29. The Climax in Cleveland (Part 4)
In the 9th inning, a heavily inebriated fan jumped into the field, grabbed an outfielder’s cap, and began running around wildly. When he finally dropped the cap, the livid outfielder kicked him. At that point, the Rangers’ manager Billy Martin, who had never been known for having a cool head, grabbed a baseball bat. Turning to his players and rallying them like a Civil War colonel pumping up regiment for a bayonet charge, Martin urged his team: “Boys! Let’s get em!” Following their leader, the Rangers stormed the field with their bats, to do battle with the fans who by then had knives, chains, and other improvised weapons. In the ensuing battle between the Texans and the Indians fans, things started out well for the Rangers, but it did not take long before the locals’ numbers began to tell, and they got the upper hand.
As Billy Martin’s routed men fled the field, pursued by hostile Indians fans, it was only good fortune that kept the Texans players from getting killed that night. The Indians’ manager, realizing that the Texans were about to get slaughtered, got his own players to arm themselves with bats, and rushed them onto the field to protect the Rangers. In the end, riot police and a SWAT team arrived to break it all up. By then the tally for the night was over 60,000 beers consumed, almost 20 streakers, about 10 trips to the emergency room, and 9 arrests. The game could not be resumed in a timely manner, so the Indians ended up forfeiting because of their fans’ drunken antics, and because of their management’s boneheaded decision to enable that fiasco.
