The boys and I were in Las Vegas last year for what we now have vowed to be an annual event: A weekend without the Hens that revolves solely around drinking, gambling and football at various Las Vegas sports books.  We made this vow despite the fact that the Sunday of that first week of November 2000 will live in our collective memories as “Bloody Sunday”. At the time, we had lost enough money for it to be painful to each of us. However, we have decided to memorialize this painful experience each year during the first week of November. 

The first Bloody Sunday began hopefully enough. Still drunk from our successes from our College Football bets from the previous day (Northwestern upsetting Michigan in a memorable game, and Steve Spurier predictably running up the score on an overmatched Vanderbilt team), we decided to wade into the morass of NFL sports betting.

My buddy (Caveman) Joe was convinced that the line on the Indianapolis Colt-Chicago Bear game was set artificially low. The Bears were getting a meager 7 points. At the time, the Colts were considered Super Bowl contenders (if I remember correctly they had lost only one game) while the Bears were struggling with one victory. “Dis is a sure thing” Joe kept pronouncing. He had placed 200 dollars on the Colts on Saturday and at the Fremont Breakfast buffet he announced that to back up his confidence he would place an additional 200 dollars on the Colt team.

By this time, he was preaching to the choir.

The rest of us gleefully placed large amounts of our own cash on the Bears. We filled out oodles of Parlay cards stupidly including the Bear-Colt game on each one. Seeing this, Joe decided to increase his commitment to the cause by another 200 dollars. About a half hour before kickoff I was expressing some remorse at exposing so much of my hard earned cash on a football game. After all, we were all sports book novices!

Joe would hear nothing about this negative vibe and decided to exorcise it immediately by placing another 400 dollars on the Colts. With that, his bet was an even 1000 dollars and with his various Parlay and teaser bets had about 1500 dollars linked to the game.

As luck would have it, Dick Jauron had benched the ineffective Cade McClown for the game in favor of backup Jim Miller. Joe was unimpressed by this little tidbit. He not only felt the Bears were this bad, but that the Colts were this good.

After the first quarter, the Bears had held the ball for nearly 12 minutes setting the tone for the rest of what is known as “Bloody Sunday.”

Despite losing our shirts on this one game and despite the fact that we could have cleaned up on almost every Parlay card had we not included this game on every one, we had a complete blast at the Golden Nugget sports book watching game after game, getting served and over served. It was a Sports Orgy, or what we effectionately call a “Sporgy”. No wives, no kids, no worries. At the end of the weekend we had no money either.

Let’s do it again!

So, here we are one year later.

Last year, I was bumped from an America West flight. In return, they favored me with a wonderful night in the San Remo Motel (puleeze!), a first class ticket home and a 400-dollar flight voucher!

Luckily for me, we booked this vacation in the nick of time, since my return flight would have coincided with the one-year anniversary of the voucher. According to the America West agent, I would have had to renew the voucher if I would have returned one day later.

Upon making my reservation over the phone, the agent informed me that I would not be allowed to carry on ANY luggage on the flight to Las Vegas. Since I had to present the voucher from the airline in order to be ticketed, I did this about a week in advance to avoid any hassles on the day of the flight. The agent at the airport had no knowledge of any carry-on restrictions. I didn’t know who was right, but since this was a Hog’s trip, I knew I would have preferred the latter.

My flight left at 4:44pm and I had been reminded over and over to arrive at the airport at least two hours prior to departure. I figured since this was a Friday Las Vegas flight this would be sage advice. I arrived at 2:30pm with only half dozen or so passengers ahead of me, including a “little old lady from Pasadena” (more on that later).

Needless to say, the two passengers at the counter were taxing the resources of the overmatched AW ticket agents because it took about 15 minutes for the first one to peel away from the counter and head to his gate. While I was standing in line, the curb side check in people were walking through the airport announcing that they would be able to check bags AND ticket you without waiting.

