November 27, 1972: The Yankees Acquire Graig Nettles

November 27, 1972: The New York Yankees traded catcher John Ellis, 3rd baseman Jerry Kenney, right fielder Charlie Spikes and outfielder Rusty Torres to the Cleveland Indians for 3rd baseman Graig Nettles and catcher Jerry Moses.

Nettles was the key. He was the best defensive 3rd baseman the Yankees have ever had, and his lefthanded swing was ideal for Yankee Stadium. He led the American League in home runs in 1976, and helped the Yankees win 4 Pennants and 2 World Series. His fielding in Game 3 turned the 1978 World Series around, making what looked like a Los Angeles Dodger sweep into a Yankee win in 6 games.

Some people have alleged that the fix was in: Indians general manager Gabe Paul knew he was going to be named GM of the Yankees when Cleveland native George Steinbrenner, denied the chance to buy the Indians, finalized a deal to buy the Yankees.

When that deal was announced on January 3, 1973, there were 4 men on the Yankee roster who were still there when the Yankees won the World Series again, 5 years later: Roy White, Thurman Munson, Sparky Lyle and Graig Nettles.

*

November 27, 1972 was a Monday. Baseball was out of season. On ABC Monday Night Football, the Miami Dolphins beat the football version of the St. Louis Cardinals, 31-10 at the Orange Bowl in Miami.

There were no games played in the NBA, the NHL, or the American Basketball Association. There was 1 game in the brand-new World Hockey Association: The New England Whalers beat the Cleveland Crusaders, 3-0 at the Boston Garden.

September 30, 1971: The Last Washington Senators Game Is Played

September 30, 1971: The last Washington Senators game is played, against the New York Yankees at Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Stadium in Washington. Team owner Bob Short, having already moved the NBA's Minneapolis Lakers to Los Angeles in 1960, has announced he's moving the Senators to the Dallas area, to become the Texas Rangers. He complains about the low attendance, despite having the highest ticket prices in the American League, and no subway access to RFK Stadium. (Washington's Metro would not open until 1976.)

Frank Howard, the Senators' most popular player in their 2nd go-around of 1961-71, hits the last home run. Dick Bosman starts, and stands to be the winning pitcher, as the Senators lead 7-5 with 1 out left in the 9th. All he has to do is get Bobby Murcer out.

Frank Howard

But he can't, through no fault of his own. Angry fans from the "crowd" of 14,461 people storm the field. The umpires cannot restore order, and they forfeit the game to the Yankees. The next April, Bosman also started the team's 1st game as the Rangers.

Only 2 AL games have been forfeited since, both promotions that turned into fiascos: The Cleveland Indians' Ten-Cent Beer Night in 1974, and the Chicago White Sox' Disco Demolition Night in 1979. Rusty Torres, who turned 23 on this day, was also in uniform on each of those occasions.

That last season had been a difficult one for the Senators, even before the move was announced. Ted Williams had been named their manager in 1969, and the man who literally wrote the book on hitting (The Science of Hitting, published the next year) really improved their hitting, to the point where the Senators won 86 games. It was the best season in Washington baseball since 1945, when the original Senators, who moved to become the Minnesota Twins in 1961 and were replaced by this expansion team, won 87 and missed the Pennant by a game and a half.

But the Boston Red Sox legend couldn't improve the pitching, and soon, the hitters stopped listening to his authoritarian ways. The Senators won only 70 games in 1970. In 1971, they traded for Denny McLain, the former 2-time Cy Young Award winner whose shoulder injury and bad attitude rendered him nearly useless; and the rights to Curt Flood, who had refused to accept a trade from the St. Louis Cardinals to the Philadelphia Phillies, but was willing to come back and play in Washington, and was so rusty after sitting 1970 out that he had to retire.

The Senators won just 63 games, and while a solid core of fans missed them, the D.C. metropolitan area as a whole did not. As Richard Nixon, President at the time, was quoted as saying, "All anybody cares about in Washington is the Redskins." And since the Redskins won the NFC Championship in 1972, and stayed contenders for the next 20 years, this was one time when Nixon was right.

