April 4, 2025 • 10 mins
On this episode of Our American Stories, the night game on June 4, 1974, 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
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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 enomy
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 seeded seventy four thy
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 fire
(01:55):
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. Crime was on the rise. In
nineteen sixty two, there had been fifty nine murders in Cleveland.
(02:17):
In nineteen seventy two, there were three hundred and thirty three.
The city had a difficult reputation and people were leaving
in droves.
Speaker 3 (02:25):
The city lost roughly one hundred.
Speaker 2 (02:26):
And seventy seven thousand inhabitants between nineteen seventy and nineteen eighty,
and the Cleveland Indians simply weren't very good. 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.
(02:47):
Playing in an open air mausoleum, it had become difficult
to fill the mass of seventy four thousand, four hundred
seat stadium. A May thirteenth, a mere four thousand, two
hundred and thirty four had shout up on a chilly
night for a game against Boston. On average, eighty five
percent of the stadium's tickets went unsold, but the game
(03:08):
against Texas on the muggy night June fourth attracted a
respectable twenty five thousand, one hundred and thirty four crowd,
twice what was expected.
Speaker 3 (03:16):
The reason cheap beer.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
The club 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 rushed by classic vodka,
(03:39):
So does a Clevelander react to ten cent beer.
Speaker 3 (03:43):
The late Tim.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
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. You do the math. Perhaps there
was more going on that night than cheap beer. It
was particularly hot aught 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
(04:07):
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 jeep beer, and many
seemed to have arrived already drunk or high, and for
some reason they also shut up in their pocket 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
(04:29):
week earlier on May twenty ninth in Arlington, which had
a bench emptying brawl.
Speaker 3 (04:33):
During the eighth inning of what would be a Rangers
three to zero victory.
Speaker 2 (04:36):
Rangers fans had thrown beer and food at the Indians
teams 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.
Speaker 3 (04:47):
Indian second basement Jay.
Speaker 2 (04:48):
Brohammer, who had been at the bottom of the pile,
promised revenge.
Speaker 3 (04:52):
Rangers manager Billy Martin added to the fuel. After the game.
Speaker 2 (04:55):
A Cleveland reporter asked him if he was afraid of
fans retaliating in Cleveland. He responded, Nah, they don't have
enough fans to worry about. Cleveland media kept to say riled.
Over the course of the next week, Rohemmer 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,
(05:15):
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 the air, or rather in the crowd.
The end of the second inning, a woman hopped the fence,
ran over to the Indians on deck circle, ripped off
her shirt, bearing her breast to the raucous approval of
(05:36):
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. Not only was the crowd throwing firecrackers
and keeping the grounds grew busy throwing garbage under the field,
but when Ranger's pitcher Fergie Jenkins got hit in the
stomach with a line drive, the crowd started chanting hit
(05:58):
him again. Meanwhile, the beer kept flowing. Unable to keep up,
the venders reportedly gave up trying to check id's and
started filling up whatever container was handed to them. A
Knight of White strip crediting nineteen year old van Terry
Yerkik recalled, I had a big dog and son's mug
maybe thirty two ounces, looked like a mini keg. Another
(06:18):
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 unto the field and not security. When Greeb
hit a second home run 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 odd field.
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, and 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
(07:26):
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 Sudds mug, decided that he wanted a souvenir.
Speaker 3 (07:43):
He's 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 his team onto
the field, carrying bats to protect Burroughs.
Speaker 3 (08:12):
It was not a good decision.
Speaker 2 (08:13):
Seeing the Rangers leave the dugout sparkly already riled and inneebraated, mob.
Speaker 3 (08:17):
Fans stormed the field, greatly outnumbering the players.
Speaker 1 (08:20):
Go the whole scale riot has to be two hundred
people and more coming on the.
Speaker 2 (08:25):
Field, and mart 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. Mar girl, there's
(08:46):
got some shit on the groundity he's really admitting he
couldn't sit filling him up at them behind.
Speaker 3 (08:52):
And what happened.
Speaker 2 (08:53):
The two teams who have been fighting each other so
recently made common cause against the mob. Ah, this is
the tragedy.
Speaker 1 (09:01):
I have never seen anything as disgusting as they 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.
He said he didn't do it earlier for fear. When
spark retaliation against the players, the game was called a forfeit.
Going into the record books, this's a ninety zero loss
for the Indians. Fans kept rioting, stealing everything they could take,
(09:26):
including literally stealing the stadium's bases. So really the organists
played take me out to the ballgame. Director of stadium
Operations Dan Zerby, ordered the lights shut off, and the
Cleveland police arrived in restored order.
Speaker 3 (09:39):
They turned the lights out.
Speaker 2 (09:40):
Everybody's gone except for fifteen teenagers standing on top of
the Rangers dugout, chatting for the Rangers to come out
and fight.
Speaker 3 (09:47):
And so I went up there and asked him, what
do you want? Trying to prove? Because the Rangers are gone.
Speaker 2 (09:53):
So some kid behind another one reaches out and punches
me right in the jaw.
Speaker 3 (09:59):
He didn't even stagger me 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 Night perhaps sunned up
well in the dismal decade for Cleveland and their baseball team.
