2012 WAIW Pub Crawl: The Aftermath

It seems like ages ago when I posted about attending the 4th Annual Wasting Away in Wrigleyville Pub Crawl. I had promised that I would video document the event and then publish my footage of each bar stop back here at the Saloon.

Well I've got good news and bad news.

First, the bad news. It turns out, that the first handful of bars provided nothing real interesting.  Unless you enjoy watching relatively sober people quickly chug a beer before heading to the next bar.  So I pretty much scrapped any ideas of posting that footage because it's pretty terrible and worthless.

Now the good news.  I did eventually get some footage that's pure gold.  Apparently shit doesn't start getting crazy enough until after the 8th inning.  That footage, my dear readers, you will get to see.

So here's a basic bar-by-bar recap of what transpired, with the few amazing video clips I got added in.

Pre-Crawl: Lucky's Sandwich Shop
Standard meeting place every year.  The plan is to fill up on one of their giant sandwiches to give yourself a solid base before the marathon of boozery begins. This may draw the ire of some folks, but can I just say, on the whole I find Lucky's sandwiches to be woefully overrated. Are they decent? Yes. But holy shit, can we take a knee with the fries and cole slaw on top? They make up 75% of the god damn sandwich.  I'll happily take both items as sides with my normal sized sandwich thank you. It's disappointing when several bites turn out to be nothing but a french fry and cole slaw sandwich.

1st Inning: Blarney Stone ...aw shit, um Rebel, I guess
Classic Pub Crawl moment. It never fails that at least one bar won't be open for us when we get there. Rebel turned out to be a decent Plan B mainly for its proximity.  I drank a Bud Light then I left.  That's about all I can say here.

2nd Inning: The Stretch
Always a nice place with good staff. I avoided the wait for a beer and instead bought one from WAIW's Steve's bucket. Fellow TMS Bartender White Chili retells us his story about the time he stole someone's birthday cake from this place.

...on the way to Merkle's, WAIW John (aka Muldoon) offers some solid advice.



(This is the only worthwhile thing I filmed for 8 innings)

3rd Inning: Merkle's
Oh Merkle's. Home to so many terrible drunk moments I either don't or rather choose not to remember. After drinking two pee water Bud Lights I was ready to strap on a real beer so I went with the Dogfish Head 60 Minute IPA. It was nice to finally have a beer that tasted like something. Not much else happened. They have Colonel Sanders statue at the entrance.  I have no idea why.

4th Inning: Mullen's
Got an Old Style here.  Spent a good chunk of time talking with Corey from Ivy Envy about how to podcast. Most of this conversation has now been lost in a booze-induced fog.  I think you gotta record some shit and then put it on the web and... damn. I need to talk to Corey when I'm not drinking.

5th Inning: Sluggers
Like a dumb kid, every time I forego any beer and immediately run upstairs to the batting cages, where I then flail wildly at pitches and see how fast I can give myself blisters from the shitty bats with no gripping on them.

6th Inning: Captain Morgan Club, -wait, seriously? What's that? The Dugout is actually open? The day is saved!
In a strange twist of irony the Captain Morgan Club was close yet The Dugout was open.  We must've gotten lucky and got there during one of the 4 hours a week they're open.  Two years ago The Dugout was supposed to be a 7th inning stop but wound up being closed, therefore we spent an extra inning at Captain Morgan's instead.

7th Inning: Sports Corner
I never went to the old Sports Corner but the new incarnation is quite nice looking.  Drank some High Life and played foosball. A few folks learned two things by being my teammate. 1) I'm fucking terrible at foosball. 2) I'll cheat like a motherfucker. I'm honestly kind of surprised I've never been punched while playing.

8th Inning: Murphy's
OK, now things start taking a turn.  And the one firmly grabbing the wheel and veering us towards certain doom, is our good friend Malört. I do believe I had two shots of the stuff while there. Possibly three? It's not that important. What is important is that said Malört consumption then led to this.



After touching the Wrigley Field wall (and Mr. Funk apparently making out with it?), I decide to sprint like a drunken ass down the sidewalk to some folks up ahead. One of which, is our good friend, Mr. John Carruthers. As you can hear in the video as I reach them, John shouts "KARATE KICK!" followed by an audible "thunk" sound and then me making a grunting sound.  The "thunk" would be John's foot landing squarely in my stomach.  It knocked the wind out of me and I completely biffed on the sidewalk. Impressively though, I maneuvered to protect my iPhone. Aside from a few scrapes I was fine, and once I was able to breathe again I couldn't stop laughing.

9th Inning: Bernie's
We made it! Mostly unscathed. Once I got a beer and sat down I was able to have a word with John asking him to explain what just happened.



Cool story bro!

A little bit later I got some classic footage of a Pub Crawler passed out at the bar.



