By Gwyneth Gibby
Gazette-Times reporter | Posted: Monday, June 25, 2007 12:00 am
It's a few minutes before 4 p.m. Sunday, and Clodfelter's is already full. The atmosphere is festive but tense. Jeff Costello, Andy Peil and Gali Galeon sit at a table with a pitcher of beer.
"We're going to kill 'em," Costello says.
The three drove down from Portland to watch the College World Series in Corvallis. It's not that Portland doesn't have any sports bars, but the three wanted to be in the heart of Beaver Nation to watch what proves to be the decisive game of the series.
Costello is from Boston, but he and his pals all spent two years at Oregon State University studying pharmacology in graduate school. Now they're at Oregon Health Sciences University for their final year. Except for this weekend.
"I bleed black and orange," Costello says. "My parents are watching the game on Martha's Vineyard."
Ooooooooh! rumbles through the bar. North Carolina has scored the first run of the game. Costello says he can't chat anymore.
"I've got to concentrate on the game," he says.
The team needs him.
When Darwin Barney hits a home run in the top of the second inning, Clodfelter's explodes. Outside, you can hear the cheers a block away - followed by derisive hoots when North Carolina sends a new pitcher into the game.
Nearby, McMenamin's is subdued by comparison. A huge TV screen is one wall. The tables are full and all eyes are turned to the game. But there's no cheering or booing. Not yet, anyway. The second inning ends with no more runs from UNC.
It's 5:10 p.m. Too early for a big crowd at Tailgater's. A dozen or so patrons scatter themselves across the large space. North Carolina scores again, but it doesn't draw a murmur from anyone. When a Beaver defender catches a pop fly, there is a polite golf clap.
In fact, it's so calm, Lisa Cassidy takes the opportunity to nurse her 3-month-old daughter, Juliet, under a blanket. Juliet doesn't make a peep. Cassidy describes herself as a "Beaver-in-law." Husband Adam Crateau and his brother Nate say they watched Saturday's game from a campsite near Sisters.
"We were out there for our annual man-fest," Nate says.
Nine guys and a satellite dish. And the Beavers playing in another World Series. The guys were not subdued during that game.
"Oh yeah," Nate says. "There's no holds barred in the woods."
By the bottom of the fifth, it's a two-run game. The somewhat older crowd at Tommy's 4th Street Bar & Grill downtown seems tense. A few couples play the lottery machines. There's scattered applause at a good catch. But no one is celebrating yet.
"We get out of this inning with a two-run lead," says Jim Williams, of Corvallis, "we'll win the World Series."
Hearing that Clodfelter's is somewhat rowdier than Tommy's, Williams says, "They're drunker," and chuckles.
Williams sits with Loren and Laurie Solum. Laurie works at OSU as associate director of housing and dining. Loren was a baseball coach at OSU for 11 years back in the 1960s.
He thinks the team is great. So does Williams.
"They're tough-minded," he says.
Laurie's bright orange sweater speaks for her.
By the end of the seventh inning, with OSU up by four runs, Tommy's has lost its anxiety and the cheers ring out. Williams and Laurie are on their feet trading high fives.
"Want a quote?" Williams asks.
Sure, why not.
"Dynasty," he says with relish.
Loren chuckles.
"Small dynasty," he says.
Clodfelter's was full at 4 p.m. Now it's 7:15 p.m., and the place is overflowing. The crowd can taste victory. Costello, Peil and Galeon are on their feet in the center of the crowd. A tall man with salt-and-pepper hair wears a radio headset and watches the TV simultaneously.
Gary Evans, Clodfelter's manager, says Sunday afternoons are usually laid-back with people out for a burger and a beer. But he loves this. And the weather in Corvallis is about 20 degrees cooler than it was during last year's climactic game.
"Ball four," says the man wearing the radio set, a beat before the crowd erupts.
"Radio is four seconds ahead of TV," Evans explains.
By this time, the crowd erupts at just about everything that happens.
"I bet you can hear 'em two blocks away now," Evans says.
Passersby stop and look in the window, trying to see the score.
"Home run," says Radio-man, quietly.
There's a lull, the crowd holds its breath - four seconds later, pandemonium. The whole crowd is on its feet as the Beavers take the field for the bottom of the ninth inning. They lead, 9-3.
"Let's Go Beavers! O - S - U!"
One out, two outs. Time stops. Then strikes one, two, three - and a nonstop roar. Evans drags a hapless reporter outside to dodge the spray of beer that erupts inside.
"Back-to-back!" the crowd chants.
Evans grins ear to ear.
"It's great!" he says.
Bet they can hear it all the way in Omaha.