My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark - 366 - High-Pitched Goodbye

Episode Date: February 16, 2023

This week, Georgia tells the story of the Mirabal sisters, heroes of the Dominican Republic, and Karen covers Cleveland's infamous 1974 Ten Cent Beer Night.For our sources and show notes, visit www.myfavoritemurder.com/episodes.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This is actually happening is a podcast that features extraordinary true stories of life-changing events told by the people who live them. In a special five-part series called Point Blank, this is actually happening sheds a light on the forgotten spree killings of Rancho Tejama. So this is actually happening wherever you get your podcasts. Hello! And welcome to my favorite murder. That's Georgia Hardstar.

That's Karen Kilgarath. We're using our arms and hands to guide ourselves. That's right. You can't see it, but trust us. It's happening. You can't see it, but you can feel that choreography coming through verbally. That's right. Five, six, seven, eight.

It's happening. That's all. That's our training. It's who we are. You're sipping your soda. I'm sipping my Kava tea to help me relax. Oh, Kava, right. I've tried that before.

It's supposed to relax you, right? Yeah. I've heard of it. Do you feel like it works? I took it by first sip, so ask me in 20 minutes. Oh, my God. If you're asleep during your story, I'm going to get so mad. Yeah, ask me in 20 and we'll see.

And then if you start to feel like you're leaving your body in some way, just put up a finger. Oh, shit. Is it magic? No, I don't think so. But I did. The first time I tried it, people brought it back on vacation from, I wish I could remember, they were in maybe Bali.

That tracks. Do you think that's it? I think that tracks. I'm sorry to generalize because I'm absolutely guessing. But anyway, they were on a very fancy vacation and this was a thing. Drinking Kava was like a community thing they did with people and they loved it. So we all did it together and they presented it as the way the people who taught them how you're properly supposed to drink it did it.

Wow, that's intense. Here's the thing. It could be just my system, but I kept waiting for some kind of thing that never truly happened. But the same thing happened to me when I tried ecstasy. I was just like my scalp tingles and I was irritated at everybody else. What a bummer. I don't know if it was just the scenario I was in. It can't override my control issues.

You're also on medication, right? So it could have interacted poorly with that. This was like 92. Oh, maybe it was just 90s X is not as good as it could have been like three Bayer aspirins that were sold. It was swag. It was garbage. It was swag.

Well, I hope that doesn't happen to me and it's just so mainstream now. There's a Kava shop near my old house. Oh, cool. Yeah, it's crazy. Well, and I do love the idea that things are turning a little bit away from the intense hardcore coffee kind of thing everybody was doing for so long. Because I don't think that's overall ideal. You know what I actually learned recently, thank you, TikTok, that if you drink coffee

on an empty stomach in the morning, you give yourself a cortisol spike. And that's bad. That is bad. Because that sounds great. I want a cortisol spike. That's your stress hormone. Oh, I don't want that. No.

And also cortisol is what ends up giving like middle-aged women a belly when you somehow are starting to feel like you have a belly that's like what the hell is going on. That's me. Sometimes that can be it. So all you have to do is just like have a yogurt or something else, get something in your stomach before you drink coffee. Oh my God. You've just solved three problems for me.

I mean, I just want to pass on. I'm paying forward what I learned where I was like, oh, so I've been cortisol spiking myself every morning for the past 25 years. That's right. Oh my God. Oh my God. It sounds to me like a cortisol spike is like, yeah, I'm ready to face the day. No.

It's like I'm angry to face the day. I'm either angry or I'm being attacked on the Serengeti, you know what I mean? By a lion. Got it. By activating your lizard brain, which probably for a lot of the jobs I've had was very effective, but in terms of how much cortisol I do not need in my system, it's a real problem. All right. I'm just like, my life's changing from here on out and I'm excited about it.

I'm going to be so fucking zen with like Kava and my yogurt in the morning. This podcast is going to get canceled if we both go calm. It won't work. Yeah. It won't. No, it's here for calm. It would just, the chemistry will be so off. Yeah.

There's no way. Like we were hyperactive children, we're hyperactive children still. What are you fucking? This is not a sleep podcast. I guess is what I'm saying. No. This is a, oh, can I get rid of this feeling? No, you can't get rid of the feeling, but you will be happy to learn that the rest of

us also have that feeling. It's a camaraderie panic. That's right. More than a, just that you're not alone. There's a camaraderie. Yeah. There's nothing in the several panic attacks I've had in my life. There's nothing more isolating and there's nothing less, when you're panicking and you're

looking around, no one can help you. Yeah. It's a horrible fucking feeling. People try. They want to. It is. It doesn't work. And so inside of that feeling, there is space and there is a community of people who make

wonderful art and get cool tattoos and you belong and I belong and everyone belongs. They're called murderinos. Reach out. Right. Today. They're called murderinos and their eyes are darting around the room at all times. Welcome. What's going on with you?

After we have a 20 minute talk about Kava. Home Jim is here visiting. And so we're watching, we just watched an amazing Mads Mickelson movie where he survives in the Arctic. Mads Mickelson is such a dad factor. Right? Yeah. He's my dad to Mads Mickelson through this film, because he had never seen him before

and then I was like scouring my brain of like, what else can we watch? Can we have a Mads Mickelson film festival? Yeah. And other than that, he just got here yesterday. So other than that, it's just been, you know, a lot of relaxing and, but then also explaining to him right now I'm working. Dads don't understand work these days now. Retired dads.

No. They're like, he's like, hey, let's go get breakfast. I'm like, literally I'm on a meeting right this second. I know it looks like I'm just gabbing with my friends, but this is a zoom call and it's a really important meeting to add. The beauty of the evolution of our careers is the gabbing with friends is working and that has been the goal and the goal has been achieved. We don't have to go sit at a desk, which is great.

I love that. No, we don't. Love that. It's pretty nice. Yeah. I can have my cats. Cookie has figured out the sound of our mind and Vince's voice when we're wrapping up a podcast or a zoom call and she comes in the room.

She notes every time when I'm doing the, hey, goodbye, like the high pitched goodbye. And it's like, yay, it's time to play. She knows when we're done. It's wild. Yeah. Yeah. Agreed. It's crazy.

I think the same thing of before I ever hit stop, blossom from wherever she is, if she can stay in the room, she'll be asleep somewhere. And then suddenly she's standing next to me like, yes, okay, let's go. Let's do it. Oh my God. These are such, like, such Gen Z dogs, you know, they're quarantine Gen Z dogs for sure. They really are. Oh, I read a really good book that's like a feel good book.

So I wanted to pass that along. Yes. Called Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt. And it's essentially about an old lady, right, who they live in this small beach town. She is the night cleaner of the town's aquarium. There's an octopus who lives there, who's like super smart, a remarkably bright creature, and they become friends. But there's also like a mystery her son went missing and all this shit.

