Ron Kantowski puts Jim Gibbons’ bold claim to the test and makes like Rick Neuheisel, crawling from McCormick & Schmick’s to the Marriott

Saturday, Oct. 21, 2006 | 8:06 a.m.

A week after "The 911 Calls Heard 'Round Nevada," or by whatever name the incident featuring The Candidate (Rep. Jim Gibbons) and The Cocktail Waitress (Chrissy Mazzeo) will come to be known, questions linger like that pitch the Met Aaron Heilman left out over home plate for Cardinal Yadier Molina on Thursday night.

Perhaps most will be answered by attorneys at some point. Or by voters on Election Day. But as a sports writer, I don't have time for all that. My chad is hanging and I need to know now.

I need to know if it's really possible, as Gibbons, the Republican gubernatorial candidate, told authorities, to crawl from the McCormick & Schmick's restaurant to your room at the Residence Inn by Marriott in the Hughes Center.

Maybe that isn't akin to running a four-minute mile or surviving an interview with Barry Bonds. But crawling the length of a couple of football fields on your hands and knees seems like an athletic feat of grandiose proportions, especially for a guy my age. Or Gibbons'.

But on Friday morning, that's just what I set out to do. First, I stepped off the distance from the front door of McCormick & Schmick's to the door of the Marriott lobby, twirling my finger in the air to gauge the wind and walking it upright.

Time: One minute, 45 seconds. Although I bet that if you were really in a hurry to get back to your room for something, you could make it in 1:15, a minute and a half, tops.

But then it was time to wreck a perfectly good pair of Wranglers. It should be noted that whereas Rep. Gibbons was wearing a suit and tie, I was dressed a little more appropriately for crawling: jeans, sneakers, Chicago Cubs cap and a Rick Neuheisel football jersey, because if there's anyone used to groveling on all fours, it's the Cubs and Slick Rick.

Getting down on my hands and knees, I crawled from McCormick's front door, looked both ways before crossing Hughes Parkway (you should have seen the expression on the face of the delivery truck driver), turned right at the steps leading down to the parking garage - that Parking Garage - and kept going and going and going until I reached the Marriott lobby. I swear I could have heard the "Chariots of Fire" music if it weren't for my heavy breathing.

Time: Six minutes, 45 seconds.

I felt like Tony Horton after he popped out on Steve Hamilton's "folly floater" in 1970.

Horton, the former Indians' slugger who had hit three home runs in a single game against the Yankees a month earlier, fouled off one of Hamilton's crazy eephus pitches but then asked Thurman Munson if he could have another. Hamilton complied, and when Horton popped out weakly into Munson's catcher's mitt, Horton literally crawled back to the dugout in shame.

I don't think any surveillance cameras caught my crawl, just a bored parking attendant who seemed to be wondering whether I had lost a contact lens. Or my mind.

But when I climbed to my feet, my body parts creaking like an old Buick, I sort of felt like Neil Armstrong lumbering down the steps of the lunar module.

I had proved that you can crawl from McCormick & Schmick's to your room at the Marriott.

But if you're staying there, and having dinner on restaurant row, take it from an expert before you start crawling places.

Make dinner reservations at Hamada of Japan. It's directly across the street and a lot easier on the knees.