In 1973, the NBA's Baltimore Bullets moved down the Baltimore-Washington Parkway, and were successful for the next 10 years, including a Championship in 1978. The 1970s also saw a renaissance in basketball at the University of Maryland, located outside the District of Columbia, but inside the Capital Beltway.

In 1974, the NHL introduced the Washington Capitals, and, while they were terrible their first few years, they have usually been contenders since the mid-1980s. The 1980s also saw the rise of the basketball team at Georgetown University.

In 1984, President Ronald Reagan went to the MLB city closest to Washington at the time, Baltimore, and threw out the ceremonial first ball before the Orioles' home opener, restoring the old Washington tradition. Although the Orioles fell into decline after a generation of winning, including 3 World Series wins (including 4 Pennants from 1966 to 1971, which took many Maryland fans away and, indirectly, helped to doom the Senators), Washington insiders began making the trip up the Baltimore-Washington Parkway, and the Orioles became D.C.'s team as well as Baltimore's.

The Orioles' 1989 Playoff run, though ultimately unsuccessful, increased interest from Washington area fans. The building of Oriole Park at Camden Yards in 1992 moved them just 4 miles, but it also put them next to Interstate 95, the Baltimore-Washington Parkway, and Camden Station, all with access to D.C.

This whetted capital-area baseball appetites even more, and led to the 2004-05 move of the Montreal Expos, becoming the Washington Nationals. They played the 2005, '06 and '07 seasons at RFK Stadium before moving to Nationals Park. Being in the other League means their rivalry with the Orioles isn't as nasty as Yankees-Red Sox, Dodgers-Giants, or even Cubs-Cardinals. The fact that the teams are partners in the Mid-Atlantic Sports Network (the O's own 77 percent of MASN, and the Nats 23 percent) also helps.

The Nats finally started making the Playoffs in 2012, the 1st postseason for a Washington baseball team since the 1933 Senators, unless you count the Homestead Grays of the Negro Leagues, who split their "home games" between Washington and Pittsburgh. And in 2019, the Nats won the World Series, the 1st such win for Washington since the 1924 Senators.

The last active player for the "New Senators" was Toby Harrah, who played until 1986. The last active player for the "Old Senators," who became the Minnesota Twins in 1961, was Jim Kaat, who pitched until 1983.

*

September 30, 1971 was a Thursday. These 8 other Major League Baseball games were played that day:

* The New York Mets beat the St. Louis Cardinals, 6-1 at Shea Stadium. Tom Seaver gets the win, his 20th of the season, and will go on to win his 2nd Cy Young Award. A young right fielder named Ken Singleton, who had grown up in New York as a Met fan, hits 2 home runs. But he will become better known for playing for the Baltimore Orioles, and broadcasting for the Yankees.

No one knows it at the time, but this is the last game the Mets will play with Gil Hodges as their manager. At the end of Spring Training in 1972, he suffers a heart attack and dies, not quite 48 years old.

* The Chicago Cubs beat the Montreal Expos, 5-3 at Jarry Park in Montreal. The retiring Ernie Banks played his last game with the Cubs 4 days earlier.

* The Pittsburgh Pirates beat the Philadelphia Phillies, 4-3 at Veterans Stadium in Philadelphia. Roberto Clemente and Willie Stargell both went 1-for-4.

* The Atlanta Braves beat the Cincinnati Reds, 6-2 at Atlanta Stadium (later Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium). Pete Rose went 1-for-4. Both the Reds' Johnny Bench and the Braves' Hank Aaron got the day off.

* The San Francisco Giants beat the San Diego Padres 5-1, at what was then named San Diego Stadium. (It was later renamed Jack Murphy Stadium, Qualcomm Stadium, and SDCCU Stadium.) The Giants thus clinch the National League Western Division title. This turns out to be their only postseason berth between 1962 and 1987.

* The Chicago White Sox beat the Milwaukee Brewers, 2-1 at Comiskey Park in Chicago.

