The World Series

After 88 years of suffering, the Chicago White Sox are finally World Champions.  Yay!

But that’s not the World Series we’re here to talk about today.  We’re here to talk about the World Series of Beer Pong.

A few weeks back, I mocked Anheuser-Busch for their distribution of “Bud Pong” tables, balls and glasses, and their subsequent shock that people might actually be using this equipment to play Bud Pong with Bud instead of water.

At the time, I figured this was just another story about corporate ridiculousness and bar games, as you read quite a lot of those these days.

Oh, how wrong I was.

I was first introduced to beer pong in the late 90s by a friend who I now realize was something of a pioneer in the sport.  Unsatisfied, for reasons I never quite understood, with the game play of a regular ping-pong table, he had purchased the largest, cheapest sheet of semi-rectangular plywood he could find, slathered it in shellac, and declared it fit for beer pong.

Though he still plays beer pong on occasion, my friend has moved on to bigger things -- his latest hobby is becoming a registered college football oddsmaker -- and so has beer pong.  You’d be hard-pressed to find a college campus today where it isn’t played.

However, the full reach and popularity of the game was brought home to me, oddly enough, in the classroom.

I teach Technical Writing to engineering students, and one of my assignments every semester is writing a set of instructions.  These instructions tend toward “How to Solder,” “How to Set Up a Wireless Network,” or, most memorably, “How to Overthrow the Capitalist Pigs and Lead a Revolution of the People,” which advocated a communist overthrow of the campus administration and included a photo of one of my students wearing camouflage and threatening to strangle the chancellor.  The student, of course, assured me that the photo was all in good fun, and that the chancellor was in on the joke.  If you ask me, it’s a wonder I still have a job.

But I bring up the instructions assignment because three times in the last four semesters, I’ve received instructions on how to play beer pong.

Actually, that’s not true -- two were how to play beer pong, and one was how to play Beirut.

I can’t begin to guess how or why beer pong acquired this second name, but the Lebanese people must be just thrilled to know that a game played by American college students in which ping pong balls are tossed into plastic cups of beer is named after the capital of their country.

(Random aside:  the first time I ever heard of Beirut was on an episode of “60 Minutes,” some time in the early 80s.  Only I wasn’t watching the show, I was just listening from the other room, and for about five minutes, I was totally convinced that they were saying “Babe Ruth.”  This, as you might imagine, made the rest of the commentary rather illogical, so much so that I finally had to come into the room to figure out what the hell they were talking about, at which point I realized they were not discussing the oversized Yankee slugger, but rather a war-torn city in the Middle East.  I didn’t notice anybody playing beer pong there, but of course, I did miss the first five minutes of the piece.)

Whatever you call it, Beirut/Beer Pong (Beirut Pong?) is now ready for its close-up:  2006 will bring beer pong to the world stage -- and to the tiny town of Mesquite, Nevada, population 16,000 -- with the very first World Series of Beer Pong.

Who could pull off such an event, you wonder?  Well, the geniuses of bpong.com, of course.

And when I say geniuses, I’m only being slightly sarcastic.  To wit, some of the wisdom offered in the FAQ section of bpong.com:

Q.  Man, I just drank a lot of beer, and the world is totally spinning. What's up with that?

A.  Dude, of course the world is spinning -- haven’t you ever taken a science class?  Just chill -- you’re fine.

Q.  I just puked all over the place.  Can I keep playing beer pong?

A.  Uh . . . What else would you do?

Frankly, it’s inspiring.

Even more inspiring is how big these guys are dreaming.  They hope to draw 1,000 teams and drain more than 120 kegs.  They’re offering a grand prize of $10,000.

With so much on the line, you can understand the seriousness with which they take the rules of competition.  For example, check out the following rules from Section III (Rules of the Game), Article D (Gameplay) of the Official World Series of Beer Pong rulebook:

Rule 1.  Initial Possession:  Prior to the game, first possession will be determined by:
a) A coin toss;
b) Rock-paper-scissors; or
c) Drawing of straws.

Rule 5.  “Send that shit back”:  “Sending that shit back”/rollbacks will not apply in these games.  This means that even if both players on one team make a cup, they do NOT get to shoot again. The one and only exception to this rule is described in Rule III(D)(7) of this section (below).

Rule 7.  Miracles:  If a shot happens to land and stay on top of the cups, that shot will count as a miss.  Congratulations -- you are lucky, but you have not proved that you have any pong skills at all. If you can prove to us that you can intentionally land a ball on the cups on demand, we’ll consider changing this rule.  Until then, put the ball in the cup -- that is the object of the game.

Rule 8.  Leaning:  Leaning is permitted.  However, a player may not place a foot/leg/penis/whatever around the table in order to gain additional reach and/or leverage.  Also, a player may not lean by placing a hand on the table.  Under no circumstances may a player shoot with any part of his or her body on (against is permitted) the table.  Of course, if you have a beer gut that must rest on the table because there’s nothing else you can do with it, the “beer gut on the table” exception will apply.

Rule 10.  The Dipshit not Paying Attention Rule:  If TEAM1 drops a ball into its own cups or knocks over a cup, that dipshit’s team (TEAM1) loses that cup(s).  However, if the other team (TEAM2) also contains dipshits not paying attention that do not catch the first team of dipshits (TEAM1) hitting their own cup, then TEAM1 may keep the cup that it hit or knocked over.

Right about now, you’re probably wondering how fast you can book your flight to Mesquite.

If you plan to go, you better act fast, because once the 1,000th team is registered, registration will be closed -- although additional spectators are always welcome.  If you can’t make the trip, though, fret not:  the bpong.com boys are, according to the site, “beginning talks with a TV network to have the event made into a 13-episode TV series and DVD.”

Having spent a fair amount of time on bpong.com familiarizing myself with the nuances and intricacies of the sport, one of the things I have really come to appreciate about Beer Pong is that, as opposed to the other major sports, which must use clever tactics like advertising to sell beer to college students, Beer Pong makes no such attempts at cleverness.  The objective of Beer Pong, first and foremost, is to drink beer.  Winning, and continuing on to play the next game, seems to be just an opportunity to drink more beer.

Now, on the one hand, you could argue that if beer drinking is the primary focus of the game, beer pong shouldn’t really be considered a sport.

But on the other hand, you can totally see how Anheuser-Busch would expect people to play with water.