Post-Crawl: Gingerman
Ah yes. The official bar of Thunder Matt's Saloon. Had some PBR, did some more shots of Malört, and tried to make friends with an old Puerto Rican dude who was a marine in 'Nam. Pretty sure he was ready to stab me when I left. Oh, and I also made this disturbing discovery. Let me also say that I was pretty much shit-rocked at this point.



Thankfully I wound up not having AIDS. Mr. Funk and I later adjourned and went to the Double Door that night where we saw Electric Six, who managed to render me deaf for at least two days after.

And that's it.  Fun times had by all. Oh and the Cubs lost the game too. I guess we were following that supposedly.  I can't wait for next year's pub crawl. Hopefully I remember to not go in to John's dojo, WHERE KICK, MEETS CHEST!!!

Cubs of Yore: David Patton

Ron Weasley: Nervous pitcher

Name: David Christopher Patton

Nicknames: Powder, O-Face, Jake's Stunt Double

Media Guide Year: 2009

Acquired: From the Reds for cash considerations the same day they picked him up in the Rule V draft in 2008. JIM HENDRY: DEALMAKER

Random Write-Up: David Patton was a Rule V guy who had an impressive Spring Training once upon a time. The Cubs, one playoff collapse removed from being perhaps the best team in baseball, were slated to contend for the pennant. It follows, then, that they would spend the majority of the year keeping a roster spot for a guy who had gone 4-5 in for the single-A Modesto Nuts the previous season. Right? Congratulations, you're Jim Hendry!

It became apparent fairly soon that the man was as overmatched as he was hairless, culminating in a Saturday relief appearance against the Cardinals in May 2009 that was so cartoonishly brutal it should have been the first act of an underdog Disney baseball movie. Subbing in for Sean Marshall with the Cubs down 3-1 against the hated rivals in St. Louis, our man gave up a single and proceeded to walk the bases full for Albert Pujols, who has been known to do some clutch hitting in his time. With the bases loaded and the meth-mouthed rabble of Busch stadium as far toward the edge of their seats as their fat fucking asses will allow, Mr. Patton throws a fastball down the middle to the best hitter in baseball. Game. Fucking. Over. Final score 8-2, Cards.

In 27.2 relief innings that year, the man we had to hang on to, lest he be scooped by an enterprising rival, managed a 1.807 WHIP and an ERA north of 6. He got "injured" and placed on the DL after the deadline had passed for the Cubs to hang on to him. Jim Hendry was said to have been seen tenting his fingers and laughing at a plate of chicken nachos later that evening. He need not have bothered. One crappy season in Daytona later, he was cut loose for good. He presumably wanders the central plains now, righting wrongs and teaching Mormon women about kung-fu love.

At least he got a cool $400,000 for his trouble, and a minor spot in the Cubs team history. Better than I can say. Of course, I never had Albert Pujols crush my soul either.

Also of Note: Over a thousand people have watched this video of him throwing a routine bullpen session in 2009. This makes me far more depressed and disappointed in the Internet than all but the darkest German scat porn found in the dank FTP basements of the web's underbelly. 

Dear Mr. LaHair, Apology Rescinded!

You son of a bitch! I put my guard down, admitted fault and tried to make amends and this is how you respond?

Stats before my apology: .384 AVG, 8 HR, 18 RBI, .476 OBP in 28 games

Stats since my apology: .200 AVG, 2 HR, 4 RBI, .279 OBP in 16 games

You're back on my shit list!

Cubs of Yore: Milton Bradley

Name: Milton Obelle Bradley

Nicknames: Admiral Fuckstick, Ol' Shit-Ass, Dickbag, Dr. Blumpkin, Milty

Media Guide Year: 2009

Position: RF

Acquired: Signed to a 3 year/$30M contract that greatly helped Jim Hendry's reputation drop straight into  the toilet.

Random Write-Up: Remember riding high the day Ted Lilly and the Cubs beat the Cardinals on a beautiful day at Wrigley to clinch the division in 2008? Say what you will about playoff collapses, but this is where the wheels really fell off. Even coming off an All Star season and a .321 average, there was a pervasive feeling that this was NOT going to end well. I'm not saying that we needed to keep Mark DeRosa and Kerry Wood around with that money, but I am saying that he eventual blowup wouldn't have been nearly as bad, nor as tinged with accusations of racism. 2009 was the fucking Challenger of the modern-era Cubs.

After his prolonged slump to begin the season, Milton Bradley decided that the reason he wasn't performing was because of pervasive racism in the Cubs fan base. Incredibly, Steve Rosenbloom, Alpha-Douche of the Chicago Media, decided this was his pot to stir, and proceeded to do so in the shittiest manner possible, bringing up names like Dusty Baker and Juan Pierre in the process. Now I've never heard the N-word at Wrigley, but I've only been to 100-something games, so maybe small sample size. The insane part isn't that Bradley threw that card, it's that the media, and to an extent the fans allowed themselves to be sucked into his bipolar whirlpool for the better part of two weeks.