* The California Angels beat the Minnesota Twins, 3-2 at Metropolitan Stadium in the Minneapolis suburb of Bloomington, Minnesota.

* And the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Houston Astros, 2-1 at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles.

And actress Jenna Elfman was born.

July 12, 1979: Disco Demolition Night

July 12, 1979: A promotion between intended games of a Chicago White Sox doubleheader proves to be great sentiment, but lousy execution.

Bill Veeck was the owner of the Chicago White Sox, and baseball's master promoter. At the time, the ChiSox were losing, and Veeck was a big believer in the idea that, "You can fill more seats with losing baseball and a circus than you can with losing baseball and a long silence."

He had scheduled Teen Night at Comiskey Park, once billed as "the Baseball Palace of the World," but now a crumbling relic that, unlike the crosstown Cubs with Wrigley Field, the owners of the Sox (including in two different regimes, Veeck himself) could never afford to keep in good condition. Unlike teams such as the Yankees, Red Sox, Orioles, Dodgers and Phillies, he couldn't "sell the team" to the local fans. Unlike the Cubs, Yankees, Red Sox and Dodgers, he couldn't "sell the ballpark." So he did the best he could: He sold fun.

Veeck's son, Mike Veeck, assisted him in his promotions, and had heard disc jockey Steve Dahl on WLUP, 97.9 FM (not to be confused with the former WLUP, AM 1000, now the ESPN station in Chicago), "blowing up" disco records on the air, because disco sucked. Actually, this was one of the first occasions where people could, instead of "stinks," say "sucks" openly, in public, without fear of being told, "How dare you say such a filthy word like that!"

Most of the songs I don't like are the monotonous ones, the really repetitive ones. I was just turning 8 when the film Saturday Night Fever and its repulsive, Bee Gees-led soundtrack were released in late 1977. Whatever else you might think about him, we must praise the late Michael Jackson for this: Thriller replaced the SNF soundtrack as the biggest-selling album of all time.

John Travolta in Saturday Night Fever,

which premiered December 14, 1977

"Well, you can tell by the way I use my walk, I'm a woman's man... " Are you sure, Barry Gibb? Because in the way you walk, the way you dress, the way you style your hair, and the way you sing, you seem more like a man's woman. Except for the beard: If Barry and his brothers, the twins Robin and Maurice Gibb, didn't have beards, they would have been the most effeminate act in rock history to this point -- and this was after David Bowie did Ziggy Stardust, and in his case the gender-confusion was intentional!

"Stayin' Alive," as bad as it was, wasn't the worst song on the album. That was the incredibly limp "How Deep Is Your Love." I have hated that song for almost 44 years now. There's only one song I have hated longer, and that's because of my name: It's "Michael, Row the Boat Ashore." I don't know how much you'd have to pay me to get me to sing that song, but you are welcome to place a bid.

The Bee Gees were actually really good from 1967 to about 1972, then disappeared, then came back in 1975 as a disco act. There was nothing holy about this second coming. To make matters worse, little brother Andy Gibb also got big at this point.

Anyway, by the Summer of '79, disco was still dominant. Something had to be done. So Mike Veeck and Steve Dahl got together and did something.

The White Sox have played, since their 1901 inception, on the South Side: First at South Side Park (1901-10), then at the old Comiskey Park (1910-90), and since 1991 at the new Comiskey Park, renamed U.S. Cellular Field in 2003 and Guaranteed Rate Field, in 2016.

The South Side is the home of the electric blues (Willie Dixon, Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, Koko Taylor), the home of Chicago soul (Jerry Butler, Curtis Mayfield, their former group the Impressions, the Chi-Lites, Earth Wind & Fire), and the home of some progressive rockers (Doors keyboardist Ray Manzarek, the band Chicago, Styx). While Jim Croce was from the Philadelphia area, he taught us, "Now, the South Side of Chicago is the baddest part of town."

Comiskey, which had hosted the Beatles in 1965, and an annual "Summer Jam" concert since the Veecks came back to town for the 1976 season, seemed like the right place to make a stand for good music.

