaker 2 (06:02):
The vendors reportedly gave up trying to check Id's and
started filling up whatever container was handed to them.
Speaker 3 (06:07):
A night of white strip crediting.
Speaker 2 (06:10):
Nineteen year old van Terry Yerkik recalled, I had a
big dog, and Sun's mug maybe thirty two ounces, looked
like a mini keg. Another witness said that as the crowd,
which he described as notably younger and longer haired than usual,
grew progressively more drunk, there were some antiques. Every half
inning or so, young fans ran out of the field
and not security. When Greeve hit a second home run
(06:32):
in the fourth extending the Rangers' lead to five to one,
a naked man ran out of the field and slid
into second base.
Speaker 1 (06:41):
Running around of the outfield.
Speaker 2 (06:44):
In the fifth inning, a father son team jumped onto
the field and boomed the crowd. Another streaker ran across
the field, carrying his clothes with him but still wearing
his left sock. As he approached the fence, he threw
his clothes over, planning his escape. The crowd could see
what he could not. A Cleveland police officer was on
the other side of the fence, catching both the clothes
and the offender. The game had to be halted in
(07:06):
the sixth says the crowd was throwing firecrackers into the bullpen.
Umpire Nester Shylack cleared the bullpen but was trying to
let play continue. Fans were no longer just throwing beer
and firecrackers, but also rocks batteries in any part of
the stadium that wasn't bolted down. A group of fans
started trying to tug the padding off the left field wall,
drawing the grounds crew away from picking up the growing
(07:27):
pile of trash that was landing on the field. Despite
the antics, the game continued and Cleveland managed to tie
the game at five all in the bottom of the
ninth with two out in the winning run on second,
But then nineteen year old Terry Yerkick, the fan with
the dogs and thuds mug, decided that he wanted a souvenir.
Speaker 3 (07:43):
He was not a good decision.
Speaker 2 (07:44):
He jumped the fence, ran up behind Texas outfielder Jeff Burrows,
and grabbed his hat. There's some controversy regarding what happened next.
According to Yerkick, Burrows kicked him, but because of the
slope of the diamond from the Rangers dugout all. Billy
Martin could see was Burrow's legs, and it looked like
he'd been knocked down. More fans were climbing onto the field,
and Martin thought Jeff was out there all by himself.
I saw knives and other things. We just couldn't let
(08:06):
our teammate get beat up. He orders team onto the
field carrying bats to protect Burrows. It was not a
good decision. Seeing the Rangers leave the dugout sparkly already
riled and ineebraated, mob hans stormed the field, greatly outnumbering
the players.
Speaker 3 (08:20):
Not the whole scale riot.
Speaker 4 (08:22):
There has to be two hundred people and more coming out.
Speaker 2 (08:25):
Of the field, and munt recalled, now I know how
the people of the Alamo felt. The crowd was carrying knives, chains,
clubs made from stadium seats. Stadium security was overwhelmed, although
it's hard to see what they could have done in
any case, and no one had considered asking for a
greater police presence. Seeing the melee and Rangers players being injured, Espermont,
he ordered the Indians onto the field.
Speaker 4 (08:45):
Mar girl, it's got stuck to get on the Groundity,
he's really admitting a.
Speaker 1 (08:49):
Me He couldn't filling him up an them behind, and
what happened.
Speaker 2 (08:53):
The two teams who have been fighting each other so
recently made common cause against the mob.
Speaker 3 (08:58):
Ah, this is tragedy.
Speaker 1 (09:01):
I have never seen anything as disgusting.
Speaker 3 (09:02):
As they haven't outnumbered.
Speaker 2 (09:05):
They fought their way back to the dugouts or retreated
into the locker rooms behind locked doors. Shilac, bleeding from
a cut on his head from a thrown bottle, called
the game as soon as the players made it inside.
Speaker 3 (09:15):
He said he didn't do it earlier for fear.
Speaker 2 (09:16):
When spark retaliation against the players, the game was called
a forfeit. Going into the record books, that's a nineteen
zero loss for the Indians. Fans kept rioting, stealing everything
they could take, including literally stealing the stadium's bases. So
really the organists played take me up to the ball game.
Director of Stadium Operations Dan Zerby, ordered the lights shut off,
and the Cleveland police arrived and restored order.