And the octopus knows what happened to her son and has to like figure out a way to octopus tell her. Yes. Yeah. So it's like a mystery as well. And it's also like super heart-wrenching, but you know, it's going to turn out good in the end. And it totally does.

And it's like a real tear-jerker. And that is when that octopus truly became my octopus teacher. That's the last line of that book, right? And that's the day. And then it's a link to the Netflix movie. That sounds great. And also that author shares the last name of Lucy and Linus Van Pelt from the Peanuts cartoon.

Wow. That's the first thing I thought of. Think of that. You think they're her cousins? Yeah, I think they're, she's related because they're, you know, they're from NorCal. Sure. She's got some cousins up in Northern California. Well, you know it.

We're also watching Devs for the first time, which I know is like old news and like your favorite show. Oh, yes. You were right. It's fucking, I was like, we watched 10 minutes of it once and we're like, this is boring. And then we watched it last night and we were like, we must not have watched this because this is not fucking boring. No, it's not.

Devs. But it is paced differently. It's a different pace than normal. And do you notice the thing that was making me crazy about it, which is, and this is like a thing I absolutely don't understand in, and don't have the words for, but it is, it's the, it's like, it's the DP, it's the director of photography. It's the way they're choosing to light it the way the set is decorated, the color scheme where you're like, this is slightly in the future.

These are absolutely recognizable, but there's also a strange gold tone on everything. Yeah. It's definitely, they, they definitely did a great job with production at speaks volumes, just the silent stuff. Does that make sense? Yes. Yes. It's a joy to watch.

Yeah. It's a visual experience. Yeah. It's great. Everyone should watch it and you can binge it. And speaking of which, because if you want to go into our friend, Nick Offerman, shout out who just was in episode three of the last of us, did you watch it? I meant to ask you.

Yes. I love, we love that show. It's so, it's so fucking good. It's so great. Unbelievable. It's so great. That episode is truly going to hopefully win every prize because it's the most beautiful, shocking, blah, blah, blah thing, like, you know, not to over talk it, let people have

their own, the last of us experience. Episode three. Yeah. Episode three, I was just, I had no idea. I don't know that video game, so I didn't know what was coming. I didn't either. I don't either. It was so great.

So great. Turns out I'm not a gamer either. I know you thought I was. What? And you wished I was, but. Shoot. I was just going to ask you about Fortnite. Is that the right name?

I don't know. I could literally not know less about video. It's like wild how far I have traveled from that in my life, you know? I know. It's probably age brackets, but also it's an area, it's how a lot of people feel about podcasting or it's like, well, that's the thing I never paid attention to and it's exploded in popularity and now it has its own kind of space. And it's almost too late to jump on the bandwagon because where do you even start?

Yeah. That's how it feels to me. But you know, there's got to be some in of like, just play this one game and then you'll get it. Yeah. The thing is my big brother, I just watched him play so much Nintendo as a child against my will. Like it was like, watch nothing or watch Ash or play Nintendo.

Yep. Cause, and it was like, cause we had one TV and I don't want to go upstairs. I want to sit on the couch. So I just watch him play Nintendo for hours. And I just didn't want that for my adult self. I also feel like in the, for my experience when Atari came out in the 80s, it was definitely boys were like passionate. And my cousins would bring their Atari to the different family holiday parties and it

was like theirs to do. And they would sometimes an aunt, someone walking through the room would force them to let the girls play, but you weren't good. So they had no patience and they were like, they weren't going to help you. So it's like, okay, that's fine, except for we're all really good at this. So after a while, it's almost like you just kind of get phased out. Yeah, exactly. So it's like, all right, we'll go be good at that and I'm going to do something else.

We're going to do podcast and you're going to play games, which is, yeah, I'm going to talk to my friends conspiratorially in the corner with a podcasting cortisol coming through our veins, pumping through our veins, just just spiking cortisol, freaking out at any chance. I guess. Let's see. We've got a lot of responses about us asking if there were any fencing murder, you know, we did remember we, we just wildly speculated that about fencing last time.

Yes. Okay. Well, we got like a ton of responses and it turns out fence arenas is a fucking thing. Oh my God. I love it. Let me just read this really quick email we got from M. She, her, it says, hi, an episode 363. You asked if you had any murdering offensers and the answer is yes.

Hi, it's me. As in any sport, we have our fair share of assholes, scandals and well deserved bad press, but pop culture does our sport dirty. We are not all rich old white men with an attitude problem. We don't challenge each other to duels like in Wednesday and real fencing is way more authentic than the weird crab walking you see on TV. Okay. So now for some murder fencing is actually a pretty safe sport today.

The equipment is made with Kevlar. There are strict rules to protect athletes from injury and the blades aren't sharp unless they break. During about at the 1982 World Championships, Mathisar Bayer's blade broke in the middle of his action, creating a sharp point. Unfortunately, no one noticed the break in time to pause the bout. Bayer continued his action piercing through his opponent, Vladimir Smirnov's mask helmet through his eye and into his brain.

He died nine days later. Fortunately, Smirnov's death led to the improved safety of equipment and gave fencing coaches everywhere a great story for scaring their students into following safety practices. And then it says, stay sexy and don't touche if you meet someone who fences. It's not a thing. Oh my God, what a horrible fluke. Yeah. Accident.

Yeah. Terrible for everybody involved. But then also it's kind of like the origination is that even a word of the sport. People used that, you know, that was a version of combat. It's almost like they refined it over the years. Totally. To be like, you're good at it. Is that helping?

Is that softening it up at all? Well, thank you, M, for sending that in. I'm very impressed that M does fencing. Yeah, me too. It's another hobby to put on my list of things I'll never get to, never get around to doing. You know, they train people in that, in theater, because there's a lot of it in Shakespeare and stuff like that. So like, you know, Mandy Patinkin in Princess Bride and Carrie Ellis in Princess Bride.

Wow. Epic. All right. Should we do some highlights? Let's do it. The first item of business is that Karen joined Michelle Bouteau and Jordan Carlos on adulting to answer some burning listener questions. Adulting comes out on Wednesdays and is consistently absolutely hilarious.

We are so proud to have that on our network. Check it out. Michelle and Jordan are two of the best stand up comics there are so fun to talk to, but they get, and I'm not talking about myself, but they get some of the best guests on that show. If you're interested in comedy, you like comedy or you're exploring new people, just listen to adulting, because everyone they have on there will be your next new favorite comic. Love it.

Speaking of awesome guests, Bridger, over on I Said No Gifts, has Chris Parnell of SNL fame this week. Chris is currently the host of a podcast called This Job is History. He interviews comedians who have held very weird jobs. So you have to listen to that. He brings Bridger a gift, I bet. Cool. I bet he does.

And in the MFM store at myfavoritmurder.com, we have a lot of merch designed by Nick Terry, who does, of course, MFM animated. You should check out all of that in advance of the release of the movie Cocaine Bear, the official live action movie based on our favorite drug bear. You can get merch sporting his face if you want. Drug bear. Okay, so now we want to take a moment to spotlight a podcast on our network, actually the very first podcast that ever joined exactly right media.

