O’Doherty orders up rare recipe

Technically, this doesn’t qualify as breaking news, it being a Hoopfest story and Hoopfest 2008 having been put to bed for a week already.

But I have a good excuse. I passed out from shock upon hearing it and just now came to.

And you might want to steady yourself, too.

You see, Tim O’Doherty won his bracket.

Yes, that Tim O’Doherty – the renowned Spokane Falls Boulevard saloonkeeper who slapped his picture on his bistro’s special Hoopfest menu, noted that he was 0-for-the-first-18 Hoopfests and asked, with no little bravado, “Could this be the year?”

And it was, a feat wedged in the miracle parade right between Richie Sexson hitting his weight and a deluge of frogs.

The first reflex was to assume that Hoopfest had finally caved in and decided to give O’Doherty his own bracket uncluttered with distractions like, oh, other teams to play. I mean, they aren’t sadists at Hoopfest headquarters. Besides, they were probably tired of O’Doherty showing up at the first-aid tent pleading for icepacks and Zoloft after yet another out-in-three showing.

“I don’t think he’d ever been close,” said his wife, Sam. “He’s usually pretty excited when he makes it to Sunday.”

But my crack research staff uncovered documentation that O’Doherty’s team this year was indeed triumphant in one of the age-40-to-dead divisions. And it was accomplished with the aid of only one ringer, admirable restraint for a 52-year-old team captain bathed in 18 years of futility.

Along with usual partners Morad Siam and Troy Kent, O’Doherty lured from California one Andre Chevalier, who once played college ball with O’Doherty’s younger brother, Shane. When Chevalier graduated from Cal State Northridge, he was only the school’s leader in scoring, assists and steals.

He had also won the MVP award three times. So the school named it after him.

“Geez, Tim,” said one of his friends, Leroy Burrows, “why don’t you just get Magic and Larry Bird to play on your team?”

Whatever the lineup, an O’Doherty championship is still the equivalent of a kangaroo hopping over K-2. I can say this without equivocation, because a few years back he was ousted from Hoopfest by a team whose players included, well, me.

I don’t remember many details, being comatose on the curb much of the time, but there was some testiness between my teammate Ralph Walter and O’Doherty in the game’s later stages. Low-grade overheating at Hoopfest is not rare, though Sam O’Doherty insisted her husband strives to be on his best behavior.

“His anger is usually at himself,’ she said. “He’s a businessman in town. He can’t go out there and be a jerk.”

And sure enough, at a golf tournament a few weeks later, O’Doherty happened to pull his cart up to a teebox where Ralph’s brother, Jess, was waiting to hit and took the initiative to make amends.

“Sorry about that business at Hoopfest,” O’Doherty said, “but that other guy was a real …”

“Hey,” said Ralph, sitting in a cart a few feet away, “I’m right over here.”

This is not to say it’s always the O’Doherty family way to turn the other cheek. Some years ago, Shane O’Doherty was a player in a rough contest that devolved into a brawl. According to Sam, an opponent had Shane pinned on the concrete when his mother Patty – about 72 at the time – “came flying out of the crowd and jumped on the guy’s back.

“They tossed her and told her she had to go home,” Sam said. “Then she was embarrassed because she’d hurt her elbow and had to go to physical therapy and tell them she got thrown out of Hoopfest.”

But the true spirit of Hoopfest has always been alive with the O’Dohertys. There have been years when as many as 11 teams with family members played, a chart on the restaurant’s kitchen door tracking their progress. O’Doherty has teamed with all of his brothers, and even his 70ish father. And between games, O’Doherty always heads back to the grill to cook dinners.

It wasn’t as if he had to save his strength for a championship game. Until this year.

Matched for the title against a team called Envision Spokane, the game was close until the score reached 10-all.

“Then Andre drove past one of their tall guys,” recalled Sam, “and the guy just stopped and took his glasses off and started cleaning them on his shirt.”

So the suspense was pretty much over – other than the mystery of whether Tim O’Doherty could actually make a basket in this, the Hoopfest of his glory.

Neighbors made their way downtown to embrace history. Regulars wandered over from the bar. The lead kept growing. O’Doherty kept missing shots.

“He said nine,” Sam reported. “It was closer to 35.”

Finally, stuck on 19 points, his teammates passed the ball only to O’Doherty. A miss. Another miss. Another. And another – and yet another.

“I think the other team might have fed him if they could have,” said his wife.

“His teammates,” added Burrows, “were looking at him as if to say, ‘Can we end this, please?’ “

Against all odds, an O’Doherty layup was at last coaxed through the net. Game and tournament. Tim O’Doherty was now 1 for 19.

Eventually, Spokane will get over the shock.

But will he?