Comiskey Park, during the 1978 Summer Jam concert

July 12, 1979 was a Thursday, with a doubleheader scheduled, between the White Sox and the Detroit Tigers. Anyone who brought in a disco album into Comiskey would be let in for 98 cents. That's right, 98 cents, because of WLUP's FM frequency, 97.9. Between games of the twinbill, the records would be taken out onto the field and blown up by Dahl and his assistants.

Comiskey Park seated about 44,000 people. Apparently, disco sucked so much that 75,000 people showed up on the troubled South Side to get in and voice their displeasure at disco. The official attendance was 47,795, so there must have been standees.

Harry Caray and Jimmy Piersall, then broadcasting for the ChiSox, mentioned "strange people." Mike Veeck would say the air was heavy with marijuana smoke. (Right, as if disco fans didn't smoke pot. Or use worse drugs: The disco era was the beginning of mass cocaine use in America.)

The Tigers won the first game, 4-1. Pat Underwood outpitched Fred Howard. There were no home runs.

Then the "demolition" was set up. The crate Dahl would use to blow up the records could hold 20,000. That left quite a few others, and people started flinging them like frisbees. When the records were blown up, everyone cheered.

Dahl and his people got off the field in a Jeep, and then the security guys, perhaps sensing what was about to happen, also got off the field. It may have been a self-fulfilling prophecy: Fans rushed the field, chanting, "Disco sucks! Disco sucks! Disco sucks!" They tore up the field, as if the White Sox had just won the Pennant.

Bill Veeck got on the public-address system and told everyone to get off the field. No one listened. The umpires decided the field was unplayable, and declared the 2nd game a forfeit to the Tigers -- after all, as the home team, the White Sox were responsible for making sure the field was playable.

Tiger outfielder Rusty Torres was a Yankee when fans rushed the field at Robert F. Kennedy Stadium in 1971, causing the Washington Senators' last home game to be forfeited to the Yanks. And he was a Cleveland Indian when Ten-Cent Beer Night turned out to be an even bigger disaster than this, resulting in an Indian forfeit to the Texas Rangers in 1974. This would be Torres' 3rd experience in a riot resulting in a forfeit. I seriously doubt anyone will break that record, even on steroids.

Arrests: 39. Injuries reported: 6. Deaths: None. In other words, despite everything, Comiskey Park may have been one of the safest spots in Chicago that night. Don't forget, the South Side was Al Capone's stomping grounds half a century earlier. And it could still be a shooting gallery at times.

No American League games have been forfeited since, and only one National League game has, on August 10, 1995, at Dodger Stadium, when Dodger fans received free balls upon entry, and threw them onto the field to protest a bad call by an umpire. That's right, Walter O'Malley, your beloved Temple of Treason hosted baseball's last forfeit. Hot enough for ya down there, you slimy bastard?

Disco did turn out to be on the decline. "Disco Demolition Night" -- or "Disco Sucks Night," as some called it -- was a symptom of its demise, rather than the cause. After all, for those of us who loved baseball then (as well as for those of us who didn't), one of the big songs of the year was "We Are Family," by Sister Sledge.

Although the group came out of Philadelphia, across the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, and sang about "all my sisters and me" with no mention of "brothers," Willie Stargell, the portly slugger and captain of the Pittsburgh Pirates, took the song to heart, played it in the clubhouse, and even convinced the scoreboard operator at Three Rivers Stadium to play it as the Pirates took the field.

By the time the Pirates reached the Playoffs, the top of the home dugout at Three Rivers Stadium, instead of reading "PITTSBURGH PIRATES," read "THE FAMILY." Wonder what the local mobsters thought about that? They probably liked it once the Buccos won the World Series in October.

But aside from a few more skyrockets like "Funkytown," which hit Number 1 for Lipps, Inc. in 1980, the Disco Period was pretty much over in a year. The Bee Gees would have a few more hits after 1979, Donna Summer would have a couple of post-disco smashes, but that was it. The Village People became the joke they always should have been treated as. Harry Wayne Casey, leader of KC & the Sunshine Band, was in an awful auto accident, hurting him badly enough that the group's momentum was gone, though he recovered and has made them a big fixture on the oldies circuit. And punk had evolved into new wave, which would lead to the synthesizer-driven msuic that would effectively succeed disco in the 1980s.

