There are plenty of sports bars on this island, and most have one thing in common: they are adequate hangouts to watch football. But as the baseball season winds down, there is really only one place to experience the World Series: a pub on the corner of Nu‘uanu Avenue and Merchant Street that has an actual seat from Wrigley Field hanging on its wall.

Murphy’s Bar and Grill is located downtown, across from another Irish watering hole, O’Toole’s. The dining area is a classy experience in itself, but the ambiance of the building changes as you cross the threshold to the bar, its semicircle layout positioned around a slew of new flat-screen TVs that, when I arrived on a Friday afternoon, were bearing the final game of the Cardinals-Tigers matchup.

However, despite the clear televisions, knowledgeable crowd, and preternaturally attentive bartenders, Murphy’s offers what most sports bars try and fail to deliver: that strange accumulation of verisimilitude via surprisingly congruous items.

There is the ancient green seat from Wrigley Field, positioned invitingly against the back wall near a picture of another Murphy’s, the one located thousands of miles away in Chicago. There is a panorama of the San Francisco bayfront ballpark, the print facing a huge Giants banner that, along with an Irish flag, drapes from the roof above. And there is the shuffleboard table stretching the length of the back wall, games available to all interested.

Which is why Murphy’s is more than a good sports bar. I arrived in the afternoon, just as everyone was getting off work, and the seating was packed with aficionados watching the game. But as the Cardinals won the world championship, a new, more dynamic crowd began to fill the premises, and I ended up playing shuffleboard against a firefighter and lifeguard, the stakes being a round of Imperial Guinness ($5.50), which, when won in a game of skill, might be the best tasting beer ever.

The taps are extensive (over 15 beers are available, including the freshest-tasting Newcastle Nut Brown Ale around), the appetizers greasy (the calamari platter is a world of deliciousness), and the location itself is key, the emergent Chinatown bar scene coming to life as the night wears on.

And of course, in February, this bar becomes the central nerve of St. Patrick’s Day, the surrounding streets flooding with the wildest block party of the year. But even in the months before this holiday—and with the baseball season sadly concluded—Murphy’s remains the best sports bar on the island: one that you’d be lucky to find among the streets of Wrigleyville, let alone in the middle of the Pacific.

—, 10/30/06