Ten Cent Trouble

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Welcome to Aaron Menke's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of iHeartRadio and Grim and Mild.

Our world is full of the unexplainable.

And if history is an open book, all of these amazing tales are right there on display, just waiting for us to explore.

Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities.

Let's be honest for a moment.

Sports fans are not necessarily known for their good behavior.

It's not unheard of for riots to break out if a beloved team loses or even wins.

Fans take it on themselves to defend the honor of their team and clash with fans from the opposing club.

Whether it's the football hooligans of the UK or baseball fans in the US, these upheavals rarely end well.

In Ohio, there is one such episode from the 1970s that remains the most infamous in professional sports history, and it all happened in June of 1974.

First, the Cleveland Indians were coming off of a loss in Texas to the Rangers.

It was a bitter defeat that included an on-field brawl between some of the players.

Not a good example for the fans.

Second, the Indians returned home and prepared to face off against the Rangers, only now on their own turf.

The stadium management prepared a promotion, a 10-cent beer night, to draw fans to the game.

And the Cleveland Indians hadn't been performing well, it must be said, so the attendance was down.

They typically drew only about 12,000 fans per game.

And third, a local shock jock named Peter Franklin spent the weeks leading up to the game urging people to attend, saying that this would be their chance to take revenge on the Rangers for the brawl in Texas.

All of this leads to a virtual powder keg on the night of the game.

Attendance is double what it normally is due to the promotion.

There are about 24,000 fans at the stadium.

And beyond that, they're consuming lots and lots of beer.

Now, It's only 3% alcohol, but if the beers are only 10 cents a piece, well, the sky's the limit.

As one fan said, I had $2, you do the math.

Management supposedly limited fans to six beers each, which is already too many, but their ability to enforce that limit is questionable.

Down on the field, the game is close.

As the night progresses, fans get more and more restless.

Things start to get wild when a female fan makes her way onto the field, she crawls on top of the dugout, removes her top, and starts dancing.

She eventually wandered over and tried to kiss the umpire before finally leaving.

Bizarrely, the nudity parade was only just getting started.

Next, a man stripped down and ran across the field in just his socks.

You know, you've got to keep your feet safe after all.

Now, it must be said that streakers were actually common at this time.

There had just been one on live TV at the Academy Awards that previous April.

People in the 70s just really seemed to think it was funny to get naked in public.

And in the case of this Cleveland Indians game, next up was a father-and-son duo.

You know, just to make things even weirder, who walked walked out on the field together and mooned everyone.

Clearly, the beers were taking their toll.

Soon enough, fans were hurling cups and hot dogs onto the field.

Management removed the players' wives from the bleachers, sensing that things were going to get worse from there.

And then suddenly, Rangers player Jeff Burroughs was swarmed with multiple drunk Indian fans who taunted him, trying to take his hat.

and Indians players came to his defense, tackling the most aggressive fan.

And then, all hell broke loose.

Hundreds of fans swarmed the field, running amok, taking swings at each other and at the players.

Security couldn't handle so many people.

The best they could do was get the players off the field.

The riot raged on for 45 minutes.

Police arrived, but in all the chaos, they only managed to arrest nine people.

After that, the umpire, you know, the one who had narrowly escaped being kissed by a streaker earlier, ruled that the game was a forfeit in favor of the Rangers.

The Cleveland Indians fans had lost their team the game.

Now, curiously, this was not the last 10-cent beer night at the stadium.

The promoters argue that it had actually been successful.

They had doubled attendance.

Never mind the fact that they had gotten everyone so drunk that they started a riot.

Subsequent beer nights went more smoothly after that as the Cleveland locals wanted to prove that they could behave themselves.

They were earning their city quite the negative reputation.

However, over the years, the legend of 10-cent beer nights only grew to where it became something of a badge of honor if you were actually there.

Fans love to talk tough about how they drank 20 beers or took a punch to the jaw or stole one of the bases.

Literally, stole one of the bases.

Nowadays, baseball teams are very careful to avoid another of these incidents, limiting guests to two beers and upping the security at the stadium.

But I have to say that it's curious this did not occur to them so much sooner.

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The ancient Greeks told the story of a boy named Icarus, who was the son of the world's greatest inventor.

When the pair were imprisoned in a tower, the inventor created mechanical wings out of feathers, beeswax, and thread so that they could escape together.

But Icarus was was intoxicated by the thrill of flight and forgot his father's warning to stay low.