That's right. We're talking about this podcast will kill you. When we were putting this network together, Georgia suggested her favorite podcast at the time was about infectious diseases. Obviously, it turned out to be this podcast will kill you. And that was somehow five freaking years ago. I know. If you haven't heard it, Aaron Allman, Updike and Aaron Welsh are PhDs and science explainers

and they've just premiered their sixth season of just thoroughly researched, extremely pertinent disease based topics just for you. Yeah. Not only did they give us quarantiney recipes before we knew what quarantine was, but they recorded COVID episodes during the lockdown that ended up being selected by the CDC museum for their archives. It's amazing. Yeah, they're good.

Season six, they'll cover everything you want to know about things like RSV epilepsy, vitamin D deficiencies. Oh my God, that's me. And more. And this year, their bonus episodes will feature interviews with popular science writers. It's like they started a book club for the podcast, combining their interest in medical history with their love of reading. And they're going to be talking to authors who write everything from the history of food

safety to the persistence of scientific racism. And on a personal note, you should know that because of your support of the show, Aaron Welsh now gets to focus full time on hosting and producing this podcast will kill you, which is so awesome. Yeah. That's very cool. And Erin Alman-Updike is in the final stretch of her family medicine residency program. So she's becoming a doctor, plus she's a mom, plus she's a podcast host.

These women do it all. Okay. So please go follow this podcast will kill you on Amazon Music, Apple Podcast or wherever you listen. This has been an exactly right podcast spotlight moment. Yay. In the aftermath of a shocking crime, people always ask why? Why would someone do something like that?

What could possibly push them to commit such a horrible act? Was it money, revenge? What makes people like that tick? I'm Candace DeLong, host of the podcast Killer Psyche, where I explain the thoughts, motivation and behaviors of the most violent figures in history. You may think you know these cases, but trust me, you do not. Using my decades of experience as an FBI agent and criminal profiler, I dig deeper into the twisted psychology of why?

Many of the cases covered on Killer Psyche, I actually worked on, like the serial killer Ted Kaczynski, the Unabomber and Dennis Rader, also known as BTK. Follow Killer Psyche wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen ad-free on the Amazon Music or Wondery app. So today I'm going to tell you about a group of sisters whose dedication to freeing their country from the grasp of a cruel and power-hungry dictator cost them their lives, but ultimately saved their nation. This is the story of the Mirrorball sisters.

I just wanted to also give a trigger warning, there's references to gendered violence, racial violence, sexual violence, and rape in this story. I don't go into detail at all, but I just wanted to give a warning. The main sources used in today's episode are an episode of the podcast Stuff You Missed in History class, an episode of the podcast Criminal Broads, that's way to good, right? I'm writing that one down. I have to listen to it. Criminal Broads.

A History.com article by Sarah Pruitt, A New York Times obituary by Gavin Edwards, and the rest are listed in our show notes if you want to check those out. So Mirrorball sisters, here we go. But before I tell you about these remarkable women, we need to set the stage for why they are so important. So here's a history lesson, Karen. Are you ready for a Dominican Republic history lesson? Please, I know almost nothing about the Dominican Republic, except for some people call it the

DR. That's right. That's that sometimes. A little background. All right. So this island nation has rich indigenous roots, as well as a more recent, often violent history of being colonized by Europeans, tale as old as time. But our story begins just after World War I, when the United States ended up occupying

the Dominican Republic from 1916 to 1924. Occupation doesn't go well. There's lots of violence, racism, political unrest, and eventually the U.S. withdraws troops from the DR in 1924, and the Dominican Republic holds its first presidential election without direct American influence. Great. Okay. But the aftermath of the American occupation of the Dominican Republic has a massive influence

on politics for years to come. In 1930, the first democratically elected president of the Dominican Republic is dramatically overthrown by a group of rebels. A man named Rafael Trujillo, who's a terrible person, boo. The country's commander-in-chief of the army plays a big part of this overthrow. Trujillo has been a part of the Dominican military for decades at this point and was actually trained by the U.S. Marines, so he has a lot of American support, as well, because even though we withdraw, it doesn't mean we're still not got our hands in the pot.

You know what I mean? Oh, we got our hands in the pot everywhere around this globe. Nasty dirty hands. Trujillo takes advantage of this moment and runs for president, but at the same time, he creates a secret police force to intimidate and assassinate all of his political rivals and their supporters, of course. He wins the election by a landslide, and this is the start of one of the cruelest dictatorships in history.

Wow. It'll last for over 30 years. Oh, God. Trujillo, who becomes known as El Jefe, which means the boss or El Chivo, which means the goat, quickly takes over almost every element of Dominican life. He plunders the economy, places the Dominican Republic under martial law, renames the capital after himself. He eliminates any political competition, intimidating or arresting anyone who publicly

disagrees with him using his secret police, so it's a full dictatorship. Yeah. Trujillo is obsessed with power, control, spectacle, and excess. He owns 500 pairs of shoes, 2,000 suits, and 10,000 neckties. You could never use all that. You could unless you wear like three ties at once, maybe. Every day. Okay.

Over the course of his reign, Trujillo calls for the murder of tens of thousands of people, including the 1937 racially motivated, parsley massacre of about 20,000 Haitians living near the border between Haiti and the Dominican Republic. 20,000. Wow. He even instructs his soldiers to use machetes to carry out these murders so it will look like the military wasn't involved. This is a tactic he uses all the time.

He's also known to be a serial rapist. He has so-called beauty scouts that he sends into the Dominican countryside to kidnap attractive women, often young girls, to be brought back to his home. Families learn to hide their women and children when Trujillo is traveling to their town, and he controls the life and death and livelihood in the Dominican Republic, and it's a terrifying time. Okay. So now we arrive at the Mirabal family.

Don and Rique Mirabal Fernandez and his wife, Mercedes, who goes by Shea, they live on a farm outside the village of Odiyawa in the northern part of the Dominican Republic, and the family is part of the social elite of the region. They run several popular thriving businesses. On February 27th, 1924, their first child, Patria, is born. Their second daughter, Dey Dey, is born on March 1st, 1925. Then they have a third daughter, Minerva, born on March 12th, 1926, and then the youngest of the family, Maria Teresa, born on October 15th, 1937.

So they have four daughters and sisters and their parents are super close family. Their mother, Shea, is strict but kind, encourages them to take care of themselves and each other. Their father, Don and Rique is playful and very involved in the girl's upbringing and all four of the girls are remembered as being highly creative. They all paint and draw and make things together. The Mirabals are relatively well off and they value education, so they send their daughters to a Catholic boarding school in a nearby town. As the girls grow up, they either pursue higher education or also get married and start families.

