I posted this story to the subReddit for the Cleveland Guardians and got one anecdote too wonderful not to share:
"My father was at the game. He was a part owner of a Japanese steak house like a Beni Hana. At the time, the cooks were from Japan. He took some of the cooks to their first American professional baseball game that day. Imagine what they told their pals back home!"
I didn’t go to a game with 10 cent beers, but my local bar near our college had one every Tuesday night in 1969-1970. And we had no classes on Wednesdays, so it was a BIG hit! So many (foggy) good memories!
Growing up as a Tribe fan I remember the incident well. I was only 13 years old at the time but followed the Indians passionately, and even at that age couldn’t stand Billy Martin. Thanks for your article, it brought back lots of memories. The Stroh’s involvement in TCBN had escaped me, but it makes me love this Detroit beverage even more. It has always been my beer of choice!
I remember a $.25 cent beer night at a single A affiliate in a po dunk lumber town in Oregon, two of the players were Julio Franco & Juan Samuel who went on to have great careers in the majors. Good memories for sure. Thanks for sharing your story.
Don't forget the "Disco Demolition" fiasco. July 12, 1979, at Comiskey Park in Chi, in between game 1 and 2 of a Sox/Tigers double header. Game 2 never happened as a result of the melee that left more than 30 people injured and the field so badly damaged from the "demolition" of enough disco records to fill a U-Haul truck, game 2 couldn't be played if they wanted to.
This all happened in a haze for me. I became engaged (in Atlanta) in the early morning hours of June 2, 1974, and so was walking around still numb on the 4th. (“My God, she said yes, what the hell do I do now?”) My wife (still!) Jean was from Cleveland, and we got married in Middleburg Heights around Thanksgiving of that year.
All of this as self-serving introduction to my thanks for the Weir quote. The rest of today will be good.
I wasn't at the game or the Grateful Dead show four days later on June 8, 1974, or even new anything about them, but what are the chances that I stumbled across this substack story, read the first account and kept with it until I finished the next 2000 words too,only to recognize that the Grateful Dead acclamation happen on the day of my wedding on June 8, 1974? I'm just saying...
What a fantastic post! I hadn't yet started following baseball when this game took place, but the Cleveland fans have a special place in my heart. The great Terry Pluto in the Baltimore Sun had a terrific column about a Baltimore v Cleveland game in mid-June, 1979, and after that I was hooked, first on sportswriting, then on the Orioles. I published an essay long ago ("Oriole Magic") that opens with his account of that game. It's in an anthology that is probably not a great baseball book, but a good one: Anatomy of Baseball (foreword by Yogi Berra and contributions by Richard Ford and some other giants), ed. Lee Gutkin, SMU Press. I'm loving reading the comments here with other stories of those crazy Cleveland fans.
Thank you, Elizabeth! I love Terry Pluto and newspaper writing from the 1970s generally and I have made a note. For my part, I found a wonderful article the other day in the New York Times, December 28ish 1969, by Robert Lipsyte, who awards his "Sport of the Year" to a Mets fan who dared to wear his cap in the bleachers of Wrigley Field late in the 1969 season. It is a truly wonderful piece of sports writing.
I was at the game. My brother called me and said he was going, and so were a bunch of his friends, most whom I knew. I totally remember all of the beer trucks that surrounded the stadium. I was not yet 21 years old, so it must have been 3.2% ABV beer that they were loading into the stadium. We bought tickets for the bleachers, after all we were there for cheap beer, and some baseball. Once settled in, we decided that sending two people at a time to get ten beers (one for each of us) would be the best method to keep it flowing. It worked out quite well. I will never forget that the first streaker made it look easy, and with one hop up onto the rolled up canvases, they disappeared into the crowd. During the next break, about five people tried to do the same, and it just kind of continued from there. Of course, being in the bleachers, and either getting more beer, or going to restroom, some of the antics were missed by me, and so many years later, the memory isn't all that clear. But, it is the one game I can say to any fan that I was there, and they know what game I am talking about.
Thanks for adding this comment with the parts of the evening you remember. I appreciate the gazelle-like nature of the first streaker in your memory. The modern-day Stroh's beer is 4.5% ABV so I wonder if it was that or if they had a weaker version for events like this one, which...would be wise.
Back in the day -there was 3.2% beer with a red ring around the top of the can. It was legal for people over 18 but under 21 to drink. They may have been serving 3.2 that night. I think my friend may have mentioned that… I have a friend who was working at that game!
She was under 18. I also send it to my brothers to see if they remember/were there.
I remember it happening but I was only 10 years old around that time living In suburban Cleveland🙌🙌👍 it was a great place to grow up.