"We Are Family" was a fun record. In fact, there were quite a few fun disco records, including a comeback by my fellow Essex County natives, Frankie Valli & the Four Seasons: "Who Loves You," "Swearin' to God," and "December 1963 (Oh What a Night)." Not to mention that when the musical Grease was turned into a film in 1978, Frankie sang a theme song written just for the film -- by Barry Gibb! It's disco, obviously not reflective of 1959 when Grease takes place, and Gibb clearly sings backup on it, but Frankie showed that a man can sing falsetto and still be masculine.

On the one hand, the vast majority of disco was terrible, and deserved a public demonstration against it.

On the other hand, disco was very inclusive, catering to a multiracial and gay-friendly clientele. And if you look at most of the guys running onto the field, they were longhaired hard rock fans, probably stoners, hardly any of them female, and nearly all of them white. "Ginkers," we called them in New Jersey. You know, like Kelso on That '70s Show, Bender in The Breakfast Club, and Bon Jovi was before he realized that wearing a shirt was good.

And at least going out to discos meant that you had to dress up. Unless you were going to a gay disco, in which case you would wear hardly anything. Not that I would know... But, while their 1989 hit "Love Shack" could hardly be called "disco," 4 of the 5 original members of The B-52's were gay, including lead singer Fred Schneider, who sang that everyone was "Wearin' next to nothin', 'cause it's hot as an oven!" (But that song is too much of a rocker to be called "disco.")

Anyway, if you look at most of the guys running onto the Comiskey field that night, they were longhaired hard rock fans, probably stoners. "Ginkers," we called them in New Jersey. You know, like Michael Kelso (Ashton Kutcher) on That '70s Show, John Bender (Judd Nelson) in The Breakfast Club, and Jon Bon Jovi was before he realized that wearing a shirt was good.

In hindsight, there was a racist aspect and a homophobic aspect to the backlash against disco, even if that's not what Steve Dahl and his cohorts intended. As Dahl himself said, "I didn't hate black people. I hated The Bee Gees!"

Throw in the fact that the '70s had seen some nasty fan-induced moments on ballfields -- the New York clinchers of 1969 to 1978, the tearing apart of Forbes Field and Connie Mack Stadium after those ballparks' finales, Ten Cent Beer Night in Cleveland -- and this was a disaster waiting to happen. It's a wonder more people didn't get hurt.

The sentiment of "Disco Sucks" was right, but the way it was carried out was awful.

UPDATE: It took me until 2024 to think of this, but the 1970s were Schrödinger's Decade. There was too much overwrought music, disco and otherwise; and, at the same time, not enough of it.

And it took me until 2026 to think of this: The reasons that record companies and the media, dominated by white people, promoted disco, in spite of its inclusiveness, was not only that it made them a lot of money, but also that it was a distraction. If white kids listened to disco, which was all about fun, and not at all about things they had to think about, then they wouldn't listen to punk (mostly white, like The Ramones or The Clash) or funk (mostly black, like George Clinton's "P-Funk Empire"), both of which tended to asked uncomfortable questions -- and also tended to provide interesting answers, answers that the record companies and the media didn't want kids of any race to hear.

*

As I said, July 12, 1979 was a Thursday, and the Tigers won 4-1. The rule is that a forfeited game goes into the record books with a score of 9-0, 1 run for every inning. No, I don't know who decided that, or why. Here are the other scores from that day:

* The New York Yankees beat the Seattle Mariners, 14-2 at the Kingdome in Seattle. Reggie Jackson and Willie Randolph hit home runs. The winning pitcher was Reggie's former Oakland Athletics teammate and fellow future Hall-of-Famer, Jim "Catfish" Hunter. It was the 224th win of his career. It turned out to be the last.

* The New York Mets beat the Los Angeles Dodgers, 12-5 at Shea Stadium.