What ever happened to the FAA’s tighter security guidelines?  I thought curbside check-in was done away with!

Anyway, I was ticketed and allowed to pull my carryon towards security at about 2:55pm. I was fully prepared to wait as long as took to get through airport security. However, to my surprise, the only added buffer was a middle-eastern gentleman asking to see a boarding pass or ticket before passing through “security”. I passed effortlessly through the security gate with a full pocket of change in my pocket. I picked up my carry-on, only to glance over at the “little old lady from Pasadena” being wanded and having her carry-on bags being given a thorough once over.

At 3:00pm, I was on my way to gate E12 at O’Hare, dreading the fact that now I had nearly two hours to kill in the airport. I picked up a #3 at McDonalds and something to read for the wait at the gate.

When I got there, I sat down only to find that the “little old from Pasadena” was sitting across from me noticeably shaken from her experience about 15 minutes prior. It turns out she was on her way back to Los Angeles via Las Vegas, and YES, she was from Pasadena. She had no idea why she had to undergo the extended scrutiny from airport security, but she figured “she fit the profile”, so she really didn’t mind. I sort of laughed at the whole concept until they started calling out “seat numbers” at the gate. People whose seat numbers are called must subject themselves to a “random” inspection of any carry-on items they will bring aboard.

Yes, you guessed it. The little old lady from Pasadena got called up for a second round of frisking from O’Hare’s crack security team. I opened my Sports Illustrated secure in the knowledge that not even a little old from Pasadena could smuggle in a nail file on this flight!

Note: if you are an old lady, leave your nail files at home when passing through O’Hare. However, if you are a Middle Eastern male who lived in the same apartment complex as one of the 9/11/01 hi-jackers, feel free to attempt to bring aboard your collection of knives. And, just in case, bring a stun-gun too. You never know, you might get away with it.

As luck would have it, I would not have to take this flight alone. I was joined on the flight with four other Hogs who happened to share my row. They were staying at the Mirage, stealing away from their families for the weekend. We shared our stories of Las Vegas and played a few hands of poker to while away the 3 and a half hour flight to the Holy City.

We arrived about 25 minutes early which under normal circumstances would have been a bonus for me, but since I had to wait for my buddy to fly in from Dallas, that meant another 25 minutes of waiting on top of the one hour that I was scheduled to wait. In order to pass the time, I tossed back a half dozen or so brews at the Nascar café located right above the baggage information desk on the first floor. I was to meet (Caveman) Joe right at the information booth and while I waited I was amazed at the wave upon wave of people flooding into the baggage area from the C/D gates. Must have been weekend warriors from LA, but as it turns out, a Glaxo-Wellcome rep was intercepting convention goers into waiting limos stocked with Miller Lite. 

Oh well. What recession??

Right on time, Joe appeared from the masses. One can never fail to pick out the 6 foot 5 Ted Danson look a like from the masses of surfer dudes and dudettes from LA. We quickly stepped outside only to be greeted by an absolutely huge line waiting for taxicabs. THIS was Las Vegas during hard times???!! Absolutely amazing!

The line looked like a 2 hour plus wait type line one would find at a theme park. Lucky for us, it moved rather quickly and we were on our way in about a half hour. Our other buddy, (Detroit) Tommy had decided to stay with us at the Hilton Vacation Club (don’t laugh) instead of getting comped at the MGM Grand.  He had arrived at about 11am and had already checked in, so when we arrived at Joe’s time-share, he had already provided a case of beer cooling in the fridge.

After getting situated in the very pedestrian room (what happened to the world class resort Joe was promised when he got suckered into his time share?) we opened a beer and headed out to the casino where we knew DT would be residing. Instead, we ran into him while walking through the tropical nightmare known as the Flamingo Hilton pool.  He was already on the losing end of things, although he was in good spirits, thanks to the spirits he had already taken in.