Thank you for adding this context, Kathleen. It is a small but important piece I didn't have. Thanks also for sharing, and if anyone has memories they'd like to offer up, send them our way!
I was there that night. I still have the ticket stub somewhere. I remember seeing the home plate umpire get hit with a folding chair that someone threw from the stands.
If you can find the stub, please send me a photo of it! I am glad you can verify poor Nestor's account of his injury. It's such a surreal and unbelievable detail. How much of an arm do you have to have to throw a folding chair?
I couldn't find my ticket to the first beer night, but I did find a coupon from the SECOND Beer Night on July 18th, 1974 (I couldn't attach the photo to this message for some reason). The coupon reads: This coupon and 10 cents for one Draft Beer good this day only...it cracks me up that they did it twice--and that I went both times.
Send it to me at project318@substack.com and we'll display it in our follow-up! I can't imagine what happened to your ticket for June 4, but having proof you were at a subsequent TCBN is even more rare. Great find!
Ok 1974 I had just graduated from HS and I recall that game. My future husband was there. He tells me this, streakers had been running onto the field between innings. Around the 6th inning another person runs around the infield, cop is chasing. Jeff Burroughs is kneeling in RF a kid comes out dancing around him and knocks his hat off. JB knocks kid down. Another guy comes out of stands and Jeff knocks him down. Dave Duncan the Indians catcher, runs out to rf and starts fighting JB! That when Billy Martin rushes onto the field and all hell breaks loose! I love Terry Pluto as he is still writing for the PD. Lifelong CLE fan.
Hi Gretchen--thank you for sharing all of these wonderful memories and observations. I appreciate your perspective on the disappointment you felt at the forfeit, not having taken any part in why the game ended. This is why every other league has worked so hard to avoid forfeiture, but baseball had a different comfort with them given their long history in the sport. This certainly was an era where--everywhere--anger played a different role in fandom than it does today, something I am really interested in exploring here and, eventually trying to understand more clearly than I do right now. If you just look at TCBN without the context, it looks like Cleveland went insane, but the truth is, this was far closer to normal for the era than it is today.
I posted this story to the subReddit for the Cleveland Guardians and got one anecdote too wonderful not to share:
"My father was at the game. He was a part owner of a Japanese steak house like a Beni Hana. At the time, the cooks were from Japan. He took some of the cooks to their first American professional baseball game that day. Imagine what they told their pals back home!"
I didn’t go to a game with 10 cent beers, but my local bar near our college had one every Tuesday night in 1969-1970. And we had no classes on Wednesdays, so it was a BIG hit! So many (foggy) good memories!
Growing up as a Tribe fan I remember the incident well. I was only 13 years old at the time but followed the Indians passionately, and even at that age couldn’t stand Billy Martin. Thanks for your article, it brought back lots of memories. The Stroh’s involvement in TCBN had escaped me, but it makes me love this Detroit beverage even more. It has always been my beer of choice!
I always wondered if the fire-brewing had something to do with what happened that night. Now I need to track down a chemist.
I remember a $.25 cent beer night at a single A affiliate in a po dunk lumber town in Oregon, two of the players were Julio Franco & Juan Samuel who went on to have great careers in the majors. Good memories for sure. Thanks for sharing your story.
Don't forget the "Disco Demolition" fiasco. July 12, 1979, at Comiskey Park in Chi, in between game 1 and 2 of a Sox/Tigers double header. Game 2 never happened as a result of the melee that left more than 30 people injured and the field so badly damaged from the "demolition" of enough disco records to fill a U-Haul truck, game 2 couldn't be played if they wanted to.
This all happened in a haze for me. I became engaged (in Atlanta) in the early morning hours of June 2, 1974, and so was walking around still numb on the 4th. (“My God, she said yes, what the hell do I do now?”) My wife (still!) Jean was from Cleveland, and we got married in Middleburg Heights around Thanksgiving of that year.
All of this as self-serving introduction to my thanks for the Weir quote. The rest of today will be good.
I wasn't at the game or the Grateful Dead show four days later on June 8, 1974, or even new anything about them, but what are the chances that I stumbled across this substack story, read the first account and kept with it until I finished the next 2000 words too,only to recognize that the Grateful Dead acclamation happen on the day of my wedding on June 8, 1974? I'm just saying...
What a fantastic post! I hadn't yet started following baseball when this game took place, but the Cleveland fans have a special place in my heart. The great Terry Pluto in the Baltimore Sun had a terrific column about a Baltimore v Cleveland game in mid-June, 1979, and after that I was hooked, first on sportswriting, then on the Orioles. I published an essay long ago ("Oriole Magic") that opens with his account of that game. It's in an anthology that is probably not a great baseball book, but a good one: Anatomy of Baseball (foreword by Yogi Berra and contributions by Richard Ford and some other giants), ed. Lee Gutkin, SMU Press. I'm loving reading the comments here with other stories of those crazy Cleveland fans.
