24. A Bad Ballpark Idea
The 1970s were a pretty meh decade for the Cleveland Indians (since renamed the Guardians), and 1974 in particular was a bad year. The team sucked, and fans stayed away. To boost attendance and drum up business, management brainstormed, and came up with a promotion that would go down as one of Major League Baseball’s worst ideas: bargain basement priced beer. The Indians informed their fans that the June 4th, 1974, game against the Texas Rangers would feature twelve ounce beers at the ballpark, sold for just a dime instead of the regular 65 cents price.
The promotion worked far better than expected, and over 25,000 showed up that night. However, most were not there for the game: the concession stands were jam packed with people buying up to half a dozen beers at a time. The cheap booze was not a problem in of itself: the Indians had offered a five cent beer night in 1971. However, cheap booze in a game against the Rangers was a bad mix. A bench-clearing brawl in the teams’ last meeting a week earlier in Texas, had left many Indians fans with a grudge against the Rangers. Things were about to get bad.
