Pastimes
Pastimes
Pastimes
Melissa Palmer
Hitting the Bullseye
It Was a Tuesday night at Southwest Lanes, and a few steps past the rattle and clash of bowling balls, a group of people watched intently as one of their own raised her hand and aimed a slim, steel dart at a round board on the wall. Her wrist snapped back and the dart hit the board with a muffled thwack. She grimaced.
“I’m an average player – maybe even worse than average,” said Noel Carroll cheerfully as she tallies her score. Despite her modesty about her own skills, Carroll is passionate about darts and she is the driving force behind Bakersfield’s independent Rogue Darting Association, a group of about 25 dart aficionados who meet weekly for a beer or two, a game or three, and a great evening spent with friends who share her competitive love of this traditional pub sport.
Anyone who’s ever stumbled into a pub has seen a dartboard hanging on a wall, but many bars hang a board merely to invoke a cozy, Anglo-centric ambiance – more often than not, no one is actually playing. Real games require a cleared foor and plenty of wiggle room, as the combination of alcoholic beverages and steeltipped mini missiles flying through the air unquestionably has the Potential for disaster. Carroll smiles at the suggestion. “This is a family place,” she said of Southwest Lanes, “and we’re here to have fun. We’ve never had a problem at all.” Although darts is a game in which both men and women can be equally competitive, most of the players in Carroll’s league are guys who enjoy relaxing with a drink after a long day at work – which is exactly how many players discover the game. Carroll started playing when she and her husband, a local firefighter, dropped into Bakersfield’s late, lamented British pub Britannia for a drink and saw the dartboard. “There were a couple of people playing and I thought it looked like fun. Soon we were going down there so I could play!” When Britannia closed, Carroll wanted to continue playing but found that securing space for competitive steel-tip players was challenging.
“It takes room to be able to accommodate a game,” she noted. “You need 30, maybe 40 square feet for the board and the players, and that’s space that you’re taking away from the bar’s customers.” Carroll was thrilled when Southwest Lanes was willing to accommodate their needs, allowing them to secure backboards to the wall and providing them with locked storage space for their equipment. “And there’s food and drink here, so we can relax and enjoy the game.
We even plug in our MP3s and play great classic rock.” Bill Casey is one of the RDA regulars, and like others who are part of the weekly league, he takes his darts seriously. “Britannia was one of those places where you could always find people around the dart board,” Casey remembered, “but it’s harder to play well where people are bumping into you. If you want to concentrate on becoming a better player, a bar’s not the best place to improve your skills.” Casey threw his first darts about 15 years ago when a friend suggested that he join an existing group of garage players who had been playing together for years. As he grew more competitive, Casey ventured farther afield, looking for players who could challenge his growing skill level. He entered a few big tournaments, most notably the Las Vegas Desert Classic, which carries a total prize purse of around $250,000 and attracts an internationally renowned group of dart players, including 13-time world champion Phil “The Power” Taylor. Today, Casey counts as friends a number of big-name players, including Jason “Cockney Jock” Clark (colorful nicknames being de rigueur among this crowd), a few of whose personal darts hang in a place of honor on Casey’s garage wall.
Taking up a sport means that players accumulate a few important pieces of equipment, and Casey has some of the best on the market including a handmade Winmau Blade III bristle dartboard – which hangs a regulation five feet, eight inches from the center of the red bullseye to the concrete floor of his garage – the same brand of board used by professional players worldwide. A yellow strip with ruler markings indicates the official throwing distance: seven feet, nine-and-a-quarter inches, measured along Casey’s spotless floor from the plane of the board’s face.
There are a lot of numbers in darts, which is perhaps one reason why logical thinkers like Casey thrive on mastering the rules. “It’s all about mathematics,” he asserted, his bright blue eyes twinkling as he launched into a nearly incomprehensible discussion of strategy that proves that, for the arithmetically-challenged among us, there is no such thing as a simple game.
Carroll said that Rogue players concentrate mostly on “01” games, in which players compete to reach zero after starting with either 501 or 301 points; or Cricket, in which players try to hit the numbers 15-20 and the bullseye three times each. “Once you get the hang of scoring, you can focus on strategy,” said Casey. “But I’m proud to say I’ve lost to some of the best in the world.” Over the last few years, there have been a number of nationally affiliated dart leagues in Bakersfield, but Carroll isn’t aware of any other steel-tip leagues that are currently playing. The Rogue Darting Association, which she began independently, is her labor of love and she holds it together with the help of other dedicated players who pony up dues and commit to a team for the duration of the season.
Although Casey and Carroll are strong proponents of the steel-tip game, soft-tipped darts, which are made of a lightweight plastic and thrown at an electronic board, have a following among local players as well. Bars like B. Ryder’s on White Lane and Bellvedere on Brundage offer soft-tip play, and the Cue Ball on Rosedale Highway also has a Saturday night soft-tip tournament that is open to the public.
In a time when busy schedules and limited budgets often keep people from enjoying the company of friends, Bakersfield’s dart players have found a great way to relax and enjoy the game they love. “It’s a night out with people you like,” says Carroll. “We have fun, enjoy each other’s company – and believe me, we play to win!”
Comments
I feel obligated to make a slight correction. Not that the error was intentional so much as my friend Bill Casey needs to be given a hard time for his comments. Our group has met in one of our various garages nearly every week over over 15 years. We even have a website. (Since we are more interested in dart play and camaraderie than updating the page some parts are a bit dated, incomplete or just plain wrong)
The idea that Mr Casey had to go elsewhere to seek challenging opponents is fantasy on his part. It is true that to find players of international renown other venues are the place to look. While I attend mostly for the afore mentioned camaraderie a few of our number are quite outstanding players. I for one rarely have beaten him in play. He is a fine player, however several of my Garagedarts cohorts routinely find him not up to the challenge. I just want your readers to understand that a location with public access and beer for sale by the mug or pitcher are not required for interesting play. Although I find a pint will loosen up my darting arm quite well.
* Also at a recent night of darts the assembled were puzzled at how simple math constitutes a strategy with some advantage. Obviously our weak minds are unable to grasp the concept. Facility with subtraction is crucial in an "01" game to figure what spots on the board to hit to reach 0. Maybe that's what he was talking about.