Speaker 3 (09:39):
They turned the lights out.
Speaker 4 (09:40):
Everybody's gone except for fifteen teenagers standing on top of
the Rangers dugouts, chatting for the Rangers to come out
and fight. And so I went up there and asked them,
what do you what do you want trying to prove
because the Rangers are gone. So some kid behind another
one reaches out and punches me right in the job.
He didn't even stag me head like a girl.
Speaker 2 (10:01):
Despite the appairent violence, there were no serious injuries and
less than a dozen arrests. Area hospitals reported seven people
treated and released. Ten Cent Beer Knight perhaps summed up
well in a dismal decade for Cleveland and their baseball team.
Speaker 3 (10:16):
The prospects for both would eventually improve, but not really
until the nineteen nineties.
Speaker 1 (10:20):
And you've been listening to the history guy, tell well,
just a great American story. Not a good one, but boy,
a great one. And my goodness, I love what Tim Russert,
the former host of Meet the Press, said, I had
two dollars in my pocket. You do the math the
story of the ten cent Beer Night riot in Cleveland.
Here on our American Stories
This is our American Stories, and we tell stories about
everything here on this show. Our next story comes to
us from a man who is simply known as the
History Guy. His videos are watched by hundreds of thousands
of people of all ages on YouTube. The History Guy
is also heard here in Our American Stories. The June fourth,
(00:30):
nineteen seventy four night game between the Texas Rangers and
the Cleveland Indians was won for the record books. Trouble
was a bruin, the bleachers were loaded, and there was
a distinct buzz in the air. Here's the History Guy
with that story of the ten cent beer night riot.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
Nineteen seventy four was a depressing news year in the
United States. President Richard Nixon was embroiled in the Watergate scandal,
which would eventually force him to resign in November, the
first US president to do so. The United States economy
was in a deep recession, the result of double digit
inflation in the ongoing energy crisis. Patricia Hearst, the granddaughter
of publishing magnet William Randolph Hurst, was kidnapped in February
(01:11):
and by April had claimed that she had joined her
captor's cause, leading to nightly news stories, and on June fourth,
in the event that perhaps best defined the trying times
of the day, beer was too cheap in Cleveland, Ohio.
It is history that deserves to be remembered. It was Tuesday,
(01:33):
June fourth, and the Texas Rangers were playing a night
game at Cleveland Stadium, the first of a three game series.
When configured for baseball, the stadium was seeded seventy four
than four hundred fans, making it the largest and professional
baseball in nineteen seventy four. But Cleveland was a struggling
city noted for its river pollution. The Cioga River through
the city was famous for literally catching fire when such
(01:55):
fire in nineteen sixty nine had caught the attention of
the nation via Time magazine, prompting the creation of the
Environmental Protection Agency. The Cleveland area had been a flashpoint
for anti Vietnam War sentiment after shootings by the National
Guard at nearby Kent State University in nineteen seventy. The
city was in financial difficulty.
Speaker 3 (02:13):
Crime was on the rise.
Speaker 2 (02:14):
In nineteen sixty two, there had been fifty nine murders
in Cleveland. In nineteen seventy two, there were three hundred
and thirty three the city had a difficult reputation and
people were leaving in droves. The city lost roughly one
hundred and seventy seven thousand inhabitants between nineteen seventy.
Speaker 3 (02:29):
And nineteen eighty, and the Cleveland Indians simply weren't very good.
Speaker 2 (02:33):
They finished at the bottom of the American League East
in nineteen seventy three, weren't doing much better in nineteen
seventy four. Commentator Paul Jackson of ESPN said of them,
the seventy four Indians were a smorgas board of mediocre
and forgettable talent. Playing in an open air mausoleum, it
had become difficult to fill the massive seventy four thousand,
(02:55):
four hundred seat stadium. A May thirteenth, a mere four thousand,
two hundred and thirty four had showed up on a
chilli night for a game against Boston. On average, eighty
five percent of the stadium's tickets went unsold, but the
game against Texas on the muggy night June fourth attracted
a respectable twenty five thousand, one hundred and thirty four crowd,
twice what was expected. The reason cheap beer. The club
(03:19):
was running a promotion twelve fluid ounce cups of Stroves
three point two percent beer for just ten cents each.
