Brendan Emmett Quigley

The local crossword puzzle creator and his friends go for beer and baseball at the Common Ground

If Brendan Emmett Quigley's career were a ballgame, you could say he has two sports-themed crossword books down, one at bat, and six on deck. Still, he found time to meet friends at the Common Ground in Allston recently to talk about music and watch the Red Sox and a Bruins playoff game - and change the topic every three minutes. Quigley, who made a brief appearance in the documentary "Wordplay" and was featured in the book "Crossworld," also contributes puzzles to The New York Times and The Boston Globe and has a syndicated crossword for alt-weekly publications.

Writer Michael T. Fournier of Allston, 34, was bursting with stories about meeting hardcore legend Ian MacKaye of Fugazi fame, who came to talk to his History of Punk Rock class at Tufts: "He's dropping all these crossword names!" Fournier said.

Quigley, who lives in Brookline and turns 34 today, wasn't surprised: MacKaye's dad edited the Washington Post crosswords. On his urging, Quigley sent his then-band's record to MacKaye. "He wrote a postcard back," said Quigley, who now plays with the synth-glam band Cyanide Valentine.

Jim Zavadoski of Somerville, 34, and Travis Gowing of Allston, 30, arrived and ordered beer. Quigley seemed jittery and spacey. "I've just been trying to finish this [expletive] book," he said. He'd even had nightmares.

"Dude, you're so emo," Fournier said.

"This game counts," Zavadoski chided them, referring to the Bruins, "so we should all have our eyes on this."

Despite his many sports-related assignments, Quigley is no hockey buff. "Hockey to me might as well be cricket," he said. "I just don't understand it."

A discussion of rugby led into the Replacements and, somehow, the connotations of the word "serendipity":

"The smell of your prom," said Zavadoski.

"Cheap whiskey and failure," Gowing riffed.

Fournier stopped them: "It's getting a little too cerebral."

"Let's just watch baseball," Gowing said. Just then, a forced pop-up helped Wakefield get out of a jam.

The four friends, who all have ties through music, cast ballots for the best pop song of all time as candidates came over the sound system: "Mmmbop" (Gowing), Bell Biv Devoe's "Poison" (Quigley), or "Like a Virgin" (Zavadoski).

Quigley, who wore headphones around his neck the whole night, is obsessed with music minutiae. When he saw the movie "High Fidelity," he thought to himself, "Oh [expletive], this is what I must look like to other people."

In fact, the group's favorite game, which they call Fagen (after the Steely Dan cofounder), involves making up fake band names. "We could play it right now!" Quigley said.

Fournier objected: "There's too many people up here." (The Globe was not invited to their Monday-night Fagen parties, but you can find the rules of the game on the Rock Louder website, a UK webzine that interviewed Quigley when he was in the band Campaign for Real Time.)

Zavadoski ordered more beers.

"It's on my tab?" Quigley asked.

"Someone's tab," Zavadoski said with a shrug.

"Nancy Drew is tearing it up out there!" Fournier said, referring to Sox right fielder J.D. Drew. No one seemed to notice. Empty pint glasses cluttered the table.

Despite Quigley's looming deadlines, music talk far outweighed acrosses and downs. "I think the readership of Brendan's friends vary," said Fournier. He does Quigley's Weekly Dig puzzles, which "are willfully obscure for hipsters."

"I'm not sure the Times would buy 'ex-Smiths guitarist Johnny,' " Fournier said. (M-A-R-R.)

Zavadoski leaned over. "You want to know a dark secret about Brendan Quigley?" he asked. "He's a huge Sudoku fan."

Still, Quigley's crossword fame didn't go unnoticed. "We're all excited for Brendan's wedding [in August] because we're all thinking we'll meet [New York Times crossword puzzle editor] Will Shortz," Fournier said.

Zavadoski, a bass player, seemed a little left out. "These guys bum me out in like" - he checked a text message and then continued: "These guys who actually write books, I have no idea how they have the attention span."

When Quigley stepped away in the seventh inning, his friends revealed more not-so-dark secrets.

"Everybody at the table has dated his sister, except Brendan," Gowing said.

"Bill and Susan, his parents, right, are two completely fantastic individuals," Fournier said.

Clearly there was a special bond between Fournier and Quigley, who met at the University of New Hampshire when Quigley insulted Fournier's taste in music. "He does more work than any of us," said Fournier, who is officiating at Quigley's wedding. "He's inspiring."

The Sox eventually won 12-6, not that any of them were paying much attention. Afterward, Quigley and Fournier went off to listen to records - and possibly play Fagen.