Sports
Fifty years later, the chaos of Cleveland's 10-Cent Beer Night still shocks
There were streakers, kissers and wannabe prize fighters. There were arrests, threats and flying chairs. There were bruises, there was blood and there was beer. So, so much beer.
There was plenty of blame to pass around: the fans, the umpires, the team officials, the managers, local broadcasters and radio hosts. Oh, and according to one Cleveland resident, the real instigator causing that evening’s mayhem? The moon. And that’s not a reference to the fans who yanked down their pants and showed Rangers players their backsides.
Fifty years ago, chaos descended upon Municipal Stadium on 10-Cent Beer Night. Now, the infamous events of June 4, 1974, when an alcohol-fueled crowd spilled onto the field, confronted players and forced a forfeit, are often viewed in a light-hearted manner, the stuff of commemorative T-shirts and parodied ballpark promotions.
But at the time? Cleveland’s sports chroniclers considered it a black eye for Cleveland on a night that resulted in many of them.
Texas manager Billy Martin: “The fans showed the worst sportsmanship in the history of baseball.”
Cleveland manager Ken Aspromonte: “I’ve never seen anything like that in all my life and I have played baseball all over the world.”
Umpire Nestor Chylak: “They were uncontrolled beasts. I’ve never seen anything like it except in a zoo.”
Let’s travel back in time and dig into the archives of The Plain Dealer to re-live one of the most surreal scenes ever to unfold on a baseball field.
‘They would have killed him. I guess these fans just can’t handle good beer’
The attendance that night: 25,134. Beers sold that night: 65,000. A Guardians spokesman estimated an average crowd today consumes about 23,500 beers.
Columnist Hal Lebovitz surmised that half of the fans “drank little or no beer,” which meant those participating accounted for about five Stroh’s each. “I saw five fans stand in the beer line, each getting the maximum six cups,” Lebovitz wrote. “That’s 30 beers. Some of them drank two cups and the others inhaled nearly 10 apiece.” For a buck, he added, a fan could snag a 50-cent bleacher seat and five beers. A security guard was quoted saying he saw “kids that couldn’t be more than 14 years old drinking beer.”
“Small wonder the bleachers were quickly sold out,” Lebovitz wrote. “Not even free soup or bread would have caused those long lines.”
The team increased its security presence from the customary 32 guards to 48. Early in the game, it was merely a comedic spectacle, though one rated “R.” Dan Coughlin wrote: “A woman walked up to the home-plate umpire Nestor Chylak and tried to kiss him. Compared to what followed, this was cute.”
Fans breached the field of play in the middle innings. They showered Martin with beer when he disputed a call, and he blew kisses back at them. As beat writer Russ Schneider detailed: “In the sixth inning, one of the youths who raced across the outfield stopped and disrobed — then streaked back and forth until he escaped over the right-field fence and into the arms of a policeman.”
“The brew-propelled bleacher fans began to hop into the better seats, roam around the park, disturb the bullpens, jump over the fence and onto the field,” Lebovitz wrote. “The hooliganism was not confined to bleacherites only, but they were in the vast majority.” Umpires, ushers, security guards and the grounds crew spent much of their time herding fans off the field and scooping up their discarded clothing, empty beer cups and other trash.
In the seventh, fans tossed a string of firecrackers near the Rangers’ bullpen, forcing the relievers to scamper across the field to the visitors’ dugout. Cleveland’s relievers followed suit a half-inning later. That led to Martin sticking with reliever Steve Foucault through the end of the game since the bullpen, as Schneider noted, “was barren of players.”
Cleveland erased a 5-3 deficit in the ninth and appeared poised for a walk-off win when all hell broke loose. It was a ballpark riot, lasting nearly 10 minutes, players versus fans in one of the ugliest scenes ever to grace a baseball field. From Schneider’s dispatch: “A couple of spectators leaped onto the playing field and tried to steal the cap from the head of Jeff Burroughs, the Rangers’ right fielder. Burroughs fought back and, quickly, scores of youths jumped over the railing and onto the field — while players from both the Indians and Rangers raced to the defense of the outfielder. This time the Indians and Rangers — who fought each other last Wednesday night in Arlington, Texas — joined forces to protect themselves from the unruly mob.”
