On a warm summer evening in 1974, he was involved in one of the most notorious give-away nights in baseball history. The attendance-starved Cleveland Indians held their first...and last... "10-Cent Beer Night", a celebration of life, bad baseball and ludicrously cheap suds.
Lured by the promise of the latter, more than 25,000 fans showed up, many of them already sloshed. And as spectators quaffed an estimated 60,000 10-ounce cups of brew, things went from bad to worse. In the first inning, small explosions were heard in the stands; in the fourth, a nude man slid into second base; in the fifth, a father-and-son team jumped into the infield and mooned the crowd.
After the Indians rallied from a 5-3 deficit to tie the game in the bottom of the ninth, the real trouble began. Fans poured into right field, surrounding Texas slugger Jeff Burroughs. Punches were exchanged. Rangers manager Billy Martin grabbed a bat and left the dugout to rescue his right fielder. Thousands of drunken fans covered the field, brawling with police, players and each other.
Ultimately, umpire Nestor Chylak...who was hit over the head with a chair...called a forfeit. "They were just uncontrollable beasts." Chylak later said. "I've never seen anything like it, except in a zoo." |