Patria gets married first, followed by Dey Dey, Minerva, who is the most political sister at first, wants to go to law school, which I mean, it's unheard of. She eventually does, even though her parents push back on the idea, because they're afraid it might be unsafe for her. Maria Teresa, who is the youngest, is obsessed with her sister, Minerva, and follows her path to higher education and she studies mathematics, which is amazing. Eventually all four Mirabal sisters become wives and mothers. The sisters love their country, Patria is actually born on Dominican Independence Day

and is named Homeland in honor of that. And that being said, the Mirabal family is total anti-Trojillo from the start, but they don't publicly take a stand against him at first. But after 1949, their lives changed forever. So that year, Trojillo takes an interest in the Mirabal families, especially the sisters, of course. They're a well-known family in the area and he invites them to a party at his estate. He often throws parties like this to get to know the social elite.

But this is not the type of imitation you just turned down. Everyone reluctantly agrees to go. Only Patria is married at this point, so the sisters are looking out for each other. They all know Trojillo is a sexual predator. They figure he's likely interested in one, if not many of the sisters. And sure enough, Minerva becomes the target of Trojillo's advances. She's considered to be the most extroverted of the Mirabal sisters. It's not clear exactly what happened, but it seems like he asked her to dance.

She said, yes, because you have to. And while dancing, they begin arguing and it's even rumored that Minerva slapped Trojillo in the face. So she's political and she's not afraid to show it. Yeah, and he's a monster and she's right next to him. I bet it was hard not to do that. Yeah, absolutely. Regardless of exactly what happened, this public display of rejection begins Trojillo's

years-long revenge campaign against the Mirabal sisters, especially Minerva. The father tries to write an apology letter on Minerva's behalf, but he's arrested and put in prison for the crime of leaving the party early, which because protocol demanded that no one ever leave an event before Trojillo does. Nightmare. Minerva and her mother are held under house arrest in a hotel until Minerva agrees to meet with Trojillo. When she does, he proposes that she have sex with him in exchange for her father's release

from prison. She refuses, though Don Enrique is ultimately released from prison. He dies not long after. The Mirabals are, of course, heartbroken. On top of grieving, they are now also dealing with Trojillo's rage. He basically tries to ruin the family. No one will do business with them anymore. So their modest wealth begins to dry up.

The sisters are under constant surveillance by the secret police, and people around them are encouraged to report any tips of the Mirabal sisters' so-called misbehavior. Oh. So it's a campaign of torment. Just a necificating culture, like. Yeah. And that's so scary. Minerva is especially outspoken about her disrespect and hatred towards the dictator, despite all

of this, and she is reported on constantly. She's reported for refusing to toast Trojillo's health at a dinner party. When she tells a car salesman she would never buy the type of car Trojillo drives she's reported. Even though she knows she's being watched, she persists and becomes more and more involved in resistance efforts against Trojillo. And all the sisters are monitored closely for years. Ultimately, Minerva goes to law school in the mid-1950s and becomes the first woman to

graduate from law school in the Dominican Republic. And she graduates at the top of her class. I can't believe they let her go to school. Yeah. Like they let her in, even. Yeah. Or they didn't make her life held and make her drop out. Totally.

That's amazing. Yeah, it's incredible. Wow. And then she was the number one student. Yeah. She was the first Trojillo bans her from practicing law. At this point, Patria and Maria Teresa are also much more involved in the resistance movement.

The sisters also recruit their husbands. The whole family is now painstakingly organizing to bring down the Trojillo regime while simultaneously being personal targets of it, which is so brave. Yeah. So Patria and Patria and Maria Teresa are now mothers, wives, and resistance fighters. Day Day is very close with her sisters. She stays on the sidelines of the activism. She often watches her nieces and nephews when her sisters are attending secret and dangerous

political meetings. By some accounts, the reason Day Day didn't get involved is because she had a controlling husband, but it's not clear. In January 1960, the Maribor sisters help form what's called the 14th of June movement, which is named for the date of a failed uprising against Trojillo in 1959. The Maribor sisters and other members of the anti-Trojillo movement make and distribute pamphlets. They stockpile weapons and even sit around Patria's kitchen table making makeshift bombs

together. Whoa. So this is a real resistance. They're doing it. Yes. That's amazing. That's crazy. The movement is working on a plan to kill Trojillo using an explosive at a cattle fair.

They know he's planning on attending. And then it's during this time in the movement that they get their codename, Las Mariposas, which is also the butterflies. Oh. Unfortunately, the day before their plan is supposed to go into action, they're discovered. Most everyone involved is arrested, including Minerva, Maria Teresa, and their husbands. Maria isn't arrested, but her home is burned to the ground. Jesus.

However, at this time, Trojillo's regime is finally starting to crack a little because around the time of the mass arrest, Trojillo is globally condemned for trying to assassinate the president of Venezuela. Meanwhile, up until this point, the U.S. had stayed neutral about his dictatorship, even with the Dominican Republic institutions and individuals that had previously stayed quiet regarding Trojillo's evils, they're all now speaking up. So he's starting to decline in popularity. The dictator ends up releasing the sisters that he's arrested as a gesture of goodwill,

hoping to win back some of his supporters. The Mariball sisters are free, but their husbands remain in prison. Trojillo purposely transfers the husbands to a faraway prison, so it's difficult for the sisters to visit them. On November 2nd, 1960, Trojillo remarks that he, quote, has only two problems left. The Catholic Church and the Mariball sisters, end quote, like he was fucking serious about this. Yeah.

They must have been quite something. Yeah. Right? Like the level that they were actually working at was incredible, considering how few the resistance was. About three weeks later, on November 25th, Patria, Minerva, and Maria Teresa, they decide to go visit their husbands in prison. The drive is long and extremely dangerous, and not only do they have to cross an isolated

mountain pass to get to prison, they also need state permission to take the drive. So of course, no one wants to risk their life by driving them there because they need a ride. But this courageous guy named Rufino de la Cruz agrees to drive the sisters to the prison and back. So from the moment the sisters start on the trip, they know that they're being watched. They also know it's possible that Trojillo has set a trap for them. They go to the prison.

They see their husbands. While returning from the prison that evening, the Mariball Jeep is ambushed by secret police. In the struggle, Patria gets free from her captors and manages to flag down a passing car and tells the driver what's happening and begs him to let the rest of the family know what's going on. The driver speeds off, though, even though he sees what's going on after a member of a secret police that's there threatens to kill him if he doesn't keep quiet about what he's seen.

So Patria is recaptured. The driver, Rufino, is killed first. The sisters are kidnapped, put in a different car, taken to a sugar cane grove, and they're separated. It's said that the sisters called out to each other throughout this ordeal, checking in on each other and trying to reassure each other. Patria and Minerva and Maria Teresa are all strangled and beaten to death. Their bodies, along with Rufino's, are returned to the Jeep, which they then roll off a cliff

with all of them in it in an attempt to make it the murder's look like a traffic accident. But the car is discovered. No one's buying it. It's clear that the Mariballs and their driver were the targets of a state-sanctioned assassination by Trujillo, like everyone knows. When their bodies are recovered from the wreck, there are clear marks on their bodies that prove they've been murdered. And at their funeral, the last remaining sister, De De, has to be dragged away from

the cemetery. So the murder of the Mariballs sisters attracts attention in a way that Trujillo's other killings never had. These were young and vibrant young women with children. Patria was 36, Minerva was 34, and Maria Teresa was only 24 years old. Something about this crime hits an immediate nerve with the people of the Dominican Republic. And resistance to the Trujillo regime starts to become way more out in the open. He's losing support of the army and other political figures who used to back him.