So he left under circumstances that left him envying Todd Hundley, got arrested again on domestic violence charges, and we were left to ponder whether we were really turning a blind eye to racism or whether we perhaps put too much trust in a sniveling little faux-Mariotti and a man who inspired the TMZ headline "Ex-Dodger Bradley: I Never Threatened to Kill My Wife."

I'm not saying that the Chicago sports media is reactionary and easily manipulated. I'm just saying that they put a lot of stock in the word of a man whose wife accused him of swinging a bat at her. His failure to make contact just backs her story up even more. Perhaps there's a lesson to be learned among all this humorous head-shaking at the 2009 disaster.

Also of Note: Was responsible for most baseball fans learning the term "Restricted List," which really paved the way for all the whackadoo nutbags of today to grab an extra headline while their lives spiral out of control.

I Tried To Erase An Imaginary Curse by Walking With Goats And All I Got Was This Lousy Goat Curry

There's a reason Cub fans are the laughingstock of baseball.  It's stunts like this that send other teams' fans into hysterics.  Look, it's great that they're raising money for cancer.  It's nice that they're getting some exercise.  The fact remains that these boobs are walking across the country because they believe that a man and his goat caused the 103 year old pennant drought on the North Side of Chicago.

Be it Bartman or the goat, I am so tired of Cub fans giving legitimacy to this crap.  Blowing up the Bartman ball, goat carcasses left on the Harry Carey statue, rain dances in the outfield; nothing will change the fact that the Cubs' only curse has been a procession of bad baseball teams peppered with some bad luck whenever we do actually get a team that's worth a shit.

Other franchises have gone through long stretches of mediocrity.  Look at Pittsburgh and Kansas City.  Are their fans blaming the fucking supernatural?  No.  Is the answer walking across the country with a farm animal?  Again no.  The Cubs' time is gonna come, provided the owners continue to make building a winning franchise a priority.  The worm will turn, folks.  The Red Sox broke their championship "curse" not by making absurd pilgrimages or by desecrating Babe Ruth's grave, but by making smart baseball decisions.  The Cubs can do the same.

In the meantime, please stop making it even more embarrassing to be a Cub fan.

Regression Song: Chicago Cubs

This is Garza's impression of what the Astros did to him last night.

Well...shit.

Things don't seem to be going well for the Cubs lately. The Sox came in and swept the first interleague series of the year. Garza got shelled last night. Dempster's looked pretty average lately. LaHair is doing his best impression of Alicia Keys' first single ('Falling'? Anyone remember? God, you stupid kids these days don't appreciate the classics...).

But as any gambler will tell you, just because a prostitute on the Vegas strip has a deep voice and a pronounced Adam's Apple doesn't necessarily mean it's a dude, and on a lonely night when you're down $20K, a mouth is still a mouth.

Wait, what? Hang on. I lost my train of thought there. Let me try that sentence again.

But as any gambler will tell you, luck can come in streaks and turn at any time. Take a look a Dempster last season. In six April starts, his ERA was a whopping 9.58. But if you looked at his underlying stats (BABIP, K/9, etc), mathematically he should have had a much lower ERA. In other words, his terrible April had a lot to do with bad luck. Baseball stat nerds knew he was going to turn things around eventually, and he did, posting a much improved 3.94 ERA the rest of the way.

Now some players can ride a good luck streak for an entire season sometimes. Remember Esteban Loaiza? If you played fantasy baseball in 2003 you do. From 1995 to 2002, Loaiza had a career ERA of 4.88. Out of nowhere, he goes 21-9 with a 2.90 ERA and obliterates his career bests in ERA, strikeouts, WHIP...pretty much everything. After 2003? He goes right back to being awful again for the final five seasons of his career.

That's just a rare case. Luck doesn't usually run one way or another for an entire season, as the Cubs are beginning to see.

I'm not saying that Garza, Dempster and LaHair aren't good players. But they were all performing way over their heads. Going into last night, Garza was carrying an ERA of 2.58 when really, he's about a 3.20 - 3.70 ERA pitcher. After last night's molestation at the hands of the Astros, that's exactly where he is now (3.72 ERA). Even after 2 shaky outings, Dempster's ERA is at a cool 2.28. Expect that to end up closer to 4.00 than 3.00 by the time the All-Star break comes around. And LaHair? Well he's certainly no top-10 player. If he can keep his walks up, he'll be solid, but anything more than 25 home runs and a .260 average would shock me.

The saddest thing about all this regression hitting at once? Three of the Cubs best players were getting extremely lucky on the field so far this season, and they're still a last place team 12 games under .500.