Much to our surprise, the Flamingo casino was brimming with action. All the tables were jam packed with people with the exception of the single-deck 25-dollar minimum Blackjack table. To our dismay, a sign pronouncing “Single Deck” with a 6-5 payout for all Blackjacks was welcoming us. We looked at each other in utter disbelief. How much more do casinos want to chisel away from the player?? They offer Single Deck and then hit soft 17s, forbidding doubling after a split, and now unholy upon unholy: 6-5 on Blackjacks??!!!

We looked at each other and said “Imperial Palace”.

I really don’t know why people dis the Palace like they do. Where else can you play cards under those wonderful wooden dragons, get served by DD cup waitresses with all of their charms on display, and best of all, dealers who really seem to understand that part of playing at a table is human interaction? This last point is something that really hit home on this trip. Every time we got a dealer in a foul mood, EVERYONE at the table including us, clammed up and focused on the drudgery at hand. With a dealer who not only dealt cards, but also was a facilitator of good times, strangers were exchanging stories, laughs, encouragement and high fives. That’s the kind of experience we’ve always had at the IP. I can never really say I’ve had a bad experience there.

To my surprise, we were doing fairly well. The last couple of trips have been a real struggle, especially on the first night. DT was taking a pretty good bath, but Joe and I were making real gains. Our waitress, Desiree, was a real sweetie too. We all marveled at how she was able to contain her more than ample cleavage in her ultra tight/small cocktail waitress outfit. She was the first of many waitresses who made our trip a real enjoyment. We never went more than 10 or 15 minutes without a gentle tap on our shoulders and a kind “are you guys alright?”

Before you knew it, it became apparent to both Joe and myself that we were beginning to get over served by Desiree. As a precaution, whenever one of us netted another hundred dollars in winnings, we would take a break and cash in at the casino cage, insuring that we wouldn’t dive into our winnings.

At about 5am, we realized it was about 7 or 8 in the morning back home. We decided to call it an evening. I was sort of upset that we hadn’t scouted out some of our College Football bets yet. Joe was certain that Steve “superior” Spurier was going to run up the score on Vanderbilt again. I forget what the line was, but it was a bet we should have made. Instead, we wound up sleeping until 12 noon.

We wound up missing the first half of our Sports Orgy already.

We decided to check out the lines at Barbary Coast, Bally’s and Caesars Palace for Sunday’s games. The one thing we realized was that it really pays to go shopping for your football bets. For instance, we were all keenly interested in the Bears/ Browns game. At Barbary Coast, the Bears were giving four points. At Caesars they were giving five. Another bet we were looking at was the money line on the Cowboy game. At BC, it was +480, at CP it was +400. Needless to say, we placed a large portion of our bets at Barbary Coast. But, if we were Browns or Giant fans those bets would have been made at Caesars.

After watching a thrilling ending of the Michigan-Michigan State at the “cathedral”, the sports book at Caesars, we decided to play a little BJ before heading back to Barbary Coast to place our bets. As we walked through the casino, Joe remarked, that it was funny that we were at war, since you would never know this by the bulging mass of humanity at all of the tables. We were lucky to find room at a 25-dollar BJ table. All of us got thoroughly spanked the short time we played. Cocktail service at CP was an utter and complete joke. I want my IP!

We headed over to Barbary to watch the World Series and get some food. It’s funny, when you’re with the boys you never really think about eating until it becomes almost physiologically necessary. Luckily, the mini hot dog stand was open just outside the BC sports book. A hot dog and a beer (Foster’s) for two bucks! The dog was terrible, but hey, it was food. After placing our bets on some of the games, we settled in with our Parlay Cards, including the Teaser and began watching the Arizona Diamondbacks completely dismantle the world champion Yankees. We laughed that the over/under for this game was six. Heck, the D-Backs beat that in one inning!