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 enomy
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 seeded seventy four thy
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 fire
(01:55):
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. Crime was on the rise. In
nineteen sixty two, there had been fifty nine murders in Cleveland.
(02:17):
In nineteen seventy two, there were three hundred and thirty three.
The city had a difficult reputation and people were leaving
in droves.
Speaker 3 (02:25):
The city lost roughly one hundred.
Speaker 2 (02:26):
And seventy seven thousand inhabitants between nineteen seventy and nineteen eighty,
and the Cleveland Indians simply weren't very good. 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.
(02:47):
Playing in an open air mausoleum, it had become difficult
to fill the mass of seventy four thousand, four hundred
seat stadium. A May thirteenth, a mere four thousand, two
hundred and thirty four had shout up on a chilly
night for a game against Boston. On average, eighty five
percent of the stadium's tickets went unsold, but the game
(03:08):
against Texas on the muggy night June fourth attracted a
respectable twenty five thousand, one hundred and thirty four crowd,
twice what was expected.
Speaker 3 (03:16):
The reason cheap beer.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
The club 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 rushed by classic vodka,
(03:39):
So does a Clevelander react to ten cent beer.
Speaker 3 (03:43):
The late Tim.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
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. You do the math. Perhaps there
was more going on that night than cheap beer. It
was particularly hot aught 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
(04:07):
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 jeep beer, and many
seemed to have arrived already drunk or high, and for
some reason they also shut up in their pocket 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
(04:29):
week earlier on May twenty ninth in Arlington, which had
a bench emptying brawl.
Speaker 3 (04:33):
During the eighth inning of what would be a Rangers
three to zero victory.
Speaker 2 (04:36):
Rangers fans had thrown beer and food at the Indians
teams 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.
Speaker 3 (04:47):
Indian second basement Jay.
Speaker 2 (04:48):
Brohammer, who had been at the bottom of the pile,
promised revenge.
Speaker 3 (04:52):
Rangers manager Billy Martin added to the fuel. After the game.
Speaker 2 (04:55):
A Cleveland reporter asked him if he was afraid of
fans retaliating in Cleveland. He responded, Nah, they don't have
enough fans to worry about. Cleveland media kept to say riled.
Over the course of the next week, Rohemmer 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,
(05:15):
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 the air, or rather in the crowd.
The end of the second inning, a woman hopped the fence,
ran over to the Indians on deck circle, ripped off
her shirt, bearing her breast to the raucous approval of
(05:36):
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. Not only was the crowd throwing firecrackers
and keeping the grounds grew busy throwing garbage under the field,
but when Ranger's pitcher Fergie Jenkins got hit in the
stomach with a line drive, the crowd started chanting hit
(05:58):
him again. Meanwhile, the beer kept flowing. Unable to keep up,
the venders reportedly gave up trying to check id's and
started filling up whatever container was handed to them. A
Knight of White strip crediting nineteen year old van Terry
Yerkik recalled, I had a big dog and son's mug
maybe thirty two ounces, looked like a mini keg. Another
(06:18):
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 unto the field and not security. When Greeb
hit a second home run 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 odd field.
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, and 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
(07:26):
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 Sudds mug, decided that he wanted a souvenir.
Speaker 3 (07:43):
He's 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 his team onto
the field, carrying bats to protect Burroughs.
Speaker 3 (08:12):
It was not a good decision.
Speaker 2 (08:13):
Seeing the Rangers leave the dugout sparkly already riled and inneebraated, mob.
Speaker 3 (08:17):
Fans stormed the field, greatly outnumbering the players.
Speaker 1 (08:20):
Go the whole scale riot has to be two hundred
people and more coming on the.
Speaker 2 (08:25):
Field, and mart 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. Mar girl, there's
(08:46):
got some shit on the groundity he's really admitting he
couldn't sit filling him up at them behind.
Speaker 3 (08:52):
And what happened.
Speaker 2 (08:53):
The two teams who have been fighting each other so
recently made common cause against the mob. Ah, this is
the tragedy.
Speaker 1 (09:01):
I have never seen anything as disgusting as they 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.
He said he didn't do it earlier for fear. When
spark retaliation against the players, the game was called a forfeit.
Going into the record books, this's a ninety zero loss
for the Indians. Fans kept rioting, stealing everything they could take,
(09:26):
including literally stealing the stadium's bases. So really the organists
played take me out to the ballgame. Director of stadium
Operations Dan Zerby, ordered the lights shut off, and the
Cleveland police arrived in restored order.
Speaker 3 (09:39):
They turned the lights out.
Speaker 2 (09:40):
Everybody's gone except for fifteen teenagers standing on top of
the Rangers dugout, chatting for the Rangers to come out
and fight.
Speaker 3 (09:47):
And so I went up there and asked him, what
do you want? Trying to prove? Because the Rangers are gone.
Speaker 2 (09:53):
So some kid behind another one reaches out and punches
me right in the jaw.
Speaker 3 (09:59):
He didn't even stagger me 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 Night perhaps sunned up
well in the dismal decade for Cleveland and their baseball team.
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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