25. The Indians’ Disastrous Alcohol Experience
For the Cleveland Indians, 1974 was a bad year: the team sucked, and fans made their displeasure known by staying away. To boost attendance, management brainstormed, and came up with a promotion that would go down in infamy 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 12-ounce beers at the ballpark, sold for just a dime instead of the regular 65 cents price. In of itself, the cheap booze was not a problem: the Indians had offered a 10-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 harboring a grudge against the Rangers.