To our surprise, we were also getting served free beers while watching the game. Sure, Joe had put a few bets down on a few ponies, but for the most part we were trying to get the best angle on some of the Parlay bets that we were trying to make. After about 10 or 12 beers it was getting difficult to make our decisions. The Teaser card was looking more and more attractive. The Bears +1, the Panthers +16, the Cowboys +18 and on and on. After we were through, we had a nice hand full of Parlay cards ready to go. It wasn’t until the next day that we found out that we committed the first Cardinal Sin of Parlay betting all over again: we had included the Panther/Dolphin game on every card!

We decided that we were not going to repeat our Saturday morning mistake. We called it an evening at about midnight. I guess we are starting to get old. It wasn’t long ago that we could go coast to coast from Saturday morning to Sunday night without sleep. Not any more though! We also wanted to insure good seats at what is arguably the best Sports book experience in Las Vegas: The Venetian.

Yes, the V is the place to watch all of our sports teams on Sunday. It is not overly large or over crowded. If you are prescient enough to arrive at least 90 minutes before kick off you are assured of those comfy over stuffed chairs with the wonderful wooden cup holders. The V’s incredible wait staff makes it easy on the eyes too.

Joe and I were pleased to see that our all time favorite waitress, Meagan, was still plying her trade at the sports book on Sunday. Meagan is an Uma Thurmann look alike. However, do not tell her this. First, everyone says this. Second, she will then explain to you why this is actually a hurtful comment to make to her. So, my advice is, just enjoy the experience. She will make your Sunday one of the most enjoyable experiences of your life. In fact, she not only is attentive and a real sweet heart, she also gets things done. When a couple of hogs commented that they really thought that two TV’s devoted to the meet at Aqueduct was a bit much and that they wanted to see the New England/Atlanta game, Meagan went up to the movers and shakers and had the TV converted to the game of their choice. The guys in our section all agreed: this was sports Heaven!

Much to our chagrin, George Seifert had decided to pull Chris Weinke from the Panther game. When the second string QB went down, the third stringer came in instead. It was apparent to us that this guy would be lucky to complete a pass let alone lead the team to the touchdown that would enable us to stay in our Parlay and Teaser bets. Alas, this was the game that would cost us nearly 2,500 dollars apiece in winnings. Oh well, there go my 100 lap dances at the Garden!

Balancing all of this was the fact that it appeared the Cowboys were going to pull off our Money Line bet that would net each of us a cool 480. Instead, we were denied this little fantasy as well as the Cowboy QB kept tossing up interception after interception and the Boys’ D was giving up big play after big play. A 24-0 lead turned into a 27-24 defeat.

We were wondering if this would be a repeat of last year’s Bloody Sunday. Our hopes and prayers now rested with the Beloved (Da Bears). Our high hopes began to sink when Shane Matthews got sacked, coughed up the ball and the Browns’ Courtney Brown scampered into the end zone with a defensive touchdown for the Browns. The Bears battled back to tie at half, only to see the Browns demoralize the Bear “D” with two sustained drives for a 21-7 lead.

At this point, it became apparent to all of us that was a large contingent of Cleveland Browns fans in attendance at the V. In fact, almost the whole middle section either had Browns jerseys on or were chanting the ultra-obnoxious “who let the dogs out?” woof woof woof crap that the east coast fans have made so repulsive to the rest of us west of the Ohio/Indiana border.

A complete disaster is what Joe announced with about 5 minutes left in the game. Some of the Bear fans were getting itchy for Jauron to bench Matthews in favor of Jim Miller. This only prompted the Browns contingent to start mocking the Beloved’s fans even more. Of particular note was group of Browns Hens in the front row who started barking and taunting the rest of us off to the side.

