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Short Stuff: Cleveland’s Infamous 10-Cent Beer Night · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Hey, and welcome to the Short Stuff. I'm Josh and
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: there's Chuck and this is short stuff. And this is
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: yet another chapter in our ongoing coverage of Cleveland, Ohio history,
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: because when you dive into all of the stuff we've
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: talked about, Cleveland has come up a surprising amount of
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: times it has. And we got great listeners in Cleveland.
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  Speaker 1: Shout out to our buddy Gayle Coonson her husband Mark
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  Speaker 1: and uh they we sold out there and we love
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  Speaker 1: our Cleveland or so we're not making fun of you,
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  Speaker 1: but we can't not talk about ten cent beer Knight. Yeah, yeah, so, um,
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  Speaker 1: ten cent beer Knight is a legendary night in Cleveland. Uh,
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  Speaker 1: if you live in Cleveland, you know all about this.
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  Speaker 1: And it took place in June. And it wasn't that
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  Speaker 1: that the Cleveland at the time they were called the
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  Speaker 1: Indians now they're called the Guardians. It wasn't that the
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  Speaker 1: baseball stadium was giving away beer for ten cents that
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  Speaker 1: made it so remarkable. That was actually like a fairly
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  Speaker 1: routine promotion. Um, if you do the inflation math, that's
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  Speaker 1: equal to about fifty seven cents today. Yeah, all over baseball,
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  Speaker 1: not just Cleveland, right, exactly. And if you went to
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  Speaker 1: the stadium, they weren't keeping track of how many you
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  Speaker 1: had or how many you bought at one time. It
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  Speaker 1: was basically an open invitation to come get very drunk
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  Speaker 1: at the baseball stadium. That was the promotion, right. So
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  Speaker 1: it wasn't just that they had a ten cent beer knight.
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  Speaker 1: It was this particular night underscored how bad an idea
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  Speaker 1: ten cent beer nights at the baseball stadium actually were.
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  Speaker 1: That's right, Uh. And it had to do with, in
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  Speaker 1: particular a lot of things. I watched a little video
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  Speaker 1: about this, and they did point out that the the
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  Speaker 1: mood in Cleveland at the time, given the pollution and
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  Speaker 1: laid off factory workers and the Indians not being very good,
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  Speaker 1: it just it all sort of culminated on this night
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  Speaker 1: that they played the Texas Rangers, who a week prior
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  Speaker 1: their ten cent beer knights. This is just crazy, uh
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  Speaker 1: to think about now, if they had fifty seven cent
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  Speaker 1: beer knight, you know, I would be down there unlimited
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  Speaker 1: fifty seven cent beer night during nine innings at least. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: And I did see for the Cleveland one um they
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  Speaker 1: had a limit of six cups per person at a time.
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  Speaker 1: So they did. Okay, well, they did have some rules then,
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  Speaker 1: all right, that's respectful. I figured that's just they figured
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  Speaker 1: that's as many as you can carry at once. I
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  Speaker 1: don't know, probably they didn't want you to strain yourself.
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  Speaker 1: So a week before at in Dallas uh Fort Worth
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  Speaker 1: at their stadium, they had tencent beer Knight and there
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  Speaker 1: there's a there was a brawl on the field. There
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  Speaker 1: was a hard slide by the Rangers, retaliation by Cleveland's picture,
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  Speaker 1: which is what usually happens in baseball, and they charged
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  Speaker 1: the mountain and a fight breaks out and it was,
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  Speaker 1: you know, it was a pretty good baseball brawl. And
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  Speaker 1: Billy Martin was coaching Texas at the time, and he
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  Speaker 1: said that he wasn't worried about the next week in
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  Speaker 1: Cleveland because they were asking about retaliation. He said, they
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  Speaker 1: don't have enough fans to worry about, which did not
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  Speaker 1: help the matter. Now, and if you know Billy Martin,
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  Speaker 1: that's a total Billy Martin thing to say, right, So
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  Speaker 1: Billy Martin says this just off handedly. Um. And also,
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  Speaker 1: by the way, during that brawler, after the brawl, the
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  Speaker 1: fans at the Rangers stadium through trash and all sorts
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  Speaker 1: of stuff be dump beer onto the Indians as they
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  Speaker 1: went back to their dugout. So there was a lot
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  Speaker 1: of ire about this in in Cleveland, not the least
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  Speaker 1: of which was Billy Martin's little quip. And there was
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  Speaker 1: at the time a sports talk radio personality named Pete Franklin.