It was a limit of six beers per purchase, but
no limit on the number of purchases made during the game.
Bud Tucker, a calmness for the Independent Press Telegram of
Long Beach, California, equipped as a Frenchman is inspired by
flying wine or a Russian by classic vodka, so does
(03:40):
a Clevelander react to ten cent beer.
Speaker 3 (03:43):
The late Tim.
Speaker 2 (03:44):
Russer, known for being the longtime moderator of the show
Meet the Press, was twenty four at the time and
attended the game. In a statement that perhaps defined much
of the crowd that night, he said, I had two
dollars in my pocket.
Speaker 3 (03:54):
You do the math.
Speaker 2 (03:56):
Perhaps there was more going on that night than cheap beer.
It was particularly aut in Muggy. The June date caught
the college aged crowd just as they were coming home
for summer, and as Anthony Castrovanz of MLB dot Com
noted in twenty fourteen, it was a full moon that night.
In fact, witnesses note that much of the crowd seemed
to have not waited for the cheap beer, and many
seemed to have arrived already drunk or high, and for
(04:18):
some reason, they also showed up in their pockets stuffed
with firecrackers. The crowd started throwing them before the game
even started, and they continued throughout. The rowdiness may have
had something to do with the team's last meeting a
week earlier on May twenty ninth in Arlington, which had
had a bench emptying brawl. During the eighth inning of
what would be a Rangers three to zero victory. Rangers
fans had thrown beer and food at the Indians team
(04:39):
as they were returning to the dugout.
Speaker 3 (04:41):
The Indians were furious.
Speaker 2 (04:42):
Catcher Dave Duncan had to be restrained to keep him
from going into the stands to brawl with the crowd.
Indian second baseman Jay Brohammer, who had been at the
bottom of the pile, promised revenge.
Speaker 3 (04:52):
Rangers manager Billy Martin added to the fuel.
Speaker 2 (04:55):
After the game, a Cleveland reporter asked him if he
was afraid of fans retaliating in Cleveland.
Speaker 3 (04:59):
He responded, nah, they don't have enough fans to worry about.
Speaker 2 (05:03):
Cleveland media kept to see riled over the course of
the next week. Brohemmer was quoted As, saying that he
had cooled down and wasn't looking for a fight. Instead,
he hoped to get revenge by winning all three games
of the upcoming series. The Cleveland fans, on the other hand,
might have been making plans of their own. Texas quickly
cooked the lead in the second inning after a home
run by outfielder Tom Greave, but a buzz was in
(05:25):
the air, or rather in the crowd. The end of
the second inning, a woman hopped the fance, ran over
to the Indians on deck circle, ripped off her shirt,
bearing her breast to the raucous approval of the crowd,
and then tried to kiss the umpire. Amazingly, it wasn't
the weirdest thing that would happen that night, nor the
only act of exhibitionism. The fund was not all good natured.
(05:48):
Not only was the crowd throwing firecrackers and keeping the
groundscrew busy throwing garbage under the field, but when Rage's
pitcher Fergie Jenkins got hit in the stomach with a
line drive, the crowd started chanting hit him again.
Speaker 3 (05:59):
Meanwhile, the beer kept flowing. Unable to keep up.
Speaker 2 (06:02):
The vendors reportedly gave up trying to check Id's and
started filling up whatever container was handed to them.
Speaker 3 (06:07):
A night of white strip crediting.
Speaker 2 (06:10):
Nineteen year old van Terry Yerkik recalled, I had a
big dog, and Sun's mug maybe thirty two ounces, looked
like a mini keg. Another witness said that as the crowd,
which he described as notably younger and longer haired than usual,
grew progressively more drunk, there were some antiques. Every half
inning or so, young fans ran out of the field
and not security. When Greeve hit a second home run
(06:32):
in the fourth extending the Rangers' lead to five to one,
a naked man ran out of the field and slid
into second base.
Speaker 1 (06:41):
Running around of the outfield.
Speaker 2 (06:44):
In the fifth inning, a father son team jumped onto
the field and boomed the crowd. Another streaker ran across
the field, carrying his clothes with him but still wearing
his left sock. As he approached the fence, he threw
his clothes over, planning his escape. The crowd could see
what he could not. A Cleveland police officer was on
the other side of the fence, catching both the clothes
and the offender. The game had to be halted in
(07:06):
the sixth says the crowd was throwing firecrackers into the bullpen.