* The Philadelphia Phillies beat the San Diego Padres, 4-3 at Veterans Stadium in Philadelphia.

* The San Francisco Giants beat the Montreal Expos, 5-3 at the Olympic Stadium in Montreal.

* The Milwaukee Brewers beat the Toronto Blue Jays, 5-3 at Exhibition Stadium in Toronto.

* The Chicago Cubs beat the Cincinnati Reds, 10-8 at Riverfront Stadium in Cincinnati.

* The Texas Rangers beat the Kansas City Royals, 6-2 at Royals Stadium in Kansas City. (It was renamed Kauffman Stadium in 1993.)

* The Pittsburgh Pirates beat the Houston Astros, 5-3 at the Astrodome in Houston.

* Not scheduled to play that day: The Baltimore Orioles, the Boston Red Sox, the California Angels, the Cleveland Indians, the Minnesota Twins, the Oakland Athletics, the Atlanta Braves and the St. Louis Cardinals.

Also, CNN journalist Brooke Baldwin was born on this day.

June 4, 1974: Ten-Cent Beer Night In Cleveland

Number 1 at the left is Billy Martin.

Number 36 at the right is Gaylord Perry.

This wasn't the kind of lubricant Perry was looking for.

June 4, 1974: The Cleveland Indians host the Texas Rangers at Cleveland Municipal Stadium. It's a promotion: Ten-Cent Beer Night. This turns into a problem.

Based on history, it shouldn't have been. In 1971, they held Nickel Beer Day, without incident, either on the field or in the stands. So, with individual cups of beer going not for the usual price of 65 cents, but for 10 cents -- with inflation factored in, about 60 cents in 2022 money -- they didn't expect to have an issue.

The problem was, the Rangers were then managed by Billy Martin. Although he had not yet managed the New York Yankees, the team with which he spent most of his playing career, he already had a reputation as a dirty manager.

A week earlier, at Arlington Stadium in the suburbs of Dallas, there was a brawl between the same 2 teams, followed by the Texas fans throwing things at the Indians. The Rangers won, 3-0, the game was not forfeited, and no one in uniform was ejected, or even fined.

After the game, a Cleveland reporter asked Martin, "Are you going to take your armor to Cleveland?" Martin said, "Naw, they won't have enough fans there to worry about." He had a point: The Indians were averaging 12,626 fans per home game up until June 4.

During the week, Cleveland sports-talk radio host Pete Franklin made inflammatory comments. The day of the game, Cleveland's biggest newspaper, The Plain Dealer, printed a cartoon showing mascot Chief Wahoo with boxing gloves on. The caption read, "Be ready for anything."

It should be pointed out that the beers being offered for a dime each were low-alcohol beers, 3.2 percent, with most beers being between 4 and 5 percent. And there was a limit of 6 beers per purchase. However, there was no limit on the number of purchases during the game. Drink enough low-alcohol beer, and it adds up. And this was before the era when beer sales were cut off at the 7th inning stretch.

Tim Russert, later the host of NBC's Meet the Press, came from Buffalo, nearly 200 miles away. He was a staunch Buffalo Bills fan, but the Indians were the closest Major League Baseball team to Buffalo at the time. (The Toronto Blue Jays arrived in 1977, and are now closer. During the COVID restrictions of 2020 and 2021, they even played "home games" in Buffalo.) Russert was then attending law school at Cleveland State University, and later said, "I went with two dollars in my pocket. You do the math."

The Rangers quickly took a 5–1 lead. Meanwhile, throughout the game, the increasingly inebriated crowd grew more and more unruly. Early in the game, Cleveland's Leron Lee hit a line drive into the stomach of Rangers pitcher Ferguson Jenkins, dropping him to the ground. Fans in the upper deck of the stadium cheered, then chanted, as if they were at a football game, "Hit 'em again! Hit 'em again! Harder! Harder!" A woman ran out to the Indians' on-deck circle, flashed her breasts, and then tried to kiss umpire Nestor Chylak, who "was not in a kissing mood."

