A Tribute to Finnerty’s
I moved to New York City from San Francisco in June of 2010. I arrived in the Big Apple wide eyed and bushy tailed, ready to make a mark on my brand new hometown.
And yet, amidst all of that hub bub, there was something precious that I had left behind. A thing I loved more than almost anything else in the world (besides attention, of course). That thing was San Francisco Giants baseball.
I have been a San Francisco Giants baseball fan my entire life. I was swaddled in orange and black fabrics, ate ice cream out of mini orange and black baseball helmets and spent countless hours at Miraloma Park, bat in hand, doing my level best to impersonate the batting stances of every single member of the team during hours long games of strikeout played in the thick 415 fog.
“Now batting, number Niiiiiiiine, Maaaaaaaaat Williaaaaaaams!” my voice would ring out, echoing off the concrete walls of the playground, sounding just a bit how I imagine the PA System of an old ballpark to have sounded.
And so, in the year 2010 after moving to New York, I was a displaced die hard fan. And, as every fan of the San Francisco Giants knows, the year 2010 was the very same year the San Francisco Giants made a run at a World Series Championship. There were high stakes, tension filled games. Lots of them. And those that bled the Orange and Black needed a place to watch them.
Enter Finnerty’s.
Finnerty’s, for all intents and purposes, seems like most sports bars. There is a stench of stale beer and the slightest hint of vomit upon first walking in the doors. There is a long, wooden bar- stools on one side, taps and bottles on the other. Tables are scattered about and in the main room and there is a long back bench that faces multiple television screens that are mounted above the bar. Pretty standard fare.
What is exceptional about Finnerty’s, however, is that, if you are there, and you “squint hard enough” (like if you just got out of the New York Eye and Ear Infirmary across the street, per se), it is almost possible to forget that you are in the heart of New York City. Rather, you are transformed 2,567.76 miles westward, to that Oh-So-Special City at the End of the World. Yes, if you try hard enough, you can- almost- smell the simmering of garlic fries, hear the rumble of the passing MUNI cars and the sound of a solo saxophone blaring into the night sky after every Giants ballgame.
When I was in 8th grade, Shane McNeil took me aside during gym class and said, “Hey Dave, after this flag football game, want to leave school and go to my house? We can watch Britney Spears videos on my iMac and drink some of my dad’s Jack Daniels. It will be a good time.”
This is one of the most ‘90s things anyone has ever said to me.
I said yes.
We left school our middle school through the side gate, walked about half a mile up the kind of steep hills and crooked streets for which San Francisco is known, and eventually got to Shane’s house. In the kitchen cabinet, on the top shelf, there was a bottle of Jack Daniels.
Shane got a stepping stool and took the bottle down. He poured us two glasses of whiskey, no ice. He raised his in the air.
“Cheers, David the J,” he said, using a nickname he used for me when he found out I had Jewish blood in me.
We drank the brown liquor.
I don’t remember puking but I also do not remember enjoying the experience.
It was the first time liquor had ever touched my lips.
We spent the rest of the afternoon upstairs in Shane’s room watching “Baby One More Time”- on repeat- on his turquoise iMac.
The bar was crowded.
I stood on its far right side, anywhere I could find space, really, raising my right hand faintly trying to get the attention of one of the many very kind bartenders who worked at Finnerty’s. It wasn’t working. I had been waiting an awful long time for a beverage.
Just then, I heard a rumbling voice somewhere around me.
“David the J!” the voice said.
My head spun around frantically trying to locate it.
“David the J!!!” the voice repeated.
More frantic head spinning.
“DAVID THE J!!!!!!” Finally, I saw him. It was Shane. Big, burly, Irish, rugby playing Shane McNeil.
He picked me up off the floor and spun me around, my body ricocheting off of other bodies. Shane was strong in Middle School and Shane was strong now- a person who was aware of his strength and wanted to fling you around.
“Let me get you a beer and a shot, ya kyke!” he said to me.
This was a word that he liked using in Middle School and it was still apparently a word he liked using.
Shane shouted the name of the bartender over the noise. The bartender promptly responded because they knew Shane.
“PBR and a Jack?” Shane asked me.
I said yes.
The bartender, who knew Shane, obliged.
“Can you believe the fucking GIANTS?” I offered.
“I KNOW!” he said. “Our whole lives waiting for this and now its here! They are going to beat the SHIT out of the Phillies, David the J. They’re going all the way to the ‘ship!”
“They sure fucking are,” I said. “They sure fucking are. To the ‘ship they go.”
We drank our shots of Jack Daniels and chased them with a PBR as we watched the San Francisco Giants triumph and advance (and eventually win) the World Series.
If I “squinted hard enough”, I might have thought we were back in Shane’s parents house- liquor in our stomachs and screen of iMac in front of our eyes.
We were not. We were at Finnerty’s.
I watched many games at Finnerty’s over the next four years. I met up with old Bay Area friends there, made new ones, and watched my beloved San Francisco Giants go onto win three World Series Championships there.
Eventually, as the team faded from excellence, I went less and less.
Now, due to the pandemic, Finnerty’s is forced to close its doors.
And so, I raise a glass of Jack (no ice) to the place:
Thank you for the good times, Finnerty’s.
And thank you for allowing a homesick boy from the Bay Area a place to drown out the incessant noise of Second Avenue and experience the type of true, unadulterated joy that comes with watching your longtime losing team finally get over the hump and win the ‘ship (3x) with others who felt same.
Like much of pre-pandemic life, you are gone for now but not easily forgotten.
