The Sporting Life

Awhile back, the Night Ranger ran a contest asking readers to send in their most sordid or weird sports experiences under the influence (“Personal Fouls,” November 6). As we enter one of the greatest months of the year — the NFL playoffs and the Super Bowl — what better time to reveal the winners? We gathered a panel of research assistants, soaked them with beer and gave them the anonymous entries. We laughed, we cried and we learned many random factoids that will serve us well at future sporting events.

Lesson 1: It’s not Eagles Court, but Arrowhead does have a jail.

“Einstein” went to a Wizards game after an all-night drinkfest that ended with a 6:30 a.m. trip to D.B. Cooper’s. Still feeling “otherworldly,” he decided to rush the field during a rain delay.

“It was a short drop over the barrier and down to the field. Once out there, I wasn’t really sure what to do. I turned toward the closest goal, jogged to it, juked a little like there was still a goalie in it and scored an imaginary point in the upper-left corner.” Turning back to center field, Einstein noticed five “goons” coming after him. “I tried to pantomime to them that I was sorry, was perfectly happy to just head back up to my seat, no worries. But they were clearly intent on not letting that happen, so instead I ran toward them….

“I met the first guy at right about the center circle. I had been out there long enough to get a sense of the footing so that, when I juked a little, he went down, hard, his hands grasping for me. That was the first time I noticed that there were 5,000 people watching me, as they all cheered. I felt like a superhero. They made a different sound — one of those oooo sounds you make when you see a player get hit in the nuts — when the second guy reached me and leveled me with his shoulder.”

Einstein did three hours in “Arrowhead Penitentiary,” which he describes as “a concrete box the size of a studio apartment’s kitchen,” before being transported to the county jail. “There were no other inmates but the prostitute in the next cell,” he writes. When his friends arrived to spring him, they all went out for more beers.

Which brings us to Lesson 2: Avoid the bowels of Arrowhead. So says Contestant No. 2 (who wanted to be known as “Uncle Ricky”), who went to a Chiefs-Steelers playoff game in 1993. Suffering from a cold and highly medicated, he had sworn off alcohol for the day — that is, until Bloody Marys were foisted upon him during the limo ride to the game.

“So here I was at the Chiefs game, pretty much liquored up by that time with … my arm around this cute chick. Could life get any better? Well, I was quickly brought back to reality when the guy standing on the other side of the cute chick turned and said, ‘Hey, buddy! That’s my wife!’ I apologized, and he didn’t seem too concerned. He thanked me for the beer and passed me a bottle of Fire Water-brand cinnamon schnapps he had slipped in past the ticket takers.”

After more Bloody Marys, beer and schnapps, Uncle Ricky went to the men’s room. “It was cold that day, and I was pretty wrapped-up, with no less than four layers of clothes. When I reached the men’s room, they had the heaters blowing full blast; it must have been 90 degrees inside there! The mixture of the medicine, alcohol and heat finally caught up with me, and I passed out at the door.” Uncle Ricky remembers that someone slapped his face and told him to snap out of it. The concerned witness took his wallet and ticket, found his seat and told his friends he’d passed out in the men’s room.

Meanwhile, Uncle Ricky writes, “I must have gotten up and decided to find my own way home. I was found leaning against a chain-link fence on the opposite side of the stadium (where we had come in). I have no idea how I made it there, but I remember the cold air blowing in from outside the stadium felt good.

“I’d like to give a shout out to the folks in fan safety who came and got me and called my parents. I was laid out on a hospital bed in the bowels of Arrowhead until my dad got there. They wheeled me out to where Dad had parked, on the sidewalk next to the gate, and dad threw my ass in the back, where I rolled around in all the pain one feels when they are ‘sloppy, pass-out drunk.’ Nothing would stop spinning. My mom decided I needed something to eat, and she brought me a bowl of chili…. I think it took all of ten minutes for that to come back up. I suffered the rest of the night.”

Interestingly, he ran into the cute chick at a bar a few years later. “She was now divorced, and we went out a few times. She remembered me from that incident. So the headache and pain actually paid off in the end!”

Then, there’s Lesson 3: It’s hard to get vomit off a car windshield.

In the late ’80s, “Dave” tended bar in Lawrence. “It was a good-time college bar with lousy, greasy Mexican food. The staff at el restaurant were well-known partiers. The trip to the Royals opener that year started the night before, with us closing the bar early but hanging around to soak up the (ahem) free late-night ‘atmosphere’ food and comped booze until the wee hours.”

As Dave notes, Interstate 70 from Lawrence to Kansas City is a straight shot, not particularly bumpy or swervy, but his friend Rob seemed to be having a hard time. At one point, Dave’s van was cruising alongside a couple in their sixties. “Both were neatly attired in full Royals garb — hats, jackets, pennants and the obligatory girl pom-poms. They enjoyed riding sidecar for a while waving at ‘those wacky college kids,’ smiling and honking and screaming, ‘Go, Royals!’ They enjoyed our drunken team support so much that they failed to notice a wild-eyed Rob race to the front window turning a greener shade of pale as he convulsively swallowed. They DID notice the Linda Blair mass of tequila, beer, free chips and a gallon of half-digested salsa as it WHACKED across their windshield, obscuring their view.

“The sound was incredible! Gramps slammed on the brakes, and we had a fleeting glimpse of what postdigested food looks like as a windshield wiper smears it back and forth in a futile attempt to scrape it away. … Later, Gramps and Gran flew past the van, both staring stone-faced ahead.”

After much deliberation, the research assistants decided that entry No. 1 was the winner, which stood out because of its lack of vomit. “There is just something so innocent in the way he headed down to the field while everyone else headed for cover. I also liked the detail of his imaginary goal and the self-congratulations on the way he juked one security guard into falling,” RA Kendrick said. “Also, it’s soccer. And soccer is cool.”

Congratulations, Einstein. You win a $50 gift certificate to Minsky’s. Thanks to everyone who entered, and keep up the drunken antics in 2004!