Thank you, Elizabeth! I love Terry Pluto and newspaper writing from the 1970s generally and I have made a note. For my part, I found a wonderful article the other day in the New York Times, December 28ish 1969, by Robert Lipsyte, who awards his "Sport of the Year" to a Mets fan who dared to wear his cap in the bleachers of Wrigley Field late in the 1969 season. It is a truly wonderful piece of sports writing.
I’ll look for it! I’ve always felt bad about not writing a fan letter to Terry Pluto. If he’s still with us, I’m going to do it.
Oh good Lord, he’s my age! I always imagined him as someone who’d honed his writing craft for decades. I’m writing him today.
If we at Project 3.18 can promise only one thing, it is that we will not forget about Disco Demolition!
I was at the game. My brother called me and said he was going, and so were a bunch of his friends, most whom I knew. I totally remember all of the beer trucks that surrounded the stadium. I was not yet 21 years old, so it must have been 3.2% ABV beer that they were loading into the stadium. We bought tickets for the bleachers, after all we were there for cheap beer, and some baseball. Once settled in, we decided that sending two people at a time to get ten beers (one for each of us) would be the best method to keep it flowing. It worked out quite well. I will never forget that the first streaker made it look easy, and with one hop up onto the rolled up canvases, they disappeared into the crowd. During the next break, about five people tried to do the same, and it just kind of continued from there. Of course, being in the bleachers, and either getting more beer, or going to restroom, some of the antics were missed by me, and so many years later, the memory isn't all that clear. But, it is the one game I can say to any fan that I was there, and they know what game I am talking about.
Thanks for adding this comment with the parts of the evening you remember. I appreciate the gazelle-like nature of the first streaker in your memory. The modern-day Stroh's beer is 4.5% ABV so I wonder if it was that or if they had a weaker version for events like this one, which...would be wise.
Back in the day -there was 3.2% beer with a red ring around the top of the can. It was legal for people over 18 but under 21 to drink. They may have been serving 3.2 that night. I think my friend may have mentioned that… I have a friend who was working at that game!
She was under 18. I also send it to my brothers to see if they remember/were there.
I remember it happening but I was only 10 years old around that time living In suburban Cleveland🙌🙌👍 it was a great place to grow up.
(Ps: East side)
Thank you for adding this context, Kathleen. It is a small but important piece I didn't have. Thanks also for sharing, and if anyone has memories they'd like to offer up, send them our way!
I was there that night. I still have the ticket stub somewhere. I remember seeing the home plate umpire get hit with a folding chair that someone threw from the stands.
If you can find the stub, please send me a photo of it! I am glad you can verify poor Nestor's account of his injury. It's such a surreal and unbelievable detail. How much of an arm do you have to have to throw a folding chair?
I couldn't find my ticket to the first beer night, but I did find a coupon from the SECOND Beer Night on July 18th, 1974 (I couldn't attach the photo to this message for some reason). The coupon reads: This coupon and 10 cents for one Draft Beer good this day only...it cracks me up that they did it twice--and that I went both times.
Send it to me at project318@substack.com and we'll display it in our follow-up! I can't imagine what happened to your ticket for June 4, but having proof you were at a subsequent TCBN is even more rare. Great find!
Ok 1974 I had just graduated from HS and I recall that game. My future husband was there. He tells me this, streakers had been running onto the field between innings. Around the 6th inning another person runs around the infield, cop is chasing. Jeff Burroughs is kneeling in RF a kid comes out dancing around him and knocks his hat off. JB knocks kid down. Another guy comes out of stands and Jeff knocks him down. Dave Duncan the Indians catcher, runs out to rf and starts fighting JB! That when Billy Martin rushes onto the field and all hell breaks loose! I love Terry Pluto as he is still writing for the PD. Lifelong CLE fan.
Dave Duncan had the heart of a warrior.
Hi Gretchen--thank you for sharing all of these wonderful memories and observations. I appreciate your perspective on the disappointment you felt at the forfeit, not having taken any part in why the game ended. This is why every other league has worked so hard to avoid forfeiture, but baseball had a different comfort with them given their long history in the sport. This certainly was an era where--everywhere--anger played a different role in fandom than it does today, something I am really interested in exploring here and, eventually trying to understand more clearly than I do right now. If you just look at TCBN without the context, it looks like Cleveland went insane, but the truth is, this was far closer to normal for the era than it is today.