06/04/2026
Today is the 52nd anniversary of 10 cent beer night.
⚾️🍺On June 4, 1974 during the doomed “Ten-Cent Beer Night”, home plate umpire Nestor Chylak halts play with the score tied at 5 in the bottom of the 9th, giving the Texas Rangers the forfeited victory over the Indians at Cleveland Stadium. The ill-fated promotion, which sells an estimated 60,000 cups of brew to a crowd 25,134 fans, becomes unmanageable when drunken Cleveland fans attacked both Texas outfielder Jeff Burroughs and the umpires. Players were forced to use bats to protect themselves while retreating off the field. The idea behind the promotion was to attract more fans to the game by offering cups of beer for just 10 cents each (equivalent to $0.68 today), a substantial discount on the regular price of 65 cents (equivalent to $4.39 today), with a limit of 6 beers per purchase but with no limit on the number of purchases made during the game. Just six days prior to the beerfest, the Indians and the Rangers had been involved in a bench-clearing brawl that had been widely publicized, drawing a rowdy crowd to begin with.🍺⚾️