The Spring of 1974 was the time of the "streaking" craze: People taking off their clothes and running naked through public places. It even happened during the Academy Awards ceremony, on live national television, on April 2. In this game, as Rangers outfielder Tom Grieve hit his second home run of the game, a naked man ran to 2nd base, and slid in, "probably getting dirt in places unsuitable for speculation," in the words of Paul Jackson, writing an article on the incident for ESPN.com in 2008. An inning later, a father-and-son pair ran onto the outfield, and mooned the fans in the bleachers.

Hundreds of fans had brought firecrackers, which they set off in the stands at random. It was the 4th of June, not the 4th of July. As Jackson wrote in his ESPN.com piece, the firecrackers were "lending the game a war-zone ambiance that would seem increasingly appropriate."

As the game progressed, more fans ran onto the field and caused problems. Ranger 1st baseman Mike Hargrove -- later to play for the Indians, and later still to manage them to 2 Pennants -- was spit on, pelted with hot dogs, and, at one point, was nearly struck by an empty gallon jug of Thunderbird fortified wine.

The Rangers later argued a call in which Lee was called safe in a close play at 3rd base, spiking Jenkins with his cleats in the process, and forcing him to leave the game. The Rangers' angry response to this call enraged Cleveland fans, who again began throwing objects onto the field. Someone tossed lit firecrackers into the Rangers' bullpen. An atmosphere made hazy by "clouds of exploded gunpowder and marijuana smoke" contributed to the unsettling mood.

By the 7th inning, families and those fans who remained sober had mostly left the ballpark, while the remaining crowd continued to grow more inebriated. As Jackson described in his 2008 article:

Early on, the demand for beer surpassed the Indians' capacity to ferry it to concession stands, and a luminary, perhaps the same person who suggested the promotion in the first place, decided to allow fans to line up behind the outfield fences and have their cups filled directly from Stroh's company trucks. The promotion achieved critical mass at that moment, as weaving, hooting queues of people refilled via industrial spigot.

In the bottom of the 9th, the Indians managed to rally, tying the game 5–5, and had Rusty Torres on 2nd base, representing the potential winning run. However, with a crowd that had been drinking heavily for 9 innings, the situation, unlike the beers they were drinking, finally came to a head.

A 19-year-old fan named Terry Yerkic ran onto the field, and attempted to steal Texas outfielder Jeff Burroughs' cap. Confronting the fan, Burroughs tripped. Thinking that Burroughs had been attacked, Martin charged onto the field, with his players right behind, some wielding bats. A large number of intoxicated fans -- some armed with knives, chains, and clubs fashioned from portions of stadium seats that they had torn apart -- surged onto the field, and others hurled bottles from the stands. Two hundred fans surrounded the 25 Rangers, with more fans coming.

Realizing that the Rangers' lives might be in danger, Cleveland manager Ken Aspromonte ordered his players to grab bats and help the Rangers, attacking the team's own fans in the process. Rioters began throwing steel folding chairs, and Cleveland relief pitcher Tom Hilgendorf was hit in the head by one of them. Hargrove, after subduing one rioter in a fistfight, had to fight another on his way back to the Texas dugout. The two teams retreated off the field through the dugouts in groups, with players protecting each other.

The teams fled into their clubhouses, and closed and locked the doors. The crowd pulled up and stole the bases and anything else it found. Rioters threw a vast array of objects including cups, rocks, bottles, batteries from radios, hot dogs, popcorn containers, and folding chairs.

Chylak, realizing that order would not be restored in a timely fashion, forfeited the game to the Rangers, since it was the home team's duty to keep the field playable. He, too, was a victim of the rioters, as one struck and cut his head with part of a stadium seat, and his hand was cut by a thrown rock. He later called the fans "uncontrollable beasts," and stated that he'd never seen anything like what had happened "except in a zoo."

The rioting continued for 20 minutes. As Joe Tait and former Indians pitcher Herb Score called the riot live on radio, Score mentioned the security guards' inability to handle the crowd. Tait said, "Aw, this is absolute tragedy." The Cleveland Division of Police finally arrived to restore order, arresting 9 fans. Indians players escorted the Rangers to the team bus.