On May 30th, 1931, just six months after the assassination of the Mariballs sisters, Trujillo's limousine is ambushed by army officials and former supporters. And he's killed. Wow. Yeah. They turned. Yeah, they definitely turned. So this era is finally over.

The Dominican Republic continues to see civil unrest until the mid-1990s. No individual leader is ever as violent and cruel as though. In 1962, the men who killed the Mariballs sisters are finally arrested and convicted of the murders. However, they escape from prison in 1965 and they're never caught. After her sister's death, Day Day Mariball makes it her life's work to keep her sister's memories alive and tell their story. She raises her sister's six children as her own with the help of her mother.

In addition to raising her own sons, which is amazing, she establishes both the Mariballs sisters foundation and a museum in honor of her sisters in the early 1990s and writes a book called Alive in their Garden about them and their work. Other books are written, including the famous novel in the Time of Butterflies by Julia Alvarez, which is later turned into a movie starring Selma Hayek. Oh, yeah. In 1990, the UN General Assembly honors the Mariballs sisters by designating the date of their death, November 25th, as the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against

Women. Descendants of the Mariball family later become part of the Dominican Republic's democratic government. Meno Tervara's Mariball grows up to become a congressional representative and vice foreign minister. Wow. Yeah. Yeah.

One of Day Day's sons, Jaime David Fernandez Mariball is vice president of the Dominican Republic from 1996 to 2000. Oh, so they just become a gigantic political body basically as a family. Totally. Wow. Regarding her part of the Mariballs sisters legacy, Day Day says, quote, I can say I have done my duty for the homeland. I can say I have raised an honest family.

She dies in 2014 at 88th of natural causes. So when talking about the dangers of resisting the Trojillo regime, Menova once said, quote, if they kill me, I shall reach my arms out of the grave and I shall be stronger. And she was right. The courageous activism and horrible murders of the Mariballs sisters started a chain reaction that brought down one of the most brutal dictatorships in the history of Latin America. Holy shit. And that is the story of the Mariballs sisters, heroes of the Dominican Republic.

That ruled. Wild. I went from knowing almost nothing about a country to being like, now I want to know every single thing about these people, this country, that's so amazing. It's like something as impenetrable as a 30 year dictatorship where it's like everyone was reporting on everybody. Everyone is, you're locked into this like violent, you know, there's nowhere to go kind of thing.

And it's like there is though. It's just that kind of resistance. It can be done. It's so cool. I love the stories of that. It's so incredible that these people, like despite there only being a few of them are like, we have to do something. Yeah.

You know, it's incredibly brave. And that quote is incredible. Yeah. Reach my arms out of the ground and be stronger. And she did. Yes. Yes. Amazing.

Great job. Thank you. Well, Georgia, you know how much I love TikTok. Of course. And one of the main reasons I love TikTok is because it either educates me about things I absolutely knew nothing about like you just did, or it reminds me of things I adore. So that's what happened when I was scrolling through TikTok. I saw a video by an account called at the feedski, F-E-E-D-S-K-A-I, and they reminded

me of a story that I long ago heard on the dollop about the legendary 1974 Cleveland Tencent beer night. Remember this? No, but it sounds like a mistake. All right. From jump. Oh my God. Yeah.

If you want to do the three-minute version of the story, you can go on TikTok, follow the feedski. They will tell you about it. But you can also listen to the 2014 episode of the dollop. It was the 15th episode of that podcast. Jesus. Yeah. Early, early days of the dollop.

Yeah. But I will tell you about it now. You can also, of course, you can go on YouTube and watch footage from the game night about what I'm about to tell you about, which is kind of amazing. Why am I picturing it in the 1920s? It's not, right? It's not. 74.

Oh, 74. Okay. That's a cozy place. I can meet you there. You should meet me there because you'll be happy you did. But compared to 2023, which every once in a while, that number gets into my head and I'm like, wow, because I started in the 70s, so 74 is like so much more familiar to me than where we are now.

And all of the things in this are, it's just the delight of the way things used to be, which at this point, sometimes when you talk about it, it feels like you're lying or like it's a movie you watched. So here's a little slice of the 70s that really will drive it home. And it's the 70s in Cleveland, Ohio. Wow. Which is a very specific vibe. Yes, it is.

So the main sources for this story today are a 2008 ESPN article by a writer named Paul Jackson, a 1974 Associated Press article by the writer Richard Bellotti, and the book Crazy with the Papers to Prove It by sports writer Dan Coughlin. And the rest of the sources are in our show notes. So what I'm about to regale you with is considered one of arguably one of the most chaotic nights in sports history, June 4, 1974, takes place in Cleveland, Ohio in the 70s. I think it is safe to say that at this time, Cleveland was not flourishing. They had several large problems.

One is the pollution. They're so polluted there, in fact, that just five years earlier in 1969, the Coyah Hoga River caught on fire. Oh, that's right. And as alarming as that sounds, that actually eventually led the way for the government to start the Environmental Protection Agency because pollution had just gotten so bad. It was so bad, you guys. Not just like littering and stuff, but industrial pollution were like companies that were making,

you know, glue or were just dumping everything into the nearby river. And that's what was happening. And the car fumes and the gasoline we used was like toxic. Like there were days when the weather would be, don't leave the house because the air is toxic. Right. I mean, I wasn't there, but my mom told me that. No, it's true.

So there's the pollution issue. This city is also dealing with serious economic downturn over the past decade in the area. There's been a mass exodus of factories and industrial plants, meaning total loss of jobs and also loss of population. Between 1970 and 1980, Cleveland will lose nearly 200,000 residents because of job loss and everything kind of. So in 1974, leaders in Cleveland are worried that the city is about to go bankrupt. And on top of all that, Cleveland's major league baseball team is not doing well.

So at the time of the story in 1974, they were the Cleveland Indians. Indigenous groups have worked for years and years, decades to get this name changed. They just in 22 changed the name to the Cleveland Guardians. But for the sake of simplicity in talking about the story, I'm just going to call them Cleveland so that, you know, so we can talk about it. Good idea. A year before the story takes place, Cleveland's baseball team has the lowest game day turnout of any team in the league.

They basically are at about 15% capacity at every game in their stadium. It's rough. They're reporting losses of around $1.4 million, which is $7 million in today's money. So the situation is dire. And management knows they need to do something to stay out of the red and to get butts in seats. They know the easiest way to boost attendance at games. So they basically suggest an idea that has worked well for them in the past.