Umpire Nester Shylack cleared the bullpen but was trying to
let play continue. Fans were no longer just throwing beer
and firecrackers, but also rocks batteries in any part of
the stadium that wasn't bolted down. A group of fans
started trying to tug the padding off the left field wall,
drawing the grounds crew away from picking up the growing
(07:27):
pile of trash that was landing on the field. Despite
the antics, the game continued and Cleveland managed to tie
the game at five all in the bottom of the
ninth with two out in the winning run on second,
But then nineteen year old Terry Yerkick, the fan with
the dogs and thuds mug, decided that he wanted a souvenir.
Speaker 3 (07:43):
He was not a good decision.
Speaker 2 (07:44):
He jumped the fence, ran up behind Texas outfielder Jeff Burrows,
and grabbed his hat. There's some controversy regarding what happened next.
According to Yerkick, Burrows kicked him, but because of the
slope of the diamond from the Rangers dugout all. Billy
Martin could see was Burrow's legs, and it looked like
he'd been knocked down. More fans were climbing onto the field,
and Martin thought Jeff was out there all by himself.
I saw knives and other things. We just couldn't let
(08:06):
our teammate get beat up. He orders team onto the
field carrying bats to protect Burrows. It was not a
good decision. Seeing the Rangers leave the dugout sparkly already
riled and ineebraated, mob hans stormed the field, greatly outnumbering
the players.
Speaker 3 (08:20):
Not the whole scale riot.
Speaker 4 (08:22):
There has to be two hundred people and more coming out.
Speaker 2 (08:25):
Of the field, and munt recalled, now I know how
the people of the Alamo felt. The crowd was carrying knives, chains,
clubs made from stadium seats. Stadium security was overwhelmed, although
it's hard to see what they could have done in
any case, and no one had considered asking for a
greater police presence. Seeing the melee and Rangers players being injured, Espermont,
he ordered the Indians onto the field.
Speaker 4 (08:45):
Mar girl, it's got stuck to get on the Groundity,
he's really admitting a.
Speaker 1 (08:49):
Me He couldn't filling him up an them behind, and
what happened.
Speaker 2 (08:53):
The two teams who have been fighting each other so
recently made common cause against the mob.
Speaker 3 (08:58):
Ah, this is tragedy.
Speaker 1 (09:01):
I have never seen anything as disgusting.
Speaker 3 (09:02):
As they haven't outnumbered.
Speaker 2 (09:05):
They fought their way back to the dugouts or retreated
into the locker rooms behind locked doors. Shilac, bleeding from
a cut on his head from a thrown bottle, called
the game as soon as the players made it inside.
Speaker 3 (09:15):
He said he didn't do it earlier for fear.
Speaker 2 (09:16):
When spark retaliation against the players, the game was called
a forfeit. Going into the record books, that's a nineteen
zero loss for the Indians. Fans kept rioting, stealing everything
they could take, including literally stealing the stadium's bases. So
really the organists played take me up to the ball game.
Director of Stadium Operations Dan Zerby, ordered the lights shut off,
and the Cleveland police arrived and restored order.
Speaker 3 (09:39):
They turned the lights out.
Speaker 4 (09:40):
Everybody's gone except for fifteen teenagers standing on top of
the Rangers dugouts, chatting for the Rangers to come out
and fight. And so I went up there and asked them,
what do you what do you want trying to prove
because the Rangers are gone. So some kid behind another
one reaches out and punches me right in the job.
He didn't even stag me head like a girl.
Speaker 2 (10:01):
Despite the appairent violence, there were no serious injuries and
less than a dozen arrests. Area hospitals reported seven people
treated and released. Ten Cent Beer Knight perhaps summed up
well in a dismal decade for Cleveland and their baseball team.
Speaker 3 (10:16):
The prospects for both would eventually improve, but not really
until the nineteen nineties.
Speaker 1 (10:20):
And you've been listening to the history guy, tell well,
just a great American story. Not a good one, but boy,
a great one. And my goodness, I love what Tim Russert,
the former host of Meet the Press, said, I had
two dollars in my pocket. You do the math the
story of the ten cent Beer Night riot in Cleveland.
Here on our American Stories
Host
Lee Habeeb
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