Cleveland pitcher Tom Hilgendorf absorbed a metal folding chair to the head. Chylak was cut on the hand. Police had caps and badges stolen. The bases were swiped — and not by some speedy infielder. There were a dozen arrests.
“Maybe it was silly for us to go out there,” Martin said after the game, “but we weren’t about to leave a man out there on the field unprotected. It seemed that he might be destroyed. They would have killed him. I guess these fans just can’t handle good beer. There were some knives out there, too. We’re fortunate somebody didn’t get stabbed.”
Coughlin’s story asserts that someone “standing in a mob on top of the Texas Rangers dugout punched a newspaper reporter in the side of the head several minutes after the riot at the Stadium apparently had subsided. ‘I’ll kill you,’ said the youth, who seconds later blindsided the reporter again. ‘And if Burroughs comes out on that field tomorrow night, I’ll kill him.’”
Jeff Burroughs, center, is escorted off the field after fighting with fans. (Paul Tepley Collection / Diamond Images / Getty Images)
“I could see that there was sort of a riot psychology,” Burroughs said. “You have to realize all I had to protect myself with was my fists.”
The game was ruled a forfeit in favor of the Rangers, the first forfeit since September 1971, when the Senators played their final game in Washington D.C. before relocating to become … the Rangers. Cleveland pitcher Dick Bosman, a member of that 1971 Senators team, said the fans in Washington “were only looking for mementos” when they disrupted the game. After 10-Cent Beer Night, Bosman said: “This was a mean, ugly, frightening crowd.”
Cleveland’s players, bloody, bruised and shouting in frustration, returned to the home clubhouse. Aspromonte collected himself for 10 minutes before telling reporters in a soft voice: “Those people were like animals. But it’s not just baseball, it’s the society we live in. Nobody seems to care about anything.’ We complained about their people in Arlington last week when they threw beer on us and taunted us to fight, but look at our people. They were worse. I don’t know if it was just the beer.”
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Beers in the hot tub, holes in the wall: Tales from Cleveland’s Municipal Stadium clubhouse
Martin called Aspromonte to thank the Indians for coming to his team’s defense. The Rangers remained in their locker room for nearly two hours before returning to their hotel with a significant police presence. Umpires exited in a private car that pulled up outside their locker room.
Frank Ferrone, chief of stadium security, shook his head and acknowledged it was the worst incident in the history of Cleveland baseball as he spoke with reporters.
“We would have needed 25,000 cops to handle this crowd,” he said.
‘I don’t know who to blame, but I’m scared’
Lebovitz wrote: “They weren’t baseball fans. They wanted the beer. Thus, in essence, the Indians’ management wasn’t promoting baseball. It was pushing beer.”
The cheap-beer marketing ploy wasn’t unique to Cleveland. The Brewers and Rangers had used similar promotions. The Indians had a nickel-beer night a few years earlier. The previous summer, Clevelanders could swig 10-cent beers at a variety of downtown events, including a rib burnoff, an art show and the All Nations Festival, where the libations were so popular that “more than 1,000 gallons were pumped in just a couple of hours,” according to a Plain Dealer article.
In fact, the Rangers held the same promotion a week earlier, the night they tangled with the Indians in an eighth-inning brawl. Lenny Randle dropped down a bunt and ran several feet inside the baseline to collide with Cleveland reliever Milt Wilcox. Randle had leveled infielder Jack Brohamer to break up a double play, so Wilcox greeted him with a pitch uncomfortably inside. Cleveland’s John Ellis tackled Randle, and the dugouts and bullpens emptied. As the Indians left the field, fans pelted them with beer.
Schneider wrote: “(Dave) Duncan, still wearing his catcher’s equipment, shouted at one of the fans, who, in turn, challenged the Cleveland player to fight. As Duncan stood there arguing — and with the total absence of any policemen or security agents — another man threw a cup of beer in Duncan’s face. It incensed Duncan and he attempted to climb over the roof of the dugout to reach the fan while his teammates, coaches and Aspromonte clung to his body to keep him away from the spectators. At the same time, several fans crawled on the roof of the dugout and continued their taunts and insults. After nearly five minutes, three policemen rushed to the dugout with hands on their pistols.”
