The Best Of Times

In honor of Fox Sports' Next Great Sportwriter contest's second round assignment for their finalists, I thought I’d take this opportunity to share my own best of sports moment. Of course, I could’ve selected Game 4 of the Lakers/Suns series this year, or even Game 7 of the Spurs/Mavericks series. Or, what about the other night’s Game 5 in the Western Conference Finals? To say that Dirk Nowitzke had a game for the ages would be an understatement. I also could have written about the strange happenings in last season’s NFL Playoffs, culminated by two incredibly poorly officiated games involving my beloved Steelers. First, it was the non-interception call in the Colts/Steelers game, then it was the Steelers themselves benefiting from some, let’s just say, questionable penalties against the Seahawks during the Super Bowl. Sure, all of the above mentioned games were incredible and worthy of a lengthy diatribe, but for me one of the best days of my competitive sports viewing life has to be the day during the 2005 regular season when USC and Notre Dame went head to head in one of college football’s most epic battles. I say this for two reasons. First, the game itself was truly amazing; everything you can ask for out of a rivalry match up all the way down to Notre Dame changing into their lucky green jerseys right before the opening kick-off. Second, how my friends and I decided to watch the game is a decision we will look back fondly on and cherish for a lifetime.

So, without further ado, the following is a blog I wrote in October of last year while reflecting back on the events that transpired during what amounted to be an incredible four and half hours of my life.

The Greatest Pub Crawl, err, Game Ever!

Our monthly pub crawl through Long Beach, California was elevated to an entirely new level this time around and set the gold standard for future crawls. Given, this was only our second official pub crawl ever but still, it was a helluva lot more fun than the inaugural crawl due in part for three reasons: I didn’t black out this time at the Dubliner; we had more participants; and we decided to coincide the crawl with the USC/Notre Dame football game. The idea was simple. Our group would hit 10 bars throughout the course of the day and we would crawl only during the game’s timeouts, commercial breaks, halftime, or ends of quarters. You have to admit, this is/was a solid plan and we carried it out pretty well.

The players on the field included SC studs like Matt Leinart, Reggie Bush, Lendale White, Dwayne Jarrett and Darnell Bing, and ND household names such as Brady Quinn, Darius Walker, Jeff Samardzija and Anthony Fasano. The third team to take the field/streets on this cool autumn day was us, the Auld Dubliner Crawlers, a.k.a. the alcoholics, who constantly strive to invent new ways to do what we do best (drink). Our team has its own legends of lore, superstars like M. Night Shamarock, Bucket O’Shea, Melikey McNasty, MILF McGillicutty, Peter O’Cool, Smilin’ Jane Ross, Cort McScrew, Drunken McAle, Red NoHaira and Boobs McGhee (I’m using our pub names to protect the identities of the innocent although none of us could actually be labeled as ‘innocent’).

The crawl got off to a bit of a slow start at our first bar, the famous Blues Café, because their televisions apparently weren’t cable ready. I mean, I could’ve gotten better reception on a handheld TV in an electrical storm, but whatever. I thought I was watching downhill skiing at one point, but later found out that we were indeed watching the SC/ND game and the teams had combined to score 21 points in the first quarter. Who would’ve known? Like I said whatever…we had our beers, set the schedule for the day and set off for round two at Wasabi’s Restaurant. Side Note: The last crawler to finish their beer at stop one was Boobs, a usually strong drinker from what I’m told but a rookie crawler coming off a drinking binge the night before that did not end until 5 AM. Hence, we cut her some slack.

Once we arrived at Wasabi, we met “Annoying Fan Guy.” You’ve all encountered this person before. The guy who cheers for his team just a bit too much, every call’s a bad call if it’s against his boys, let me shout how great we are when not warranted by a great play, etc. Annoying as hell, but it made the beers go down faster. Plus, Wasabi had flat screen plasmas, which were terrific upgrades from the turn of the 20^th Century TVs on display at Blues Café. We also met the only Notre Dame fan in the restaurant bar who, after ND’s Tom Zbikowski returned Tom Malone’s punt 60 yards for a go ahead touchdown, had to feel Irish eyes smiling down upon him because Annoying Fan Guy was throwing a hissy fit just a few barstools away. Again, Boobs was last to finish her beer, but 5 AM? We still understood. The gang wanted to proceed to Aladdin for stop three, but here’s where I invoked the first of two “Founding Father” mandates of the day. As long as the game was on, we could only visit establishments with televisions and I knew that there was no way on earth Aladdin with its hookah smoking stacks would have a television set, let alone a television set with the game on. So, off to Taco Surf we went.