Bust out the Malört, gents. It's going to be a long year.

War Hero: Kerry Wood

Expect to see this picture 4,000 times this weekend.

One of my favorite baseball players of all time retired today. Kerry Wood is done suiting up in his familiar blue pinstripes and will announce his retirement this afternoon. With an ERA north of 8.00 and struggling with health already, he probably knew that it was time. While I would have loved to see him pitch one last inning in front of the home crowd this weekend (especially against the Sox), I think #34 has given us our fair share of memories over the years.

You're going to see a lot of articles written about Wood over the next few days. Links to video of the 20 strikeout game. Talk about the incredible (and sometimes improbable) playoff pushes Kerry was a huge part of. Since all of these things will be covered ad nauseum by bigger and better blogs, I'd like to take the time to point out some of my personal favorite Kerry Wood memories.

• During a crosstown game in 2003 (I think), Kerry was pitching at US Cellular and Paul Konerko was standing in. Wood threw him a slider, and Konerko dropped practically to his knees because it looked to be on a direct path to his head. Only after he had already bailed out did the pitch break down at a Bugs Bunny-esque angle and settle in for a strike. It was one of the single nastiest pitches I've ever seen, which was a microcosm of Kerry's ability when healthy and dealing in his prime. And it didn't hurt that it made a Sox player look foolish.
• I was as crushed as any other Cubs fan when Wood lost Game 7 in 2003 to the Marlins. But the fact that he stood up and took 100% responsibility for the loss really showed how much of a gamer Kerry was. He wanted the ball in the biggest moments in the biggest games. Sometimes I think that with his mentality, Kerry Wood could have been one of the best closers of all time had he only focused on relief pitching from day 1. It might have led to less injuries.
• What really made me love Wood was that in 2008, we had to basically push him out the door to leave the Cubs. Hendry told him we couldn't pay him even close to market value and he didn't want to insult him with a lowball offer. Kerry said he didn't care. I really wanted him to sign back with the Cubs on whatever offer they could afford, but I think the player's union would have had a shit fit if a $10 million a year player signed for 20% of that.

On the "Former and Current Cubs I'd Love to Get a Beer With" list, Kerry is right near the top with Mark Grace and Kyle Farnsworth (you know that guy would start some shit worth seeing every time he goes out drinking). I'm assuming Wood will get some kind of front office or coaching gig with the Cubs, so it's not like he'll be gone forever. He was tough as nails, didn't talk any bullshit and did his job well. I don't think we could have asked for more from Wood in his time in Chicago.

Adios, 34.

(Side note: If you really want to read a good summary of Kerry Wood's awesomeness, get Three Nights In August, one of the better recent books on baseball. Lots of good Wood stuff in there.)

Cubs of Yore: Jose Macias

As a legitimate blogger who posts nearly weekly, I've made it a habit during my adult life to pick up a crisp, new Official Chicago Cubs Media Guide at the beginning of every year. No, I don't know why either. But now I find myself with a stack of these, and thus am able to throw myself down the rabbit hole of the Cubs careers that never were.

Name: Jose Prado Salazar Macias

Nickname(s): Joze Mackey, Now Pinch-Hitting, That Guy - What's His Name I Can Never Remember

Media Guide Year: 2004

Position: 3B/OF

Acquired: Traded from Montreal for Wilton Chavez, who has pitched for 14 different minor league teams, if you count the Mexican League.

Random Write-Up: Born in Panama City, Panama, a hardscrabble metropolis notable mostly for its vicious dancefighting culture.

Signed in 1992 by Montreal, which used to be a franchise that existed. Not many people saw them, though. Played in Montreal's minor league system from 1994 until 1997, when he was went to Detroit as a Rule 5 draft. Finally made the majors in 1999, where he was a lifetime .256 switch hitter with 26 home runs and 173 RBI. Came to the Cubs in 2004 and played two years as "that guy," then went to the Nippon-Hokkaido Ham Fighters, and the Diablo Rojos of the Mexican League a couple years after that.

Notice anything? Bland. He's perhaps the blandest of the mid-2000s Cubs, which is saying something. He makes Daryle Ward look like Mark Grace in terms of charisma. If he were white, I'd call him Whitebread, but I'll stay away from baking terms, as Brownbread sounds pretty racist.

Also of Note: He was at Wrigley on June 6, 2004, helping Greg Maddux win his 5th game of that year, back when we were a trendy World Series pick and LaTroy Hawkins was a name that people on the North Side hadn't yet begun to despise. It was also the first game at Wrigley where I enjoyed a wax paper cup of Old Style. I ... may or may not have been 20 years old at the time. It's where I got this media guide I inexplicably hang on to!

You May Remember Him From: You won't remember Jose Macias. But you all remember the concept of Jose Macias in your Cubs fan hearts.