Good evening. This is Dead Legends. The baseball newsletter that loves the game as much as the batting stance guy loves imitating hitters.

Let’s dive in.

Today’s story is about one of the wildest nights in sports history.

Game 5 of the '84 World Series started in the late afternoon.

Detroit was up in the series 3-1 against the Padres, and Tigers fans were anticipating the team's first World Series victory in 16 years.

Vice President George HW Bush was in attendance along with the MLB commissioner.

As the night wore on, it became pretty clear that the Tigers were going to win the series.

The dagger came in the bottom of the eighth when the Padres decided to pitch to Kirk Gibson and he hit an absolute moonshot.

Towards the later innings, a crowd began to gather outside the stadium.

Soon enough, there were tens of thousands of fans outside the stadium; plus another 51,901 inside the ballpark.

Bush was still inside the stadium and the Secret Service realized it had a problem on its hands.

According to a first-hand account, the agents pointed their sub-machine guns at the crowd to hold them at bay while a black limo surrounded by motorcycles and police cars whisked the president away.

As soon as the final out was recorded, thousands of fans rushed the field like savages.

At the same time, many of the fans that were still standing outside of the ballpark bulldozed their way into the stadium and onto the field.

It was absolute mayhem.

People were removing large clumps of the field, running on top of moving buses, and breaking windows on the media vehicles that were there to cover the series.

Several vehicles were damaged, a police car was set on fire, and one person died.

This photo captured the madness perfectly.

Officers in riot gear had to show up to the scene and clear things out.

The riot was international news, and the Tigers were World Champions.

You stay classy, Detroit.

FROM THE GALLERY

This is a dream-come-true for Phillies fans.

POV: Imagine a time machine has transported legends from all eras to the clubhouse at Citizens Bank.

It would probably look something like this.

The original work is a 14 x 4 foot classic oil painting that is proudly displayed at Citizens Bank Park Ball Stadium; It’s a clubhouse scene featuring the cream of Phillies talent from the past 125 years.

If you want to own one of the special edition prints, we got our hands on some!

And for a limited time, Dead Legends subscribers will get an exclusive $25 discount.

Just click the link below and your discount will automatically be applied at checkout.

RIDICULOUS STATS

BASEBALL TRIVIA

STRANGE NAMES

If you're just joining us, we play this game every day where we try to find the weirdest names throughout baseball history.

Why? Don't ask us, it's just something we like to do.

If you've been rocking with us for awhile now, you know what time it is.

Today's winner is:

There’s really nothing special about the name “Al Gallagher” by itself, but take a look at his full name: Alan Mitchell Edward George Patrick Henry Gallagher.

I think we can all agree… seven f**king names is way too many; it’s the equivalent of a name buffet.

You might be asking yourself… “what motivated Al’s parents do this?”

The short answer is that his parents, Joseph and Viola Gallagher, tried to have a family for eight years and had no luck.

When Viola finally had the baby, they couldn't settle on one name, so little Gallagher ended up with a mishmash of all the names they brainstormed for potential siblings, topped with a sprinkle of Dr. Mitchell, the doctor who delivered him.

Ultimately, when he made it to the big leagues, he became affectionately known in San Francisco as “Dirty Al.”

TELL ‘EM WE SENT YOU

Alright folks, this is the part of the newsletter where we shamelessly plug a few cool companies that we love.

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• The Underdog Newsletter: For people who love a comeback story. The Underdog is a weekly email that drops on Sundays. It’s totally free, and it’s written by my buddy Tyler. Always a great read!

• Homage: These guys are the kings of retro sports apparel. In my opinion, they have some of the coolest stuff out there. Of course they have loads of baseball-inspired gear, but they offer other sports too. If you’re into football, they’ve got a sweet sale on NFL Starter jackets right now.

The cool thing about all of these companies is that when you subscribe to or buy anything from them, we get a little kickback.

So by supporting them, you’re supporting us. 

THE DEAD LEGENDS ARCHIVE

If you like this story, check out some of our past favorites:

• The Astro: Don Wilson’s suspicious death

• The King & His Court: Eddie Feigner is the greatest pitcher you’ve never heard of

• The Ice Game: That one time they tried to combine baseball and ice skating in the 1860s

• The Fighter: Albert Belle isn’t in the Hall of Fame, and it’s mainly because people didn’t like him

• The Greatest Pitch Who Never Existed: How Sidd Finch became a legend without ever stepping foot on a Major League field