He flew too close to the sun, the wax melted, and he plummeted to his death.

It is, of course, a story about Hubris, but on a literal level, it was also a reminder that humans were never really meant to fly.

To the Greeks and many other ancient peoples, the skies belonged to the gods.

Mortals could dream about visiting, but would never belong there.

And for roughly 300,000 years, that was true.

Then on a blustery December day in 1903, it ceased to be true.

Two bicycle mechanic brothers named Orville and Wilbur Wright became the first humans to achieve powered flight.

Their journey lasted 12 seconds and 120 feet, but it changed history in an instant.

Within hours, the Wright brothers' flight was making headlines.

The news of their accomplishment spread across the globe, igniting imaginations and inspiring a generation of aviation enthusiasts.

Among them was a seven-year-old boy from Worcester, Massachusetts named Gene.

Gene had always been a small boy, and his classmates never let him forget that.

Their teasing left him feeling isolated, and so he found solace in his daydreams.

He spent a lot of time staring out the window, wishing that he could leave the world and his bullies behind.

So when Gene heard about the Wright brothers' flight, he became obsessed.

Boys had dreamed of flying for centuries, but now it was possible.

and Gene was determined to be part of it.

Over the next decade, he devoured every book and magazine on aviation aviation he could find.

And by the time he reached adulthood, the American aviation industry was just beginning to take off.

No pun intended.

He graduated from high school the very same year the first commercial passenger flight was conducted.

The plane was still light years from the jumbo jet days of today, of course.

Air travel was a rickety, open cockpit experience, loud, unsteady, and far from reliable.

Most people at the time saw flying as more of a daredevil stunt than a way to travel.

But to Gene, it was the future.

He threw himself into the world of flight, taking every opportunity he could to get in a cockpit.

Within a few years of graduating high school, he earned a reputation as one of the best pilots in the country, at a time when that was a very small group.

When he wasn't in the cockpit, Gene was analyzing flights in the classroom.

He attended Clark University and studied physics with Robert Goddard, the father of modern rocketry.

That education and personal connection became a launching pad for Gene's career.

Pretty soon, he was rubbing elbows with aviation legends.

He met Orville Wright, Howard Hughes, and Charles Lindbergh.

He was even an early passenger on the Hindenburg and, as the story goes, predicted that it would go up in flames.

By the time World War I broke out, Gene was no longer just a dreamer.

He flew for the U.S.

Army in Europe, engaging in dogfights that were more like duels, where pilots circled each other in fragile wooden biplanes, firing rudimentary machine guns from the cockpit.

And two decades later, when World War II erupted, Gene returned to the skies, this time in a sleek metal closed cockpit monoplane that barely resembled the primitive aircraft of his youth.

Aviation was evolving at lightning pace, and Gene adapted with it.

By the war's end, he was working on experimental aircraft for the U.S.

Air Force, pushing the boundaries of human flight.

Gene served until 1956, when he retired at the rank of colonel.

He stayed active in the advancing field and later became a consultant for NASA.

In July of 1969, the 73-year-old was watching history unfold yet again.

Gene had already witnessed aviation's evolution from fragile biplanes to supersonic jets, but this was something else entirely.

A rocket carrying three men beyond Earth's atmosphere.

As the lunar module touched down, Gene held his breath.

And when the grainy black and white image flickered onto the screen, he saw the impossible become real.

A man stepping onto the moon's surface.

For Gene, though, this was more than just history in the making.

It was also deeply personal.

Because one of those lunar astronauts was his very own son, Eugene Aldrin Jr.,

better known to us as Buzz.

I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities.

Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts or learn more about the show by visiting CuriositiesPodcast.com.

This show was created by me, Aaron Mankey, in partnership with How Stuff Works.

I make another award-winning show called Lore, which is a podcast, book series, and television show.

And you can learn all about it over at theworldoflore.com.

And until next time, stay curious.

This show is sponsored by American Public University.

Balancing work, family, and education isn't easy, but American Public University makes it possible.

With online courses, monthly start dates, and flexible schedules, APU is designed for busy professionals who need education that fits their lives.

And affordability matters too.

APU offers the Opportunity Grant, giving students 10% off undergraduate and master's level tuition, helping you reach your goals without breaking the bank.

Plus, they provide career services and 24/7 mental health support at no extra cost.

Visit apu.apus.edu to learn more.

That's apu.apus.edu.

This is an iHeart Podcast.