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  Speaker 1: And if you're familiar with sports talk radio, they um,
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  Speaker 1: they talk a lot of trash. They don't, you know,
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  Speaker 1: suffer a lot of um of idiots. I guess you
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: could put it um. And this Pete Franklin seems to have,
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  Speaker 1: if not been the origin of the modern sports talk
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  Speaker 1: radio personality. He was definitely one of the early people
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  Speaker 1: who was doing this, that's right. So I think he
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  Speaker 1: just sort of riled people up, be the more on
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  Speaker 1: the radio, right, and that would happened over the following week.
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  Speaker 1: He spent most of his sports line show on w
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  Speaker 1: w W e UM just getting everybody riled up to
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  Speaker 1: get to this game, and too to show the Rangers
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  Speaker 1: what we thought about them. All right, I think that's
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  Speaker 1: a great time for a break, and we'll get to
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  Speaker 1: what happened on June six right after this. Alright, So
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  Speaker 1: I said June six, you said June six. It was
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: really June four, Please don't We just got it wrong
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  Speaker 1: and didn't feel like re recording whole episode. Right, So
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  Speaker 1: it was June four that this game started, and it
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  Speaker 1: was the beginning of a three game homestand and by
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  Speaker 1: the time that um, this this game rolled around twenty thousand,
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  Speaker 1: Clevelander showed up at the game for ten cent Beer Night,
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  Speaker 1: angry at the Texas Rangers, who the Indians were about
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  Speaker 1: to play. That's right, uh, And to say things got
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  Speaker 1: out of hand is again a pretty big understatement. Um.
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  Speaker 1: The video I watched that told me about the six
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  Speaker 1: cups at a time said that at one point people
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  Speaker 1: were buying so much beer the vendors couldn't keep up,
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  Speaker 1: so they just pulled the beer trucks in just outside
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  Speaker 1: the outfield walls. And there were two teenage girls working
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  Speaker 1: the station that got so overwhelmed they left. They just
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  Speaker 1: ran away, and all of a sudden, there were beer
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  Speaker 1: trucks they flipped over the table. And I don't know
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  Speaker 1: if this is true or not, but there were reports
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  Speaker 1: that some of them literally carried tapped kegs of beer
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  Speaker 1: into the stands. Okay, from everything that I've read about this, night.