For a week, the hype built. Pete Franklin fanned the flames nightly on his popular Cleveland radio show. Lebovitz chided broadcaster Joe Tait for urging fans to “Come out to Beer Night and let’s stick it in Billy Martin’s ear.” Tait called Lebovitz to say he only made that declaration once, and only did so because Martin insisted there would be no hostile environment in Cleveland because the team didn’t have enough fans.
“The impression may not have been the one Joe intended,” Lebovitz wrote. “But that’s the inference the listeners got. Joe, with his high-voltage delivery, conceivably helped create an atmosphere that led to the final scene.”
Tait, though, pointed out a visual in the sports section the morning of the game that had a team mascot wearing boxing gloves. Lebovitz admitted that was a mistake. “In retrospect,” he wrote, “I felt ill over our contribution to the night’s events.” Lebovitz opted not to pen a column pleading with the team to postpone Beer Night because of the previous scrap between the teams. He didn’t think his words would have carried much weight.
“These people probably came out with sort of a chip on their shoulders,” said Rangers catcher Duke Sims, “and then got beered up.”
There were other culprits, too. Chylak said he “saw trouble coming as early as the seventh inning” and Lebovitz wrote the umpires began plotting their own exit, but “didn’t think beyond personal safety.”
Cleveland’s executive vice president, Ted Bonda, told Schneider he considered handing Gaylord Perry a microphone to deliver a calming message to the fans in the seventh inning, “but I talked to somebody who talked me out of it. I wish now I had obeyed my gut feeling, but hindsight is better than foresight.”
Schneider wrote that a stern warning would have sufficed. He also stressed umpires should have ordered the team to plead with the fans. When Mets fans tossed debris at Pete Rose in the playoffs the previous year, the umpires ordered the PA announcer to threaten fans with a potential forfeit. Manager Yogi Berra and veterans Willie Mays and Tom Seaver stepped onto the field and asked fans to “give us a chance to win on the field.” Schneider wrote, “This, it would seem, should be a common practice as well as common sense.”
Lebovitz also pinned some blame on team officials for not preventing fans from shifting to closer seats that aided their fence-hopping and for not calling city police when it became apparent the fans couldn’t be contained.
“But the major blame,” he wrote, “must fall on Beer Night. Without the 10-cent beer, the game would have been played to its proper conclusion in a relatively normal atmosphere. The beer brought out twice as many fans as expected and it brought out the worst in many of them, particularly the teenage kids who can’t handle it.”
Aspromonte: “I don’t know who’s to blame, but I’m scared.’”
Martin feared retaliation when the Indians returned to Texas in late August. He vowed to use his radio show to highlight how Cleveland’s players actually came to their aid.
“It was an unfortunate thing last week when that fan threw beer in Aspromonte’s face,” Martin said, “but it shouldn’t have caused this. I really was scared. I was afraid someone was going to get seriously hurt. Someone could have had an eye put out.
“That’s probably the closest we’ll come to seeing someone getting killed in the game of baseball. In the 25 years I’ve played, I’ve never seen any crowd act like that. It was ridiculous.”
A woman called The Plain Dealer newsroom to inform them they had omitted the driving force behind the night’s events: “There was a full moon.”
Some fans in Cleveland climbed atop the team dugouts and a few later charged the field. (Paul Tepley Collection / Diamond Images/Getty Images)
“Beer Night became the gasoline that caused it to burst into full flame,” Lebovitz wrote. “There is no better fuel than alcohol.
“The whole evening was a shame. It would be a tragic mistake to slough it off — to blame it on the full moon. In that case, the riot will have taught us nothing.”
‘Beer, a hot dog, popcorn and a lot of bellyaching’
Cleveland public address announcer Bob Keefer warned fans ahead of the game the following night that they would be prosecuted if they entered the field of play. The message was met with applause.
The Indians had two more 10-cent beer nights scheduled. In the early innings, when the only madness was a few young fans who had run across the field, Bonda had no qualms about the future promotions, as he told The Plain Dealer: “We plan to have them. These are young people. They are our fans. Where have they been? I’m not going to chase them away. They haven’t interrupted the game.”
He spoke too soon.
Plain Dealer columnist Chuck Heaton criticized Bonda and general manager Phil Seghi for downplaying the events and leaving the game early.
“The better course would be to admit some misjudgment,” Heaton wrote, “in anticipating the size of the turnout, providing adequate security forces and in decisions on how to handle the various incidents that happened. They certainly didn’t feel that matters would get so hairy as they did in that last inning or both would not have left the game early and missed a first-hand view of the melee.”