Journalist Paul Jackson, writing for ESPN, says it like this, quote, Considering the state of the city in 1974, the team decided that Cleveland probably could use a drink. And this is the origin story for Cleveland's infamous 1974 10 cent beer night. So the real story actually starts the week before at Arlington Stadium in Texas. It's late May, 1974. The Texas Rangers are playing Cleveland in Texas. It's a shit show.

So there's a lot of like, and I think things were a little, obviously a little less regulated, a little less official, a little less like branded, slightly more bad news bears. I would say, as everything was back then, you know, a person that is a base player. Baseball aficionado is not going to love my recap here, but I'm just doing it for simplicity to give you the sense. Look, video games, sports, we don't know anything. Salami, taking out the garbage. It's all boy stuff.

So but here's the basic recap for us for the purposes of me telling you this. So in the fourth inning of this game, Texas Rangers are at bat. There's two men on and whoever it is at bat hits. And the guy on first base is a Rangers player named Lenny Randall. So essentially there's a guy on first and second. And so somebody getting a single moves them both ahead. But the ball goes to Cleveland's third baseman. So he hits third base, he tags third base, gets that guy out, and then throws it over

to second base. It should have been a double play, which they needed because Cleveland didn't have any hadn't gotten any runs so far. So essentially the third baseman catches the ball that gets hit, tags third base, that guy's out, throws it over to second, should be an easy double play. But Lenny Randall slides into second base and he hits the second baseman. So I guess he's safe and everyone gets super pissed off. He does a hard slide and basically in a way that they normally kind of aren't supposed

to do. I think he got kind of physical and made it so that it was not a double play. Cleveland, the team and the fans are pissed. In the eighth inning, Lenny Randall is up again. The pitcher, Milt Wilcox, memorize all these names, Milt Wilcox throws the ball behind him, which is, you know, it's kind of threatening. It's basically like, I'm going to hit you with this. Lenny Randall ends up bunting and running to first base.

So the pitcher, Milt Wilcox, picks it up and tags him. And as he does, Lenny Randall kind of hits him with his forearm, right? Cleveland's first baseman, John Ellis, steps up and punches Lenny Randall. And so the bench is clear and here they go. And now everyone's fighting on the field, right? All the boys run out to the field, dozens of men throw punches at each other in front of stadium full of spectators while the broadcasters call it live. It happens.

It's not like rare in baseball. But essentially the fight's broken up. Everyone goes back to their dugouts. The Texas fans are pissed. They start booing, pouring beer on nearby players, throwing food, and then to add insult to injury. Cleveland loses three to zero. Ouch. Now the drama seems guaranteed because the two teams have to meet up again six days later

in Cleveland, select, finish the series, right? When a reporter from the Cleveland press newspaper asks the Rangers manager, Billy Martin, if he's going to, quote, take his armor to Cleveland, Billy Martin simply replies, quote, nah, they won't have enough fans there to worry about. Ouch. Boom. So that's going to start some shit. That's going to piss some people off.

That's basically like salt in the wound. As journalist Paul Jackson puts it, quote, the 74 Indians were a smorgasbord of mediocre and forgettable talent playing in an open air mausoleum. Jesus, end quote, end lives, like it rough times. The team's not good. You know, the stadium is barely has anyone in it. Not, you can't say even half full, probably, like all of it is rough. So now all of that is bad enough.

But now this rematch right in Cleveland is also on the same night as the big brainchild idea, 10 cent beer night. Things coming together in a bad way. So on 10 cent beer night, the 12 ounce pour of Genesee beer. Have you heard of Genesee beer? Must be regional. My dad hadn't heard of it either. So that beer normally costs 65 cents.

Tonight's going to cost a dime. That's like getting a $4 beer for 60 cents. Wow. Thank you. That's good. $4 beer for 60 cents. For 60 cents. In hindsight, yes, this sounds like a horrible idea.

But amazingly, Cleveland had already hosted. They hosted a nickel beer night in 1971 that went great and with no incidents. So they were like, this will work. This will be great. Okay. So no one's really worried about 10 cent beer night coinciding with the rematch game. The only precaution Cleveland really takes in preparing for this is doubling security. Normally they have 25 security guards.

Now they have 50. That was actually a smart move. Since the brawl in Texas, the Cleveland journalists, radio hosts, anybody that was publicly talking about this game is talking about it like revenge, rematch, like they're talking about it hyping it up. There's bitterness. There's vengeance. Cleveland sports fans are out for blood.

They want a rematch. So when the day arrives, it's warm and humid in Cleveland. Temperatures are around 85 degrees, which is great weather for a night game at a stadium. Over 25,000 people show up to watch the game, which is almost double the normal attendance. And the crowd also is decidedly young because in the seventies, the national drinking age was 18. Oh my God. So essentially people in their late teens and early twenties pack the stands, aside

from it being like a hyped up rematch, whatever, a lot of people are out of work. A lot of people don't have too much money. They can't afford not to go to 10 cent beer night because for a dollar, you can get a ticket to get in, get a seat in the bleachers and get five beers for $1. Each one a bigger mistake than the last. As expected, they open the doors, everyone makes a beeline for the cheap beer the second they enter the stadium. There is a rule set for 10 cent beer night.

People are supposed to be capped at six beers per transaction. But as soon as the stadium opens, it's clear that there is a massive staffing shortage for this promotion because the cheap beer isn't at each hot dog stand around the stadium. It's one table with two teenage girls at the 10 cent beer table. And these girls are supposed to be keeping track of how many beers people get with no system. There's no way to do that. They're just supposed to be managing what is an absolutely unmanageable situation, just

so hilarious and so typical. So they're in charge of monitoring purchases, taking money, pouring beer for thousands of increasingly and very quickly drunk customers. They're immediately overwhelmed and before long, they realize their job is impossible and also they can't handle these drunk customers who are rude, they're belligerent, they're berating them for having to wait in such a long line. It's bullshit. So eventually, thank God, the girls just say screw it and fucking abandon shit.

They're like bye, which is the very least that they should have done. So someone from Cleveland's promotions team decides they're going to solve that problem by driving a beer truck with taps, industrial taps on it inside the stadium and then just allowing the fans to go up and pour their own beers for themselves unchecked. And I think what seems like unpaying for the rest of the night. So I don't know if that was the best call. No one's exactly sure when that truck was brought in, but it's pretty early in the game within the first few innings.

And this game is not going well. In the first inning, Ranger Tom Grieve hits a home run and Cleveland fans are already drunk basically by this time. They're pre-gaming, pre-partying, they're getting it all done. They immediately start throwing things at Texas first baseman, Mike Hargrove, who would later go on to say, quote, I must have had 15 or 20 pounds of hot dogs thrown at me. Oh my God. In the second inning, a middle-aged woman runs onto the field and flashes the crowd

and then tries to kiss the head umpire, Nestor Shilak. Of course, this is a major league baseball game. So Shilak's furious at this interruption, but the crowd goes crazy. They of course love it. This woman, there's pictures. She looks like a diner waitress. She has kind of like, she has big kind of bouffante done up hair. She's definitely on the older side.