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  Speaker 1: That is a percent believable, totally is so. In addition
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  Speaker 1: to stuff like that happening, there was a lot of
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  Speaker 1: like foreshadowing that this was not a normal game. A
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  Speaker 1: lot of people were running out onto the field more
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  Speaker 1: than normal. I mean, in the seventies, streaking on a
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  Speaker 1: baseball field wasn't like just totally unheard of. But they
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  Speaker 1: think there was a song about streaking. Yeah, the ones
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  Speaker 1: put me in coach, I'm read give me um so, Uh,
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  Speaker 1: there were two streakers at this game in the third
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  Speaker 1: and the sixth innings, and then there was another I
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  Speaker 1: guess you could call them streakers that came out at
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  Speaker 1: I'm not sure what inning, but it was a father
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  Speaker 1: and son duo who ran into the outfield and mooned
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  Speaker 1: everybody in the bleachers. Yeah, the one one of the streakers. Uh,
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  Speaker 1: this completely naked man and this is not advisable, went
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  Speaker 1: in and ran and slid while the game was going on,
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  Speaker 1: slid into second base but naked. So this is happening
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  Speaker 1: like during this game, and this is this is while
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  Speaker 1: a lid is being kept on everything like that's that's
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  Speaker 1: how how this is like a simmering kettle at this point,
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  Speaker 1: And so you can make a case that all that's
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  Speaker 1: kind of in good fund, even though it's pretty rivaled
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  Speaker 1: and a little unruly to say the least. But um,
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  Speaker 1: it kind of started to turn ugly. Uh at one
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  Speaker 1: specific point when Laren Lee, who was a Cleveland player,
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  Speaker 1: hit a line drive back to the picture for the
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  Speaker 1: Rangers Ferguson Jenkins, and it hit him in the stomach
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  Speaker 1: and dropped Ferguson Jenkins like a sack of potatoes. And
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  Speaker 1: rather than you know, show any kind of concern or
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  Speaker 1: anything like that, that set off the fans to chant
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  Speaker 1: hit him again, hit him again, which kind of tick
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  Speaker 1: the Rangers off a little bit. Yes, so that rolls
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  Speaker 1: people up even more. Uh, they start throwing stuff. They
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  Speaker 1: start throwing hot dogs, batteries, beer, the usual stuff. Billy
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  Speaker 1: Martin comes out and starts blowing kisses into the crowd.
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  Speaker 1: Apparently there's a picture of them doing so this is
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  Speaker 1: like classic Billy Martin. Again. That railed up people even more,
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  Speaker 1: and they started shooting. They brought fireworks and started shooting
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  Speaker 1: fireworks into the Rangers. Dugout, this is during a baseball game.
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  Speaker 1: That's going on everybody. Yeah, they were still trying to
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  Speaker 1: play the game. Yeah, So as this game is going on, UM,
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  Speaker 1: the UM Rangers are winning most of the time. I
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  Speaker 1: think by the UM I think the sixth they had
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  Speaker 1: a five to one lead, but then the Indians scored
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  Speaker 1: two runs in the sixth made it five to five
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  Speaker 1: to three UM, and then they scored two more runs
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  Speaker 1: in the ninth, so it was five to five and
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  Speaker 1: they actually had the winning run on second base. And
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  Speaker 1: we're at bat when the incident that proved to be
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  Speaker 1: the straw that broke the camel's back and and let
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  Speaker 1: all hell break clues happened. That's right, Uh, And it
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  Speaker 1: was well, it shouldn't have happened, but it was a
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  Speaker 1: bit of a miss understanding, and that a fan ran
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  Speaker 1: out and tried to grab Jeff burrows hat off his head. Uh.
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  Speaker 1: Burrows tripped and fell on the ground. But all the
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  Speaker 1: range or saw was Burrows on the ground with a
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: fan right there, and they thought he was attacked. And
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  Speaker 1: Billy Martin basically says, go get them guys and take
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  Speaker 1: your bats with you. So the Texas Ranger baseball club
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  Speaker 1: streams out onto the field with baseball bats looking for vengeance.
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  Speaker 1: They're met by a flood of angry Cleveland fans who
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  Speaker 1: starts streaming onto the field and they have more than
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  Speaker 1: baseball bats. Bleacher Reports says that they had knives, chains,
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  Speaker 1: and portions of the stadium seats that they had ripped off.
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  Speaker 1: This is like the Simpsons rumbling or something like that.
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  Speaker 1: It's cartoonish, but this is what happened in Cleveland on
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  Speaker 1: this night. Uh that's right. I saw that there were
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  Speaker 1: um fifty security guards in the whole stadium with twenty
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  Speaker 1: thousand fans, so they did not adequately prepare for. Uh
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  Speaker 1: you know what was ended up basically being a riot. Uh.
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  Speaker 1: They ripped they stole the bases, not like, hey, he
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  Speaker 1: stole second base, nice job, they ripped the bases out.