The day after the brouhaha in Cleveland — one of only five forfeits in the last 70 years — Mets shortstop Bud Harrelson said: “Beer doesn’t help. But I would be the last man to suggest that you ban beer at a ballpark. That’s the name of the game — beer, a hot dog, popcorn and a lot of bellyaching. I’ll tell you, if we ever had 10-cent beer at Shea (Stadium), it would be a disaster.”
A half-century later, that night’s memories, softened over time, prevail through popular T-shirts around Cleveland — at one point, available at the Progressive Field team store — and copycat promotions. The Portland Pickles, a collegiate summer team, are partnering with a brewery for a 10-cent Beer Night on Tuesday. As their promotion reads: “10 Cent Beer Night went down as one of the worst failed promotions in sports history. That’s why we’re bringing it back.”
American League president Lee MacPhail initially declared “beer nights will not be permitted at Indians home games in the foreseeable future.” He later backtracked, and the Indians held another beer night on July 18, 1974, but with stricter purchasing limits.
Bonda feared the fracas would hurt the club’s attendance. Heaton wrote he didn’t think there would be a correlation, but he did predict team officials would use it as a convenient excuse if the Indians didn’t draw better. Ultimately, they attracted more than 1.11 million to Municipal Stadium, the club’s largest attendance figure for a quarter-century stretch (1960-85).
“The fans know that riots are rare occurrences,” Heaton wrote, “and that Tuesday’s outburst very well may never be part of the Cleveland scene again.”
(Top photo: Paul Tepley Collection / Diamond Images / Getty Images)
Sports
Jake Paul’s business partner talks claims of rigged Mike Tyson fight, says Paul is boxing's 'greatest gift'
A sports icon came out of retirement last Friday, leading to decibels that are seldom touched at a sporting event, as 58-year-old Mike Tyson, in his first professional fight since 2005, battled Jake Paul in front of more than 70,000 fans at AT&T Stadium in Arlingon, Texas.
But by the middle of the fight, boo-birds rang out in the crowd, and with Paul winning by unanimous decision, accusations of a rigged fight ran all over social media.
If you know Jake Paul, none of that bothers him. He thrives off the hate and has embraced the role of the heel in boxing and life.
“He’s the ‘problem child,’ people want to boo him, and that’s the special sauce that he has,” said Nakisa Bidarian, co-founder of Most Valuable Promotions, in a recent interview with Fox News Digital.
(Cooper Neill/Getty Images for Netflix)
Bidarian and Paul co-founded MVP together three years ago, and their promotions have helped put women’s boxing on the map with two spectacles by Katie Taylor and Amanda Serrano, the second of which was the co-main event last week in Arlington.
Although Bidarian admitted that the 60 million households watching the fight and the largest gate outside of Las Vegas ever was probably more because of Tyson, he said Paul “played a massive role” in the historic event.
It was historic by just about every metric: attendance, viewers, gate, bets placed, social media discussion. But the overwhelming reaction to the fight was that it was a disappointment.
“I don’t care what people have to say. They’re always going to have something to say. It is what it is,” Paul told Fox News Digital after the fight.
Added Bidarian in his interview, “The only win there was if Mike Tyson knocked out Jake Paul, otherwise, the haters would have found a way to complain no matter what.”
But with it being a Paul spectacle, there is, once again, some speculation about the fight being rigged, fixed or staged.
Jake Paul, left, is announced as the winner over Mike Tyson at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas, on Nov. 15, 2024. (Al Bello/Getty Images for Netflix ©2024)
Some fans have tried to point out instances in which the former heavyweight champ could have easily knocked out Paul with an uppercut; some have said that Tyson was biting on his gloves to keep himself from going wild in the ring. Some fans also believe that there was no way a boxer with just four years of experience could have possibly beaten the “Baddest Man on the Planet.”
But all of those claims are BS, Bidarian said.
“In terms of this fight specifically, I will say the following: It was sanctioned by the athletic commission. Our partner was Netflix, who is the biggest media company in America and is a public entity. There was professional sports betting on the event,” Bidarian said. “So, if you were to rig such competition, it is a federal crime. And myself, Jake Paul, Mike Tyson, executives from Netflix would all be going to jail, they would be risking their entire company, and we would be risking our entire lives to do that. It is preposterous that people even suggest that this was in any way anything other than a professional fight. … That was not the case in any Jake fight, let alone this one.”