She does not look like the kind of woman that's just going to show you her tits. She just doesn't. And she has this huge smile on her face. She looks like it's just like, well, I'm finally living. All I can think about is her the next morning, asking your friend what you did last night. Did I do anything embarrassing last night? I have a bad feeling, but I don't know why. Something went wrong.

It suddenly starts coming back in little individual slides of like seeing Nestor Shilak yelling in her face of like, why would there be the home plate umpire screaming in my face? Oh my God. Why would he be mad at me? Nestor's furious. The crowd loves it. When security finally removes this woman from the field, the stadium goes crazy cheering for her.

They're thrilled. Before long, streakers start running across the field during play. This was a big trend in the early seventies. People loved to get it because it was like kind of right after, you know, the hippie era had kind of come and gone, but that kind of crunchy granola nudity vibe was still there. And streaking was a thing. There was a ton at 10 cent beer night, but perhaps the most iconic, Marin writes, perhaps the most iconic is the man who in the fourth inning fully naked aside from a pair of black

socks. So, you know, he's a businessman dramatically slides into second base at the exact moment that Texas's Tom Grieve hits his second Homer of the night. So the game is continuing on a naked slide is that's painful. It sounds horrible, but also imagine that today where it's like you can't use an image of Major League Baseball without getting the shit sued out of you. Sometimes a cat runs across and they stop everything and like, you know, also there's a picture of him running and he's smiling.

He kind of looks like Robert Plant. He has an amazing body. You're like, I get why you're doing this. He's feeling it. Okay. So now the scores to know Texas is leading. The beer drenched stadium seems to care more about the streakers than the score. So his six security guards try to catch the black socked legend.

He gets up from second base. He runs, basically climbs over the back fence and like Cinderella and her glass slipper leaves a single black sock behind on the field. But now he's in public. I don't understand. Now he just has to walk home. Now he's stuck under the bleachers kind of lost and shit-faced. Right.

He's dealt with worse, I'm sure. So now it's the fifth inning, the scores five to one Rangers. The cheap beer continues to flow on monitor from that beer truck, much like the streakers and the flashers who continue to flow onto the field, including a father's son duo who run onto the field and moon the fans. Mooning was another big thing. Mooning was very popular back then. It's a partial streak.

It's just a peep. Yeah. Of course, the stadium goes crazy. The crowd is really drunk. It looks like the team is losing. So now they're just kind of into the display of whatever other people feel like doing. So up until this point, the trashed and largely teenage crowd has been rowdy, but they're harmless.

Everyone seems happy. They're laughing. They're being silly. They're just kind of like enjoying this goofy night. That's how it always starts. Yeah. My next line is, but as all of us true alcoholics know, that is about to change. The goofy party atmosphere devolves into the realm of pure belligerence.

So at one point, the Rangers manager, Billy Martin, disputes a call by the umpire, a common thing that happens, not that big of a deal. Like a mean drug dad at Christmas, the crowd decides it's deeply offended by this and cups of beer are sent flying onto the field in Billy Martin's direction. He responds by blowing them a kiss from the dugout. So drunk fans start throwing any and everything that they can onto the field. And on top of that, because it is the seventies, multiple people have brought fireworks to the game.

What? Okay. Yeah. Fireworks was a pastime, like a hobby in the seventies, was something people did. You keep heightening this story and it's going, well, history does. The people of Cleveland did full credit to them. So groups of drunk teens are now shooting off fireworks from their seats. And at this point, anyone who showed up for an above board normal baseball game is long

gone and what's left is an entirely wasted and increasingly chaotic crowd in a stadium that's starting to feel like a war zone. So now it's the sixth inning and in an exciting turn of events, Cleveland starts to rally. They score two runs and then in the seventh inning, they score yet another. So now it's five, four Rangers. And then Cleveland ties the score and now it's five, five. Oh, shit. So the crowd starts to focus on the game again.

They remember, oh, that's right. We're at a major league baseball game and this is actually the point of all this. Their focus, of course, since they're so drunk, doesn't really last. And what they end up doing is the kids with the fireworks start trying to shoot the fireworks into Texas's bullpen where the other pitchers are warming up. And then inexplicably, they shoot them towards Cleveland's bullpen. All right. Everyone gets some.

So this forces the very fed up Empire Nester Shilak to direct both teams to move their athletes out of the line of fire. But the game continues on like this doesn't stop the game. So they're just kind of managing the bad behavior at this point. Now we're in the ninth inning, right? This is it. It's the last inning. Things are looking great for Cleveland.

The scores five, five. Cleveland's at bat and the bases are loaded. This should have been the positive turning point. The world is full of potential. Anything can happen right now. It could be something magic. But another fan runs onto the field at this point. This guy's fully dressed.

But the difference here is up until this point, it's been fun times. It's streakers, people running by, the playing to the crowd and running away before security can catch them. This time, this fully dressed man runs towards a Rangers outfielder named Jeff Burroughs. He flicks Burroughs hat off his head and then tries to grab his glove. But because he's drunk, he falls down in the process of trying to do this, of course. So Burroughs, who of course didn't expect that and didn't know, he's visibly rattled by being bumrushed by this drunk stranger.

So the man's down, he goes over and kicks him in the thigh, and then in doing that, he ends up falling over himself. Burroughs would later tell the Associated Press that, quote, I tried to call time, but no one heard me. Oh my God. I mean, they're far away. They're still playing. They're still playing and the outfielders are really far away from each other and everybody

in the infield. He said, I was getting scared because I felt the riot psychology. Of all the crazy shit those baseball players are probably used to with crowds, I don't think they've probably seen this level. No, you get one or two drunk people. It's standard. And usually it's like, it all takes place in the stands, nothing is spilling out onto the field.

I would imagine. So the Rangers manager, Billy Martin, has been watching this game, get repeatedly interrupted. He's had countless beer cups thrown at him. Now he's just had enough seeing this. He sees Burroughs fall over and because it all happened so fast, he assumes Burroughs been attacked by this drunk fan. That's why he fell over. So he turns to the, all the rest of the players in the dugout and he says, let's go get him

boys. Oh shit. The Rangers pull their bats off the bat racks and march out onto the field. Oh my God. Martin will later say, quote, I knew it was silly for us to do that, but Jeff was out there all by himself. We couldn't just let our teammate get beat up. But as the Rangers move with their bats, more people from the stands start pouring onto

the field, basically in response. And these are no longer the happy go lucky streakers of previous innings. This is now a drunken mob. Some of them are even carrying weapons. According to the journalist Paul Jackson, quote, Billy Martin spotted people wielding chains, knives and clubs fashioned from pieces of stadium seats. Oh no. The 25 Texas players quickly found themselves surrounded by 200 angry drunks and more were

tumbling over the wall onto the field and quote, it's like a fucking zombie movie. I was just thinking that's a zombie nightmare. Oh my God. It's one of those fast zombie movies, but with more burping. So over in the Cleveland dugout, manager Ken Aspermonte is seething. He is so close to getting this legendary win, right? How insane would that make you of all the work that you've done up until this point? You're actually making a comeback like you're supposed to do.

