So Stanford blew out Washington. It was probably the Cardinal’s most impressive performance of the season. The much-maligned defense was stout, the most overrated player in the country, Jake Locker, was held in check and Stanford committed to the run and shoved it down the Huskies’ throats all day.

That is my analysis of the game.

Now, on to my experience of watching the game. As many of you know, the Stanford game coincided with Game 3 of the World Series, and, like many sports fans, I wanted to watch both. When you live at Stanford, that basically means you have one option-go to The Old Pro.

I have been to The Old Pro more times than I’d care to admit, and I’m sure I’ll be there plenty more, but it took until yesterday for me to realize that it was more out of necessity than anything else.

I showed up about two hours before either game started only to find out it cost $30 just to get in! There was a $10 cover charge and $20 that was good for food or drink credit. If you didn’t have $30 (cash only), you weren’t getting in. If you didn’t want to eat, too bad, you were paying 30 fucking dollars. And this is supposed to be a college town. Deplorable.

Once you got in, it wasn’t as if they were cutting you deals. Fourteen dollars for a small pitcher of Bud Light. The pitcher held about 3.5 beers. To put that in perspective, you can get a 24-pack of Bud Light at Safeway for about that much. Eight chicken wings cost $12. What happened to a sports bar being a utilitarian community spot? Where are the peanuts? Deals? Instead, at night there is just some guy whose sole job it is to yell at you to keep walking. How dare you actually TALK to your friends? Shame.

There was one good thing about the ridiculous prices. My friends and I were expecting the place to be a mob scene given the bevy of sporting events on Saturday, but it never got too full. I’m fairly certain that even the posh people of Palo Alto were scared away by the absolutely egregious door price. And of course, there were almost no students. (How dare a sports bar in a college town cater to college students? That would be something!)

I guess I shouldn’t really be surprised by any of this. The Old Pro, which may be my favorite bar in Palo Alto (which is like being the smartest kid at Cal-not very difficult), has always been identity-less and pricey. I think it’s supposed to be a sports bar-all the TVs, the mechanical bull and the pennants on the wall seem to suggest that-but come 10 p.m. or so, hip-hop music starts blaring over the televisions for people to dance…at a bar without a dance floor.

But people are still going to go to The Old Pro. It will be packed on most every weekend night, because there isn’t a viable alternative in the area. The Dutch Goose, Oasis, Nut House and Rosatti’s are all much better sports bar environments but lack the television capacity of The Old Pro. If I’m forgetting someplace, please do enlighten me.

On campus, you can watch a single game at the CoHo, the Treehouse and even Old Union, but again, they don’t give the opportunity to watch two games at once. Some people might say I am asking too much to have a decent sports bar at Stanford, but I doubt there are many, if any, college campuses in America that have such a putrid selection of places to watch games.

So like it or not, The Old Pro has a monopoly. Hopefully it will stop abusing that privilege, or maybe some entrepreneurial type will step up and create some competition-because my salary at The Daily doesn’t support $30 covers.

Despite five years at Stanford, Daniel Bohm hasn’t realized that Palo Alto isn’t really considered a college town. Dispel his delusions at [email protected].