“This was 100% real from beginning to end,” he added. “It was so real that the guy had an ulcer, and we took a five-month break to give him time to heal the ulcer to be able to perform at his best level. If it was staged, why did we even postpone it? We could have just moved forward with the date: ‘Oh, you have an ulcer, you’re not going to hit each other. It’s going to be fine.’ What are people talking about?”
Mike Tyson and Jake Paul exchange punches at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas, on Nov. 15, 2024. (Tayfun Coskun/Anadolu via Getty Images)
JAKE PAUL-MIKE TYSON SNOOZER DRAWS HARSH CRITICISM: ‘NOT GREAT FOR BOXING’
Even some more high-profile fighters at the top of their game have called out Paul, including Ryan Garcia, lightweight champion Gervonta Davis, heavyweight champion Daniel Dubois and undisputed light heavyweight champion Artur Beterbiev. Bidarian said that “with the exception of one,” Paul is interested in “all” of the inquiries.
“What’s next for Jake is whatever Jake wants it to be. He is the biggest face in all of boxing. … His goal is to be a world champion, so you’ll see us do things that give him those opportunities. And our goal is to think outside the box, do disruptive things and capture the imagination. We did that last Friday, and we’ll continue to do that.”
It’s no secret that Paul is disliked, and many think this is all just a marketing play. It’s no secret that Paul is a marketing whiz, and some of his opponents have been selected rather wisely. But as much of a businessman as Paul may be, Bidarian said he sees him “first and foremost” as a boxer.
“That’s what he dedicates anywhere from 70 to 75% of his time,” Bidarian said.
At the same time, Paul puts emphasis on “professional” in the term “professional boxer.”
“He is the most professional boxer in professional boxing. He is a businessman, he conducts himself like a business, he shows up on time, he delivers every line you need to deliver, he does the promo when no one else wants to. …” Bidarian said. “He knows how to sell. [Dallas Cowboys owner] Jerry Jones said to Jake Paul, ‘Kid, you’re one of the greatest marketers in all of sports.’ And that’s true. He’s four years into this sport, and he’s co-headlining a record-setting event.”
That’s why Bidarian has a rather strong message to those who don’t believe Paul is a serious boxer.
Jake Paul celebrates after his victory over Mike Tyson. (Stephen McCarthy/Sportsfile via Getty Images)
“Show me another athlete, including their amateur or high school career, who has four and a half years of experience that has achieved as much as he has achieved inside and outside of the ring,” Bidarian said. “Even in that performance against Mike Tyson, who is 58, is very unique for someone who is four years into doing a sport. … Jake Paul has gone into the lions’ den and showed that he outboxed a much more skilled boxer in his heyday than Jake Paul, and that’s a lot more impressive than 99% of boxers do in their 10th, 12th, 15th fight.”
“More importantly, Jake Paul has put on for this sport like no athlete has before,” he continued. “He’s put on for the women in this sport, he’s put on for the youth in this sport, he’s put his own money into renovating gyms to give access to young boys and girls to learn about the sport of boxing. He’s partnered with USA Boxing to push amateur interest in the sport.
“He’s the greatest gift the sport has ever seen, in my opinion.”
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The Rams’ victory over the New England Patriots last Sunday put them back at .500 and kept alive their playoff chances.
Quarterback Matthew Stafford passed for four touchdowns for the second time in four games. The 16th-year pro and coach Sean McVay, the Rams’ play-caller, must be at the top of their games against an Eagles defense coordinated by Vic Fangio, who flummoxed the Rams in 2018 when he ran the Chicago Bears defense.
“He’s arguably the best of this generation,” Rams offensive coordinator Mike LaFleur said, adding, “He’s about as structured as they come in terms of tendencies and percentages. You just can’t pop him on anything. He knows that and we know that.”
Against the Patriots, Rams receivers Puka Nacua and Cooper Kupp each amassed more than 100 yards, and running back Kyren Williams showed signs of returning to his early-season form.
Veteran right tackle Rob Havenstein could return from an ankle injury that has sidelined him for two games, further strengthening a line that gave up no sacks against the Patriots.
