SPORTS BARS AND BAR SPORTS

The Celtics and the Lakers are once again locked in mortal combat for the NBA crown, and you’re ready for action. Sure, you could watch the game at home while balancing your checkbook. You could also repair that clanking vacuum cleaner, read up on import duties, and get to bed early. But why? For the NBA playoffs, the Series, the Super Bowl, you want to do your rooting out with the real fans, where the giant screen will plunk you down amid the shrieking mob at hallowed Boston Garden.

A word of warning: the presence of a TV set doth not a sports bar make, even if the set is stuck on ESPN. Reason: too many bars succumb to the false and wicked doctrine of multiple use, trying to be all things to all customers. So we get a little music, a little pool, a few video games, and over in the corner, a small, silent TV set on which midgets leap and struggle at the corners of our consciousness. Arrgghh.

Some places where they do sports right: the Scoreboard Sports Bar & Grill in Addison; the Greenville Avenue Country Club (on certain nights, but we can’t pick ’em); and The Silver Bullet.

One of the best spots for ref-cursing and nacho-munching is the bar area at Hump-erdink’s on Greenville. They’ve got one good-sized screen and a smaller one over the bar. Decent volume most nights. Pitchers (no pun) are available, as are good bar munchies, And since there’s a separate restaurant and pool room, those deadened souls who are indifferent to The Game need not attend.

And if all this sports watching puts you in a participating mood, finish the evening with that time-honored bat sport, shuffleboard. Shuffle off to Stan’s Blue Note, an SMU-blue-collar tavern, or The Silver Bullet, with its neighborhoodish feel and house legends like Jack, who never has any quarters, and Biff the bartender, who always wins. Other competitive spots include Club Schmitz, a favorite of softball teams, Dave & Buster’s, with some surprisingly good young players, the usually crowded Icehouse, and the Outback Pub. The best-wom table is at The World Famous lnwood Tavern, which is open every day from 7 a. m. till 2 a. m. It’s a gathering place for people who work the night shift at Texas Instruments, Braniff, and Southwest Airlines, so if you ever feel like playing at 8: 30 in the morning, this is your place. Worth mentioning: the table is free.