Looking to squeeze some more sales out of shorter games this year, some MLB teams are serving alcohol until the end of the eighth inning this season — as opposed to the decadeslong standard of the seventh.
New rules this season, including a pitch clock that hurries the pace, have made games about 30 minutes faster than last season. To give fans more time to buy alcoholic beverages, several MLB teams have altered their alcohol policy to allow fans to drink longer.
For the Orioles, however, no change was made: The Orioles had already been selling alcohol until the end of the eighth inning.
It’s unclear exactly how long that has been the case, but an Orioles spokesperson confirmed that the team’s policy this season is consistent with last year’s. A 2020 academic study noted the Orioles were one of the few teams to allow alcohol sales until the eighth inning, and Clarence “Fancy Clancy” Haskett, a celebrity beer vendor who has worked Orioles games for nearly 50 years, said the eighth-inning policy has been the standard for decades.
Vendors, like Haskett, who serve patrons in their seats, must stop selling beer after the seventh inning, he said, but concession stands on the concourse can remain open until the end of the eighth.
“The sale of alcohol at concession stands will be terminated at the end of the 8th inning, or three and a half hours after the scheduled first pitch, whichever comes first,” the Orioles’ website reads.
MLB games are about 15% shorter this season, which means there is less time for clubs to profit from concession sales. Teams do share revenue with the rest of the league, but about half of revenue generated (including food and beer sales) remains with the team that made the sale.
At least seven MLB teams are now serving alcohol in some capacity until the eighth inning. The Arizona Diamondbacks, Texas Rangers, Minnesota Twins and Milwaukee Brewers have all extended their alcohol sales this year, according to The Associated Press, and the Houston Astros are now permitting some alcohol sales through the end of the game. The Detroit Tigers, like the Orioles, allowed sales until the eighth inning before this season.
Alcohol sales at MLB games used to have no cutoff, but by the 1980s, policies varied. Some teams had few limitations; others stopped serving alcohol in the seventh inning. The Tigers carried only low-alcohol beer, while the Montreal Expos sold beer until an hour after a game concluded.
In July 1985, the Orioles banned fans from bringing coolers into games at Memorial Stadium and prohibited “many” vendors from selling beer after the seventh inning “to cut down on drunken behavior,” The Sun reported. Soon, all MLB teams had adopted similar practices of stopping the sale of suds before the game’s final pitch to limit crime and drunken driving.
This year, many fans have celebrated the freedom to purchase alcohol later into games, while others have expressed concerns.
Two University of Pennsylvania professors examined Philadelphia Phillies games in a 2020 study — titled “Sobering Up After The Seventh Inning: Alcohol and Crime Around the Ballpark” — that found when there are extra innings (meaning more time between alcohol sales stopping and the game’s conclusion), crime, including assaults, “declines significantly around the stadium.” When alcohol is served closer to the game’s end (due to speedy eighth and ninth innings, for example), there is an increase in crimes.
John M. MacDonald, who received his doctorate in criminology from the University of Maryland, is one of the professors who conducted the study. He said that intoxicated individuals are more likely to commit crimes — like getting into a fight while leaving a crowded ballpark — and also to be the victim of a crime, like a robbery.
“I think there’s a good chance that it’s going to increase assaults,” he said Tuesday of some MLB teams extending alcohol sales, “and there’s also a good chance that it’s going to increase the number of just impaired people coming back onto the streets after games or getting into their cars and driving home.”
MacDonald said that because of shorter innings, teams could, instead, end alcohol sales after the fifth inning. Phillies pitcher Matt Strahm shared a similar idea last week.
“The reason we stopped [selling alcohol in] the seventh before was to give our fans time to sober up and drive home safe, correct?” Strahm said on the “Baseball Isn’t Boring” podcast. “So now with a faster-paced game — and me just being a man of common sense — if the game is going to finish quicker, would we not move the beer sales back to the sixth inning to give our fans time to sober up and drive home?”
Stacey D. Stewart, CEO of Mothers Against Drunk Driving, tweeted recently that if fans choose to drink until the eighth inning, they should just not drive. “Make a plan,” she posted.
Shorter games could also mean less time for fans to get intoxicated. Haskett, the beer vendor, said he’s serving the same customers less frequently now than he was in previous years, simply because the games are quicker. That means less time for drinking.
“You gotta look at it,” he said. “How many beers are you going to drink in two hours?”
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