The Eagles have given up a league-low 17.9 points a game. They rank second against the pass and seventh against the run. Edge rusher Josh Sweat has six sacks. Veteran cornerback Darius Slay Jr. leads a secondary that includes rookies Quinyon Mitchell and Cooper DeJean.
Quarterback Jalen Hurts leads an offense that also features star running back Saquon Barkley and receivers A.J. Brown and DeVonta Smith. Hurts has passed for 12 touchdowns and rushed for 11. Barkley averages 113.7 yards rushing per game and also is a threat as a receiver.
The Rams have been riding the play of a young defensive line that features edge rushers Jared Verse and Byron Young and linemen Kobie Turner and Braden Fiske.
Citing a lack of consistency in the kicking game, Baltimore Ravens general manager Ozzie Newsome announced that the team was releasing young kicker Stephen Hauschka, who hours earlier missed a 36-yard attempt against the Cleveland Browns on “Monday Night Football.”
Hauschka was just 9-of-13 on field goal attempts through nine games, and all of his misses were from under 50 yards. The Ravens replaced him by signing free agent Billy Cundiff, who was working at a venture capital firm at the time.
That transaction occurred in November 2009. That’s the last time the Ravens made an in-season, performance-based change at typically one of the most volatile positions in the sport.
Ravens coach John Harbaugh made clear Monday that he has no plans on making another one, even as his longtime kicker, Justin Tucker, is mired in the most difficult stretch of his 13-year career.
“There’s no thought to that,” Harbaugh said. “You have to find that competition first if you’re going to be blunt about it. Where is that competition? That would be one thing. The best option right now is to get Justin back on point, because he’s fully capable of doing it. (We) certainly haven’t lost any confidence in Justin Tucker.”
Harbaugh’s comments came a day after Tucker missed two kicks in an 18-16 loss to the Pittsburgh Steelers at Acrisure Stadium. After entering the season as the most statistically accurate kicker in NFL history, Tucker has missed 6 of 22 attempts this year, along with a point-after try. Two of the misses came from inside 50 yards, where Tucker had made 90 percent of his kicks over his first 12 NFL seasons. His extra-point miss was just the seventh of his career.
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“It’s certainly frustrating, especially when we know that these games come down to the wire, like this one did, that I let a couple get away,” Tucker said after Sunday’s game. “But, like I’ve said before, the only thing that we can do is just get right back to work and focus on making the most out of our next opportunity.”
Considered one of the most unique weapons in the league for over a decade and the Ravens’ most reliable performer since he entered the league in 2012, Tucker — and by extension, the team’s field goal operation — has suddenly become one of the reasons Baltimore is losing games.
It’s harsh and it feels uncomfortable to say or write about a guy who has been the gold standard in the sport at his position for many years, but the numbers are hard to ignore. The Ravens’ four losses have come by a total of 17 points, and Tucker missed a field goal in each of them that factored prominently in the defeats.
Tucker “needs to make kicks,” Harbaugh said after Sunday’s frustrating loss in Pittsburgh. “He knows that. He makes them in practice, and he made the long one (54-yarder) later, which was good to see. He’s still very capable. Kick them straight, we’ll be good.”
Missing seven total kicks through 11 games would get plenty of other kickers a pink slip. That’s just the nature of the position in the NFL and the fine line between winning and losing. Kicking issues are omnipresent around the league, and Tucker is hardly alone among proven veterans having a tough time this season. The New York Jets have had four different kickers in as many weeks.
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For the Ravens, however, kicking stability has been a constant. Matt Stover, nicknamed “Money Matt” for his accuracy, was the team’s kicker from 1996 to 2008. Cundiff replaced Hauschka in 2009 and was the team’s kicker for three seasons before his crushing late miss in the AFC Championship Game loss to the New England Patriots in January 2012. Tucker arrived on the scene as an undrafted free agent several months later, beat out Cundiff for the job and hasn’t missed a game in 13 seasons.
Just the idea of making a kicking change in Baltimore seems blasphemous, given Tucker’s well-earned status. Before the two misses in Pittsburgh on Sunday, Tucker’s career field goal percentage (89.7) made him the most accurate kicker in NFL history and put him on a Hall of Fame track.