Needless to say what happened next was nothing short of a miracle. After pulling out a totally improbable victory the week before, the Bears rallied from 14 points down with only 28 seconds left to tie the game, thanks to an onside kick recovery and a spectacular Hail Mary that was caught by James Allen. When the Beloved won the toss for the extra quarter we were sure the game was over. Three plays later though, an excellent Maynard punt put the Browns back into their own territory. Two plays later the place went up for grabs as Mike Brown (oh Irony) repeated his heroics from the week before. There were actually guys dancing in the aisles and jumping for joy. The Dog Pound in the middle of the V was reduced to ashen faces and (joy upon joy) tears from the Hens in the front row. Normally, I would have enjoyed rubbing it in, but it became apparent to me that all of us had become light headed from the two dozen or so Heinekens courtesy of Meagan, sitting for nearly eight hours and the excitement of the play on the field. I personally had almost passed out. Tommy had to literally hold Joe up. My voice was gone. This was Heaven!

And we still had the World Series!

Yes, we had the nerve to sit through the entire masterpiece that turned out to be Game 7. It was just our luck that D-Backs fans dominated our side of the sports book, whereas the rest of the place was decidedly pro-Bronx Bombers. We kept reminding them that Grace, Gonzalez and Batista were all ex-Cubs. For the most part, we were totally neutral, but sitting there gave us some kinship with the rest of the nice folks from the dessert sitting around us. We joined them in their celebration of one of the most memorable Series in quite a while. 

Even though we were exhausted just 4 hours prior, we were alive with excitement as we ventured out into the casino. We had just sat on our asses for twelve solid hours, drinking beer served by the greatest cocktail waitress in the world, watching an orgy of sports which turned out to be as dramatic as anyone could have written it. This was Tommy’s first foray into Bloody Sunday and he enthusiastically proposed that this would become an annual event that not only us, but the rest of the Hogs would participate in every first Sunday of November.

Now, it was on to serious business. We decided to forget the Nudie Bars since they’d be dead on Sunday and continue gambling at the Venetian. Maybe it was Sunday night, but it looks like the Venetian isn’t doing all that well in the casino. Personally, I have never seen this casino crowded. I have never seen all of the tables open. Yes, it is a foo-foo place, but I like this a lot better than Bellagio for some reason. I hope that the few who are playing are losing big money.

One area were the V has improved is cocktail service. Now, Meagan and the gang have always done well for the sports book, but the rest of the place has always been lacking. I’ve had evenings where I’ve waited a half hour for a waitress, only to have her spend another half-hour bringing me my drink. Maybe we were sitting at a table that intersected more than one cocktail server’s area, but we were always being asked and served promptly. Maybe it was the latter because over the course of the evening we never had the same waitress twice in a row.

I would also like to throw out special kudos to Michael (a giant of a man) and Elliott (a Samoan with a magician’s flare with the cards) for facilitating an absolutely wonderful time at the table.  Time and laughs just flew at the table. Joe and Tommy left at about 3:30, but I just kept playing until about 5:30am with my newfound friends at the Blackjack table. This is why playing a table game is so much more fun than sitting in front of a slot machine like a Zombie all night long yanking that one armed bandit until you’re broke.

With only a noontime Philly Cheese Steak in my belly, I realized I had needed food a long time ago. I figured a quick stop at Burger King on the way back to the Flamingo would satisfy my hunger and inch me back to sobriety. Alas, BK doesn’t open until six. Such blasphemy in the Holy City! I thought it was a city ordinance that all establishments serving food/liquor/flesh/entertainment must be open 24/7.  Because of this, I made a big mistake. I ate the 3.95 ham/eggs/hash brown special at Lindy’s café in the Flamingo. The ham was about 15 inches in diameter and dwarfed the two smallish eggs and the smattering of greasy, overcooked hashbrowns. I washed this down with what was easily to worst cup of coffee I’ve had in my life. I tossed six bucks down after finishing half of the hockey puck that looked like ham and walked out the door.

I walked out into the Flamingo’s incredible pool area. Over a bridge I swore I saw penguins sleeping standing up. One little guy who was awake was flapping and hissing(?) at me. Penguins in the desert?? Now I know what it’s like to see pink elephants!! I was clearly over served as I stumbled my way through the rain forest back to the Hilton Vacation Club.