The first pleasant surprise of the day occurred when the bar back at Taco Surf offered up free chips and salsa. Combine tortilla chips and salsa with beer and a ballgame and you’ve got my vote for pub stop of the month. We caught the end of the first half here, snapped some photos and left for Aladdin with the Irish up 21-14. Aladdin is where things got interesting, beginning with a discussion with our server about the origin of her appealing, Indian-sounding accent. The only problem was that it turned out her accent was a hoax. She was a college student, born and raised in, of all places, Irvine, who claimed that she picked up the accent from working at the restaurant and get this, “it naturally comes out” only when she’s at Aladdin. This, of course, led to my third “whatever” of the day. I can smell bullshit from a mile away and her story was either pure bullshit or we were being served by perhaps the stupidest person on the planet. The good news was that halftime was over and by the sound of cheers emanating from nearby bars the Trojans had just scored a touchdown to tie the game. Yep, a guy walking toward us down the street pumping his fist had just confirmed that Reggie Bush galloped 45 yards into the end zone. So, after three quarters and four beers, SC and ND are knotted at 21 and it was time for us to get off our asses and get to a bar with a TV ASAP.

New York O’Briens, a mere thirty steps across the street from Aladdin proved to be a great fifth stop. The bar was empty, the game was on, they had a $2 dollar you-call-it drink special, and the bartender was kind enough to mute the stereo and turn up the audio on the football game. Screw Taco Surf and their free chips and salsa, O’Briens just earned top honors for this month’s crawl. What made this stop even more enjoyable is the majority of us were beginning to feel the fruits of our labor and the possibility of adding shots into the mix were first discussed. I also attempted to institute a second founding father mandate here, which was unanimously voted down by all the crawlers who adamantly disagreed with my suggestion that we should hunker down here until the end of the football game.

On our walk to Alegria, we watched the crowd at Smooth’s explode as Notre Dame missed a field goal that would have made it 27-21 with about eight minutes to play. I gave the no good signal to Melikey McNasty and into Alegria we went for another beer and the first of many shots. Inside, we snacked on olives and cheese and watched Reggie Bush score his third touchdown, putting the Trojans up 28-24 with five minutes to go. Quickly, we embraced the true nature of this pub crawl and scampered to the Oyster Bar during the next time out. Here, we heard every Notre Dame fan on Pine Avenue that day celebrate Brady Quinn’s scramble into the end zone for a 31-28 lead. TWO MINUTES TO GO…WAKE UP THE ECHOES.

I drank my beer at the Oyster Bar so fast I don’t even remember holding it. Everyone was tense. Alcohol or not, this was the season and whether everyone else realized it or not, the possible end to the pub crawl because if SC lost I would have been home and in bed faster than they could have cleared the ND fans from the field after storming it. First down, second down, third down, oh my God it’s fourth and nine. With the season on the line, my last beer halfway up my throat, Matt Leinart audibles at the line of scrimmage, throws a go route to Dwayne Jarrett who not only catches the ball for a game saving first down but rumbles 60-plus yards down the sideline to the ND 13-yard line. Bedlam at the Oyster Bar! Bedlam on Pine! Less than a minute left, SC in game-tying field goal range, greatest game ever unfolding and I’m drunk. As Harry Cary would have famously said if in a similar situation, “Holy Cow!” Quick, somebody grab me a beer. No wait, Leinart just got stopped on the goal line and the clocks running out. What’s going on? Fans are storming the field, Charlie Weiss just dropped his headset, Pete Carroll is waving his arms. Somebody grab me a barbecue skewer so I can stab myself in the throat.

What a final minute!!! One of the best and worst 60 seconds of my life!

Turns out Leinart had the ball knocked lose and it flung out of bounds. SC’s got another play. Seven seconds left. Spike the ball and kick the field goal, or punch it in. Quarterback keeper…he’s in, he’s not in, no he’s in. No, no, HE’S PUSHED IN!

TOUCHDOWN USC!!! I’m hugging people, kissing them in the ear, unbelievable. We pour out onto Pine Avenue with many other SC fans and make our way to Smooth’s, the hip new bar on Pine with thirty-something plasma TVs, swank drinks and pretty decent food. The only problem is the owner there is an arrogant asshole and we’re all drunk. This has the makings of a bad scene. Little surprise, the Crawlers did our best to bring the ass out of the asshole owner. More specifically, Cort McScrew pulling a Tara Reid was what led to our being escorted out of the bar before we could polish off our ninth beers of the day. McScrew’s feeble attempt to toss raspberries into Red NoHaira’s mouth was a game the aforementioned asshole owner was not willing to play and once McScrew got the boot and I delivered some choice words on her behalf we hit the road Jack, and haven’t been back…since.

So, onward we went to the mecca of all pubs, our final and really only cherished destination of the day, the friendliest of friendly watering holes, the one place where jolly drunks are welcomed with open arms, the Auld Dubliner. Here, we proceeded to get extremely saucy, but in a good, raspberry truffle saucy kind of way.

We put McScrew’s “Taradise-like” antics behind us, ordered shots after shots, beers after beers, partied till the break of dawn, and had a blast without any further “incidents.” So, in the end, the final statistics looked something like this:

USC 34 Notre Dame 31

Lienart 17/32 for 301 yards

Quinn 19/35 for 264 yards

Bush 15 carries for 160 yards and 3 touchdowns

Samardzija 6 receptions for 101 yards and 1 touchdown

Crawlers 10 Pine Avenue Bars 1 (Smooth’s got the best of us)

125 Beers: $500

85 Shots: $425

9 Martinis: $54

8 Car Bombs: $64

The greatest pub crawl, err, game ever: Priceless!