His clutch kicking as a rookie in 2012 was instrumental in the Ravens winning their last Super Bowl. He’s been selected to seven Pro Bowl teams and named an All-Pro on eight occasions. Time and time again when the Ravens needed points, particularly late in games, Tucker stepped up, performed his tried-and-true pre-kick ritual and calmly delivered. He’s previously been the highest-paid kicker in the sport, and for good reason.
Tucker’s kicking brilliance, along with his charisma, outgoing personality and multitude of talents, made him one of the faces of the team and one of the most popular and recognizable athletes in Baltimore. Tucker’s No. 9 jerseys are not hard to find when you’re scanning the seating bowl at Ravens games.
But this season has brought long-avoided angst in Baltimore about the performance of the kicker and led to a small but growing segment of Baltimore’s fan base to question why the organization hasn’t moved on, or at least brought in competition, for its longtime star.
“Knowing the team, knowing the character of Justin, yes, his performance in the past does warrant him the benefit of the doubt, for sure,” Stover said. “But this is the NFL. It is a very immediate performance you have to have. With an objective job like being a kicker, it becomes a quick response for people to say, ‘Hey, man, what’s wrong with you? Do we need to make a change?’”
Yet, Stover said, “He’s one of the best who has ever done it. Who are you going to get who you can guarantee will be better?”
Justin Tucker has missed a field goal in each of the Ravens’ four losses this season. (David Eulitt / Getty Images)
Bringing in another kicker in mid-November likely means either signing a well-traveled veteran who hasn’t been able to land another job or plucking someone off another team’s practice squad. It’s inconceivable at the moment that the Ravens would trust one of those options more than Tucker at a time when they fancy themselves as Super Bowl contenders.
“He’s definitely our best option, and he’s going to make a lot of kicks — I really believe that,” Harbaugh said. “But it’s up to him and the guys he works with every day to make those balls go straight. Competition right now, at this time, no that’s not something we’d want for Justin.”
Stover, who is in the Ravens’ Ring of Honor, still lives in the Baltimore area and has relationships with many people in the building, including Tucker. He also understands what Tucker is going through. There were times early in his career with Cleveland when he struggled and the Browns brought in competition for his job. In 1999, the Ravens claimed kicker Joe Nedney on waivers while Stover remained on the roster.
“That was brutal. He wasn’t on the practice squad. He wasn’t on IR. He was on the roster,” Stover said. “It really just comes down to performance. There’s no subjectivity. I got through it.
“Justin is going through a little blip. He’s mentally strong. He’s got a great support staff around him. He’s got a head coach who totally gets it. To do it for 12 years as well as he’s done it says a lot about who he is and his character. It’s the first time he’s ever had to deal with this. I dealt with it three or four times. It was hard and it sucks. He’ll get through it.”
Stover, who trains young kickers, acknowledged that he hasn’t broken down Tucker’s mechanics, but he maintains the fact that Tucker has missed all seven kicks wide left is a “good thing,” because that often points to a fixable issue. It doesn’t appear to be a leg strength issue with Tucker. Almost all of his kicks, except one, have had the necessary distance.
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There has been plenty of speculation about whether his issues are being caused by snapping and/or holding problems, but Tucker and others at the Ravens’ facility have continued to say snapper Nick Moore and holder Jordan Stout, who aren’t new at this or to the team, are doing their jobs.
After Sunday’s misses, Tucker retreated to the locker room to address reporters and insisted his struggles are not a confidence issue, either.
“I’m still confident I’m going to go out there and nail every single kick,” Tucker said. “Part of the way we stay confident is by continuing to work and trust the process, and I know I might sound like a broken record, but it’s a part of what brings us success — just trusting the process and then taking it one kick at a time.”
Harbaugh, a former special teams coach, has a very close relationship with the kicker. Senior special teams coach Randy Brown has been with Tucker every step of his career and is considered one of the top kicking gurus in the league. Ravens assistant special teams coach Sam Koch is a former holder for Tucker and one of his closest confidants.
Stout has been holding for Tucker for three seasons, and Moore has been in the Ravens organization since 2020. The kicking battery and coaching staff have an established routine that has yielded very strong results for many years.
“You try to attack everything to the utmost that we can, across the board,” Harbaugh said. “Justin is one of the aspects that we’re looking at. He’s going to get it figured out. We have coaches. We have technique. We look at the tape. He’s practicing well. He’s got to kick it straight.”
(Top photo: Barry Reeger / Imagn Images)
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