ESPN's Paul Jackson recounts an unbelievable tale of a marketing promotion gone bad for a then dismal Cleveland Indians baseball team in 1974 during a home game against the Texas Rangers. The Indians fans, fueled by an near endless supply of 10 cent beers where general delinquency with fans running across the field degenerated into havoc where essentially the inmates or fans "wielding chains, knives and clubs fashioned from pieces of stadium seats" took over the asylum and faced off against the Rangers players. The game was eventually forfeited with a phalanx of both teams--the players armed with baseball bats for protection--and "bench players forming a rearguard" escaping the chaotic stadium.
The 25 Texas players quickly found themselves surrounded by 200 angry drunks, and more were tumbling over the wall onto the field. The Texas Rangers had been ambushed.
Then the riot began. Indians manager Ken Aspromonte, his own defining moment upon him, realized that the Texas franchise might be on the verge of decimation. He too ordered his players onto the field. The bat racks in the home dugout emptied as the Indians mounted their own rescue.
10 cent beer night has to take home the award for both the worst and the best promotion ever, depending on which side of the field you are on.
The bases were yanked out and were never returned, which are probably hanging on the wall of a few Cleveland homes. In the most obvious statement of that year, American League president Lee McPhail, after the subsequent investigation, stated "There was no question that beer played a part in the riot."
Read more here.
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A few years later the Chicago White Sox would have a fan riot of its own due to a promotion gone bad that resulted in a forfeit. A local DJ cooked up an "anti-disco" (disco being the rage during this era) event where fans could exchange disco LPs for a discounted ticket of $0.98 (the frequency of the radio station, naturally). The records were then placed in a crate that would be blown up.
When the crate on the field was filled with records, staff stopped collecting them from spectators who soon realized that long-playing (LP) records were shaped like Frisbees. They began to throw their records from the stands during the game, and the records often struck other fans. The fans also threw beer and even firecrackers from the stands. ...The large box containing the collected records was rigged with a bomb. When it exploded, the bomb tore a hole in the outfield grass surface and thousands of fans immediately rushed the field. Some lit fires and started small-scale riots. The batting cage was pulled down and wrecked, and the bases literally stolen, along with chunks of the field itself. The crowd, once on the field, mostly wandered around aimlessly, though a number of participants burned banners, sat on the grass or ran from security and police. People sitting in the upper deck could feel it sway back and forth from the rioters.
Watch the local news coverage (Thank God for YouTube) of this event with onsite video. It's pretty fucking wild.
[youtube=http://youtube.com/watch?v=MpQfCcsqQ0E]
This violent anti-establishment fueled rage aimed against disco music may have sparked the beginning of the end of that genre, however ironically what song today at the stadiums gets people most jazzed? YMCA, led by the Yankees ground crews (poor saps).
[youtube=http://youtube.com/watch?v=4fVIjPY5fRo]
On the 25th anniversary of this incident Keith Olbermann interviewed DJ Steve Dahl, the guy if not directly responsible, then at least the public face of the fan riot. Unrelatedly, check out the smoking hot brunette wearing the white top in the background of the interview. I'd dance to Stayin' Alive with her any day:
[youtube=http://youtube.com/watch?v=8a_hBR9YuNw]
What's particularly interesting in all this is that utility player Rusty Torres was involved in both the Disco Demolition Night and 10 cent beer riots, as well as another fan incited forfeit in 1971 as a player for the Washington Senators on their last home game.