Royals Fan Wins Beer Drinking Contest In St. Louis, Commemorates It With Don Denkinger Tribute

TheChampionsTour12 years ago

The Kansas City Royals and St. Louis Cardinals have gone in two separate directions since the two met in the 1985 World Series. The Cardinals have been to three World Series since then, winning two of them and becoming one of the most consistently winning franchises in Major League Baseball. Meanwhile, the Royals have become the butt of every baseball joke in America, suffering a soon to be 28-year playoff drought.

But one Royals fan took matters into his own hands this past year, entering into a beer drinking contest at a St. Louis pub, The Flying Saucer. The Flying Saucer awards the first patron who drinks all 200 beers they have on tap with a commemorative plate, which the beer drinker may design themselves. Joe Hoffmann, a Kansas City native and lifelong Kansas City Royals fan, was tired of Cardinals fans’ cockiness after relocating from KC to St. Louis this past year.

After defeating several St. Louisians and getting his celebratory plaque on the establishment’s “ring of honor” Hoffmann decided to get it Don Denkinger’s name engraved on the plaque. For those who don’t know, Denkinger was the first base umpire in Game Six of the 1985 World Series who made a controversial safe call at first base in the ninth inning, leading to an epic Cardinal collapse and KC taking game six, and then winning in blow out fashion in game seven, 11-0, taking home their only World Series title.

But the story doesn’t end there. Obviously, Hoffmann was met with some resistance by some of St. Louis’s many proud Cardinal fans who tried to blockade Hoffman’s triumph. Five different Cardinals fans tried to match his beer guzzling prowess and ended up tying him before he could put all 200 beers away. The owners of the bar came up with a beer Olympics-style competition to decide the winner, consisting of beer trivia, a game of flip cup, a coaster-stacking competition, and a final beer quiz. Kind of a weak competition, if you ask me. Should’ve been a keg race, but that’s just me, and the bar probably had some sort of liability issue with customers being allowed to drink unholy amounts of beer in their establishment.

Regardless, Hoffmann won the competition after naming all of the beers he drank in chronological order, defeating the Cardinals fans and giving the Royals a measure of pride in the bitter I-70 Series rivalry. Hoffman also is donating the total of his bar tab to Royals charities, totaling $500 bucks.

“I will likely keep putting up new versions of the Denkinger plate in the coming months and years … wife and liver willing,” Hoffmann said in an interview with the Kansas City Star. “Once I get to the powder blue plate (six times), then the KC logo will definitely be going up.”

Power move, Joe. Power move.

[via The Kansas City Star]