Ten-Cent Beer Night

Forty years ago today, the Cleveland Indians had a promotion called Ten-Cent Beer night. They’d tried different kinds of promotions to get people to come to Municipal Stadium, and few worked. The stands were mostly empty for most games. June 4, 1974, wasn’t the first dime beer night, as several other teams had tried the promotion, and there were even nickel beer nights earlier. Maybe it was the full moon, who knows, but something about that night in Cleveland made the crowd go wild. How wild was it?

The Indians forfeited that night's game against the Rangers in the midst of a ninth-inning comeback because a crazed crowd had overtaken the events on the field. It is one of just five forfeits since 1954, and the only one known to include a combination of streaking nudists, exploding firecrackers, stolen bases (literally) and an organists' rendition of "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" serving as the soundtrack to 50 ballplayers defending themselves from a crowd of unruly drunks.

So, yes, on that level, Ten-Cent Beer Night was unique.

Strangely, the team held another Ten-Cent Beer Night a month later -but not on a full moon. That one went off without a hitch. (via Metafilter)