That morning, I sheepishly admitted to Joe and Tommy what I had seen. They laughed pretty hard, but I was insistent that we seek out these penguins I saw the night before.  But, before we find the penguins, I needed to find some headache medicine and some Pepcid AC stat. Unfortunately for me, at least initially; we found the medication, but not the penguins, a joke that kept the boys amused for the rest of the afternoon.

After taking a pretty good licking at the sports book (despite the Beloved’s miracle) we were in no mood to continue frittering away our hard earned cash at 25 dollars a hand. We sought out $1 dollar Blackjack. The only place for that would be the Sahara of course. After eating, we decided to make the long walk down to the desert oasis at the north end of the strip. We walked by the Desert Inn which is almost half way demolished. The Westward Ho, home of trout’s beloved Mega Dog and finally Circus-Circus. For some strange reason, Tommy wanted to walk over to the Big Top just for old time sake.

Why?

After about 15 minutes we were on our way again. At this point it became apparent to me that I should have packed a pair of shorts. Last year, the weather was downright chilly. This year with the temperature in the 80’s and the sun shining it was becoming uncomfortable walking all of this way in a pair of dark jeans.

Anyway, we get to the Sahara only to find the place jammed to the gills. What recession? What war? There wasn’t a single one-dollar seat to be found. We moseyed up to a 5 dollar table manned (womanned?) by a cranky dealer named Doricella. Boy, this lady was not happy to be at work at all. She especially didn’t care for Joe since his “negativity” got her “down”. She kept telling us “Why are you guys sitting here? I’m only going to take your money!” She was right though. Damn if I didn’t think she was cheating. She was pulling incredible cards for herself.

The mood and the luck changed when an incredibly pleasant dealer by the name of Yada took over for Doricella. What a difference. Two minutes ago, we were ready to leave and now we were having fun again. The only fly in the ointment is the restrictive rules the Sahara has in exchange for their low limit tables. No doubles after splits, dealer hits soft 17 and so on. After an afternoon that saw Tommy and Joe net a nice gain, and a nice loss for me, we decided to “get ready for some football”.

We decided to finally eat a decent meal in Las Vegas while taking in the game. Tommy suggested the Monte Carlo brewpub over my suggestion of the Monday night football party at Crazy Horse II. We thought the brewpub was a great idea, and it turned out that it was. They had a nice little party going on, and getting a table wasn’t too bad since we arrived about a half hour before game time. The three of us each had their very respectable ribs with half dozen or so pitchers of their wonderful ale, which is served in a most unique pitcher. It’s basically a long, wide tube with a tapper at the end. It seems kind of wobbly at first until you realized it’s designed that way so you don’t pull over the entire pitcher all over yourself.

Seagrams, or some liquor company was also in attendance and was giving away all sorts of free raffle prizes as well as half time games and the like. Of course what would a liquor promotion be without a few busty females in short shorts and tight tops cavorting through the crowd?? Ah yes, sports heaven all over again. Beer, ribs, babes and football. What else do you need?

Gambling, that’s right. Who in their right mind could pass up taking Denver and the 6.5 points this Monday night to make it even more interesting? Of course, we’re totally sane and now each of us is a hundred dollars poorer for the sanity. 

All of us had early flights out Tuesday morning, so after another short round of gaming at the Flamingo (surprise, they had FIVE dollar tables all of a sudden), we decided to call it a trip. We didn’t see one show, or eat at one gourmet restaurant. We each lost about 500 dollars apiece, give or take a hundred. We had an absolutely wonderful time away from the wives, the kids and the Honey-Do lists that invariably take up our valuable weekend time. I would highly recommend a Friday-Tuesday “Sporgy” in Las Vegas for any “henpecked” husband at least once during the football season.

And as we walked through the Flamingo pool area for the last time, I finally spotted the bridge, and realized I didn’t hallucinate after all, there are penguins in the desert.

Trip complete.