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  Speaker 1: Apparently those bases are still not recovered, so like in
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  Speaker 1: garages in Ohio, like someone has these bases still like guaranteed,
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  Speaker 1: and I'm sure there's a tap k right next to it.
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  Speaker 1: Oh I hope so so, um, we we should definitely
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  Speaker 1: point out that, to their credit, the Indians streamed out
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  Speaker 1: on the field with bats there of their own to
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  Speaker 1: defend the Rangers because they're like, these people might actually
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  Speaker 1: kill some of the Texas Rangers. So baseball players are
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  Speaker 1: getting in fights with rioters on the field, baseball players
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  Speaker 1: from both teams. UM. The the guy who is actually
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  Speaker 1: the head official of the game, Nestor Chailac, suffered a
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  Speaker 1: head injury because he was hit by one of those
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  Speaker 1: stadium seats that have been ripped off. UM. He also
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  Speaker 1: had cut on his hand because he had been hit
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  Speaker 1: by a rock. And finally he calls the game and says,
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  Speaker 1: this game is over. The Indians forfeit and the Rangers
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  Speaker 1: are the winners. I guess, yeah, it's um. There are
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  Speaker 1: a bunch of videos on YouTube that they don't show
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  Speaker 1: it live, but they show photos. It is just it's
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  Speaker 1: hard to believe when you see this this happened. I
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  Speaker 1: mean it was a street brawl between professional athletes. It
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  Speaker 1: showed people like bleeding from the head and being carried
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  Speaker 1: off on stretchers. And you know, today like an NBA player,
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  Speaker 1: you know, if he gets into a like a yelling
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  Speaker 1: at a fan in the stands and there's a confrontation,
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  Speaker 1: it's a really big deal. This was a street fight
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  Speaker 1: on a baseball field during a baseball game. Yeah, it
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  Speaker 1: was like that scene an anchorman. There was a guy
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  Speaker 1: on horseback with a trident. You know, it's like that
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  Speaker 1: but in Cleveland, and it was because everybody had drank
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  Speaker 1: so much beer. So the Indians very wisely went back
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  Speaker 1: to the drawing board and they said, we've got three
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  Speaker 1: more of these beer and nights scheduled, and we've already
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  Speaker 1: been publicizing him, so we can't really take them back
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  Speaker 1: because they'll probably riot again. So we're going to change
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  Speaker 1: it from unlimited beer to just four beers per person.
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  Speaker 1: And that was that for ten cent beer and night. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: so instead of six at time for total. Yeah, I
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  Speaker 1: saw and you know, again, who knows what these YouTube
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  Speaker 1: videos if these are accurate, But I saw sixty thousand
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  Speaker 1: beers consumed, and uh, how many people are there? Twenty
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  Speaker 1: six thousand, you know, a lot of which were probably underage,
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  Speaker 1: So you do the math um. And he said that
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  Speaker 1: there were nineteen streakers total, So who knows? Man, isn't
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  Speaker 1: that just nuts? Yes, it is crazy to think about.
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: And boy, if you were there, please please email us.
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: I would love to hear a story. Yeah, definitely, and
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: spara thought for those poor two teenage girls who were
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: chased off of the beer trucks for their lives. Yeah,
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: and anyone that got legitimately hurt. I mean, we're kind
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: of laughing at all this, but I didn't see that
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  Speaker 1: anyone was like seriously seriously injured, right, blood streaking down
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: their face, and they're just like stitches and light stitches.
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: They were in handcuffs being led away. Had to call
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: in late for work the next day. I hope we
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: find another good Cleveland topic. This is turning out to
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: be by a series. Yeah, it's it's a rich vein,
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: isn't it. It is? You got anything else? I got
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: nothing else? All right? Everybody? Then, like beer Night in
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: June four, Short Stuff is out. Stuff You Should Know
• 13:16
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