Sunday, May 23, 2010

May = Sports Bar Madness

We are in Boston and it is the NBA playoff which means you can easily be sucked into watching games just so you can say you’re following it and because you think that Rajon Rondo is cute. So for this month’s blog Rachel and I decided to try a sports bar near the Boston Garden so we could watch the game and try a new genre of going-out locations. We choose the Sports Grille Boston which is spitting distance to the Garden and was advertised to have TVs on every surface of the bar. Now Rachel and I were a little hesitant to go on this adventure because as much as I enjoy watching the Celtics, Boston sports fans can be a bit aggressive and I may even go as far as to say obnoxious.

Relaxing in the back yard before the big night out

Case in point as we were riding the T to our location we were on the same car as a group of young men who were pre-gaming with water bottles full of Vodka chased by their choice of OJ or red gatorade. They were loudly and excitedly talking about what they hoped would happen during the game like a little kid talks about what they hope they will get on Christmas morning. Then a guy wearing an L.A. Lakers jersey boarded the train. The group of young men told him to take it off and proceeded to grill the guy on how much better Boston is. Luckily the other guy handled it well and kept is cool but Rachel and I were nervous about the rest of our evening. We arrived safely at the venue and true to the Yelp review there were TVs all over the place. There were TVs circling the inside and outside of the bar, TVs at each booth and all over the walls. So we were able to get a good angle on the game. We ordered a pitcher of beer which seemed like the most economical way to go as beers came out to about $4 each and it was good beer. They also had Bud-light beer buckets which seemed a little weird because there were only 4 beers in a bucket and it still cost over $14. We got there a bit before the game started so we were able to pick our location at the bar but it was good we got there early because it did fill up quickly.



Sports Grille Boston
Yup, there is no mistaking this is a sports bar...


On Rachel’s side we had a gentleman that I called “Hostel Guy” because he was by himself at the bar, carrying around a backpack and looked like the type to stay in Boston’s only hostel. He stared at Rachel a lot but only talked to her to ask her to keep an eye on his back-pack while he went to the bathroom. On my side there was a big group of bro-ish kind of guys. The kind who wear sports jerseys and their ball caps backwards and they look like they only work out the top parts of their bodies because they have huge arms but not much of anything else. They were drinking lots of Bud-Light beer buckets and shots. As the night went on they got louder and louder. Towards the end of the evening they were trying to get one of their friends to talk to us but they were not being very subtle about it, in fact they were yelling right in my ear about it. I pointed out to one man that he was yelling right in my ear. Then a few minutes later I heard the gentleman saying that I “hated them”. So I turned around and apologized. That got a conversation going which included talking about our jobs and their lack of employment. One guy asked if I dated my students and another guy kept asking me if I thought his friend was cute. Unfortunately I didn’t think he was cute and in order to deflect the comments I turned to Rachel to repeat their question. So the guys said, “What is she, your life-coach or something?” Little did they know… Rachel is close to being my life coach.

The game ended soon after our banter with the bros and so we decided to leave. (BTW the Celtics blew the Magic out of the water, so there was lots of clapping and screaming.) As we left we became part of the huge mass of people leaving the Garden so it kind of felt like we really had been at the game! Overall I would say that the Sports Grille Boston did its job well by giving us a great place to view the game on many TVs, well-priced beer, and plenty of bros to interact with. I would go back to watch a sports game but not to pick up guys!

Oh and this is what happens when you try to take a picture using the self-timer feature on the camera…. Jen gets a little too excited and looses coordination.