His team, his bad news bears team is on the verge of winning, basically. And drunk fans are screwing it up for them. And he's also watching the Rangers become vastly outnumbered as more and more people come down from the stands to like basically fight. He's legitimately worried that he's about to witness a bloodbath for these ranger players. And so in a moment of solidarity with the team that seconds ago was Cleveland's bitter rival, Aspermonte orders his players to grab any and all available bats and go help the Rangers.

Let's add some fuel to this fire. Yes, exactly. So now a full on war has broken out between a couple dozen professional athletes with bats and hundreds of belligerent, mostly teenage fans with chains and armrest clubs who are fucked up. Yeah, they are. It's gnarly. The Cleveland catcher pushes a man down and kicks him in the face.

A ranger tackles a guy that's trying to take down his teammate. A drunken Cleveland fan hits Cleveland's pitcher over the head with a chair. Oh, no. It's Mayhem. Mr. Shilak, the head umpire, also gets hit over the head with a chair. After that, he stands up and sees a hunting knife land at his feet. And he knows he has to call the game now. But first they have to get to safety.

So Shilak will later tell AP that, quote, we were so scared out there, it was 500 to one odds and we could have gotten killed very easily. I'm sure the only other place you would see something like this happen would be in a zoo. Oh my God. They get both teams, stadium staff, the umpires, and a couple reporters, they're all able to fight their way back to the dugouts. And then from there, they go into the tunnels that lead back to the locker rooms like safely inside the stadium.

They bolt the doors behind them. They're all soaked with beer, blood, sweat, and spit. And they're trying to process what's just happened. One of Cleveland's announcers who's broadcasting live from the press box captures the atmosphere well. He says, quote, I've been in this business for over 20 years and I have never seen anything as disgusting as this. This is tragic.

So now that the athletes and their staff are safely off the field, Nestor Shilak calls the game. He calls it a forfeit due to the crowd's bad behavior, which means the Rangers win. Put out on the field, the news insights a new wave of violence from the drunken fans because there's still hundreds of people swarming the field. Now they just go crazy. They start stealing anything that isn't nailed down. They're taking the bases.

They're pulling up grass. They even ripped down pieces of the stadium's padded wall. A writer named Dan Coughlin is one of the unlucky journalists who didn't escape into the clubhouse with the teams. When the game is forfeited, he's out in the stands trying to interview fans. This would be an expected thing for any sports journalist to do. But as Coughlin approaches spectators asking for their point of view, he gets punched in the face, not once but twice.

Oh my God. It's just like out of control. And meanwhile, sorry to laugh at you, Dan Coughlin. It's not funny that you got punched, but it is all of a sudden just all of society breaks down in a stadium in Cleveland one night in 1974. Mob mentality. Right? Yes.

And meanwhile, this is Marin's writing, in a legendary failure to read the room, Cleveland's organist starts playing take me out to the ball game over the loudspeaker. No. So it's just, I mean, that organist is pretty hilarious. The Cleveland police arrive to clear the stadium and here's how they do it. They turn off the lights and throw tear gas onto the field. People bolt, except for a dozen defiant teenagers standing on top of the Rangers dug out, calling for the Texas players to come back out and fight them.

Yeah, that's definitely going to happen. That vibe though is so familiar to me. So, like, as I read that sentence the first time, I was just like, yeah, yeah. Yeah. But you're also like, I know him. I know him. I've met that guy before. I've met that guy.

I've loved that guy. Yeah. I've been that guy. All in all, nine people are arrested on 10 cent beer night and seven are sent to nearby hospitals where they're treated for minor injuries and released. Amazingly, no one is seriously injured at 10 cent beer night. All right. It's a miracle, but the athletes and the stadium crew are shaken up by this experience, understandably.

Billy Martin tells the Associated Press that, quote, it's the closest I've ever seen anybody come to getting killed in my more than 25 years in baseball. And Nestor Shilak is said to have been so heated after his narrow escape from the field that he, when he got down into the locker room area, not that, you know, those hallways in the stadium. He smashed every light bulb in sight. What the fuck? Nestor was pissed.

But I mean, like you can imagine, it's just that's the adrenaline, the survival adrenaline. Yeah. I mean, that must have been so scary and crazy. And you know he was upset because with a compress held to his injured head, he tells reporters, quote, fucking animals. You just can't pull back a pack of animals. When uncontrolled beasts are out there, you got to do something. I saw two guys with knives and I got hit by a chair.

If the fucking war is on tomorrow, I'm going to join the other side to get a shot at them. Wow. And, quote, he was pissed. He was pissed. So really besides the arrests and the stolen property and the general mayhem, the most interesting part about Tencent Beer Night is that strange moment of unity between the Cleveland and the Texas players against the drunken mob. Texas Ranger Rich Billings would go on to tell the press, quote, I really don't know

what would have happened if the Indians hadn't come out. They were the real peacemakers in the deal. So essentially if those players hadn't started defending people, it would have been an attack. Totally. And despite the league's absolute fury at everything that went down that night, Cleveland would go on to throw another Tencent Beer Night just a few weeks later. No. Because we learned nothing.

Oh, my God. No, but they did learn. So this time they have a strict two beer per person limit and they use tickets to track the purchases and they have four times the usual security staff. And here's the good news, the evening goes off without a hitch. And that is the story of Cleveland's infamous 1974 Tencent Beer Night. Oh, my God. Mayhem.

Mayhem. Mayhem also who brought a hunting knife to a baseball game. Truly. Truly. Yeah. What were you doing? You're not fucking who I don't know. Bear Grylls.

Thank you. I was like, I had so many names suddenly flooding my head and I couldn't pick one. He's the best one. He loves a knife. Yeah. Wow. Great job. Great story.

Thank you. I mean, I've been waiting to do that one for a little while. The world contains multitudes from the sisters who essentially saved the Dominican Republic to the Cleveland fans who ruined baseball for one night on purpose for fun. And we're here to deliver all of it to you. We want you to know about all of it. Our valued listeners. We love you.

We do. Say sexy. And don't get murdered. Goodbye. Goodbye. Elvis, do you want a cookie? This has been an exactly right production. Our senior producer is Hannah Kyle Crichton.

Our producer is Alejandra Keck. This episode was engineered and mixed by Stephen Ray Morris. Our researchers are Marin McClashen and Sarah Blair Jenkins with additional research from Demaharis. Email your hometowns and fucking hurrays to myfavoritmurder at gmail.com. Follow the show on Instagram and Facebook at myfavoritmurder and Twitter at myfavemurder. Goodbye. Goodbye.

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