Cleveland general manager Phil Seghi blamed the umpires for losing control of the game. The Sporting News wrote that "Seghi's perspective might have been different had he been in Chylak's shoes, in the midst of knife-wielding, bottle-throwing, chair-tossing, fist-swinging drunks." American League President Lee MacPhail commented, "There was no question that beer played a part in the riot."

The Indians refused to cancel their next Beer Night promotion, on July 18. They needed the money, badly. They did, however, put on a limit of 2 cups per person. The opponents were the defending World Champions, Oakland, Charlie Finley's Swingin' A's. A crowd of 41,848 fans came out. There were no incidents. The A's won, 3-2.

Rusty Torres had been with the Yankees when they were the beneficiaries of the previous MLB forfeit, the last Washington Senators game in 1971, when fans rushed the field with 1 out to go, ruining what stood to be a Senators victory. And he would be a beneficiary of the next MLB forfeit, as a Detroit Tiger, following the Chicago White Sox' Disco Demolition Night at Comiskey Park in 1979.

*

June 4, 1974 was a Tuesday. These other Major League Baseball games were played that day:

* The New York Yankees lost to the Chicago White Sox, 9-2 at Comiskey Park in Chicago. Knuckleballer Wilbur Wood outpitched Pat "the Snake" Dobson. Dick Allen hit a grand slam for the White Sox. Future Yankee shortstop Bucky Dent also hit a home run. The Yankees got 7 hits, 3 of them from Rick Dempsey, a backup catcher they would later trade to Baltimore; and 2 by Jim Mason, whom Dent would replace at shortstop.

* The New York Mets lost to the Cincinnati Reds, 6-3 at Shea Stadium. In relief of Jerry Koosman, Ray Sadecki melted down in the top of the 10th inning, giving up a single to opposing pitcher Pedro Borbon, a double to George Foster, a triple to Cesar Geronimo, and a sacrifice fly to Pete Rose. Johnny Bench went 1-for-5.

* The Atlanta Braves beat the Philadelphia Phillies, 7-3 at Veterans Stadium in Philadelphia. Hank Aaron hit a grand slam, his 723rd career home run. Mike Schmidt went 1-for-3 with a walk.

* The Kansas City Royals beat the Baltimore Orioles, 8-0 at Memorial Stadium in Baltimore. Al Fitzmorris pitched a 3-hit shutout, but, oddly, neither struck out nor walked a batter. George Brett went 1-for-3 with a walk. Brooks Robinson went 0-for-2.

* A doubleheader was split at Tiger Stadium in Detroit. The Oakland Athletics won the opener, 4-0. Ken Holtzman pitched a 3-hit shutout, outpitching Mickey Lolich. The Detroit Tigers won the nightcap, 4-1. Over the 2 games, Al Kaline went 2-for-7 with a walk, while Reggie Jackson went 1-for-6 with 2 walks.

* The Milwaukee Brewers beat the California Angels, 4-3 at Milwaukee County Stadium. Frank Robinson, then with the Angels, went 1-for-4.

* The Boston Red Sox beat the Minnesota Twins, 4-3 at Metropolitan Stadium in the Minneapolis suburb of Bloomington, Minnesota. Danny Carter singled home the winning run in the top of the 11th inning. Carl Yastrzemski went 0-for-4, and Harmon Killebrew went 0-for-3, although each drew a walk. Rod Carew appeared as a pinch-hitter, and had a sacrifice bunt.

* The Montreal Expos beat the Houston Astros, 5-0 at the Astrodome. Ernie McAnally (yes, that's how he spelled his name) pitched a 5-hit shutout.

* The San Diego Padres beat the Chicago Cubs, 6-5 at San Diego Stadium.

* The Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Pittsburgh Pirates, 5-0 at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles. Tommy John pitched a 5-hit shutout. Soon, he would sustain the elbow injury that led to the pioneering surgery that bears his name. Willie Stargell went 0-for-4.

* And the San Francisco Giants beat the St. Louis Cardinals, 5-3 at Candlestick Park in San Francisco.