The Dugout Sports Bar & Grill — Restaurant in Tucson

I used to be a big sports bar guy- going out and getting absolutely obliterated with friends while yelling at giant, LED screens with other fanatics, chompin on some honey hot bbq wings and saying you'll do a shot with that random old guy who has been divorced 8 times and somehow still has money. And now that i'm a little older, i'll still indulge myself and go out to a local watering hole whenever I have a free sunday and saw that the Dugout was right down the road.

Instead of being a complete alcohol degenerate, now i'm more of a gambling degenerate. Instead of wearing a jersey and high fiving people I don't know while chugging pitchers of Miller Lite, I'm the mysterious lone wolf who sips on a nice whiskey neat while checking his phone for player stats at that bartop while ordering something dumb like hummus and pita. You know, to send the message- hey, i'm health conscious and I'm here on business NOT pleasure, you filthy animals. Now recently i've discovered those random sports betting tips accounts that tell you to join their discord or telegram server and they'll feed you all the good bets. So when I randomly stumbled on the Joe's Sports Betting Tips account, I did some deep digging and checked out the comments and so many of them said "Joe just made me 15 grand!" "Joe's the best!" "Best investment ever!" and I knew these were definitely not fake or bot comments. Absolutely not. Don't ask me how I know, I just do. And since i'm tired of working for the man for scraps, I decided to buy into his private group to get a sneak peak into this insider betting tips world. I don't want to live paycheck to paycheck anymore. I want to live speedboat to speedboat, if you know what i'm sayin. Jetskis and caviar instead of Circle K parking lot Jiu-Jitsu and Sunny Delight. I was ready to put those days behind me, so on Sunday, I decided to go all in with my savings and take control of my destiny. I took Joe's advice on parlays and spreads knowing this was my ticket out.

Anyway, I guess Joe was drunk because I picked the Seahawks and the Colts for the moneyline and a 2.5 point spread with Parleys including quarterback Geno Smith getting 150 rushing yards. So basically I lost everything except for some scratchers, $56 worth of Bitcoin and the 20 bucks in my pocket. Usually losing a small bet here and there on a Sunday is just part of the game. You might cuss to yourself at the urinal to let other dudes know your pain and just take the L. But this was just a wash of complete failure and strange new freedom to start fresh. I went completely numb and I told the bartender I was heading to the batting cages to let off some steam and he saw my teary eyes and knew there was no stopping me.

When I got in there, my hands were shaking and clammy but as soon as those big ol' balls started hurling at my face, I let em have all of my fury. I'm just happy I was here at the Dugout versus like a Buffalo Wild Wings or something because they don't have any phsyical activity to let steam off with and I probably would have said something very unecessary to a Raiders fan after their win as a deathwish just to get out some aggression before getting curbstomped. Giant balls being hurled at you in a cage was definitely safer than that.

I had my headphones in and I was blasting an alternating mix between Slipknot and Coldplay so people watching me in the cage saw an unhinged man screaming one minute and crying the next while swinging a bat like I was on fire. When I took a break, a nice mexican family bought me some fireball shots and I think it was just because they were really entertained. I was in there for about an hour and a half before I lost all my energy and a rogue ball hit me in the left thigh barely clipping one of my jewels. I took that as a sign and walked out of the cage like a beat up UFC fighter. People started to slow clap and take photos but I just got in an Uber to head to the casino to sulk some more over KENO and Moscow Mules trying to get old people to lend me money. Thanks for the therapy cages and...

The unprofessionalism of this place surely showed yesterday. When I made a review on Facebook, in response, , the owner "tried" taking a dig at my place of employment and who I am. My friend and I went to grab a bite to eat and have a drink afterwork. I haven't been since the change of owners. We sat in a booth. No one greeted us after sitting there for almost 20 minutes, so I went up to the bar. The bartender was very rude and miserable and said, "I was gonna get there when I got caught up".... so I just ordered at the bar 2 drinks and a cheese crisp. The cheese crisp that came out was cold, and I asked the cook if it was supposed to be cold. He said "no. I'm so sorry let me make you another." and so he did. He brought it out and it wasn't melted. So he fixed it but still said he would have it removed from our bill. He was the nicest guy in the place. I gave him a tip based on his courtesy and acknowledging the errors. And not because of the tacky sign pasted at the end of the table that says "Like the food, Tip the cook"... At the end, I went up to the bar and paid. The total was 17.39 as she still charged me for the cheese crisp we didn't eat. (it certainly wasn't the cooks fault). The crisp was $9 and she refunded me only $8. I left a review on facebook and instead of an apology, I got "Chatterbox bartender thank you for the info". I'm still wondering what one of my places of employment have anything to do with the poor experience at this establishment..... I'm quite certain these owners don't have a single clue what it takes to run a bar business. Just...

I really want to give a 5 star review, but there’s problems. I understand that the establishment is under new ownership and it shows… some upgrades, but what is more noticeable is the new owners are not here. The parking lot is not well kept, like that as the batting cages… balls are everywhere, not collected and in the pitching machines as they should be. They open up at 10::00 AM , the cook doesn’t show up till 11:00 AM and that is if the cook shows up at all! Today the cook showed up an hour late, looked stoned and very rude to the customer wanting some lunch. How does the Dugout expect to have a loyal client base if the client can’t rely on having the kitchen or the batting cages ready on a day to day regular basis? The staff seem bored and rude because they ARE bored, not busy enough. I really hope that the new owners get really involved in their new adventure of owning a sports bar and make it better than what it was before or at least just as good. Good luck, but they’ll have to work a little harder, because owning and running a sports bar takes lots more work than what seems to be that they’re putting into their establishment.

Funny as I was commenting in this post, a customer came in with his own food to eat, I’ve seen employees order food from other fast food restaurants, odd to me, because they have a full kitchen capable of cooking up any dish they desire. I truly hope that the new owners make the Dugout a huge success. Good luck! Come and visit the Dugout, witness it yourself. Maybe my 5 star review is in the near future...