Triple Twenty: The Tuesday Darts League

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Hi! I'm Lori. By day I'm a lab tech at the hospital here in Lansing, which means I spend eight hours a day looking at very small things very carefully and writing down numbers. On Tuesday nights I go to the Hollow Log, look at a slightly bigger thing very carefully, and write down numbers. My husband says this is not the change of pace I think it is.

I started throwing three winters ago when a girl from work needed a fourth for her team, and I was terrible, and I loved it. I'm better now. Not great. Better. This page has our league, the rules for the two games we play, the manners nobody tells you about until you break one, my averages (I keep track of everything, sorry), and the standings for the fall session, which I type in every Wednesday from Robin's stat sheets.

THE LEAGUE

The Tuesday Steel League plays at the Hollow Log Tavern on the east side, a neighborhood bar with good burgers and four bristle boards along the back wall. Steel-tip only, no electronic boards, and the scores go up on chalkboards the old way. Eight teams of four. The fall session is fourteen Tuesdays, August 31 through November 30, then playoffs and the banquet in December.

A match is nine games, one point each:

four singles games of 501, double out
four singles games of Cricket
one team Cricket game to finish the night, all four of us against all four of them, taking turns

Win five games and you win the match. The standings go by total games won, with matches as the tiebreaker. First darts at 7:30. We are usually done by eleven, unless the team Cricket game turns into a bull fight, and then all bets are off.

My team is the Lab Rats:

THROWER	THE SCOOP
Elsie Engle captain	Runs the blood bank at the hospital and runs us too. She talked me into this. Throws 24-gram brass darts she's had since 1979 and won't hear a word against them.
Ernesto Levins	Elsie's next-door neighbor. The best Cricket player on the team. Never says a word while he's at the line and never stops talking when he's not.
Zach McBride	Carries mail on the east side. Walked into the Hollow Log two years ago and asked if anybody needed a player. Our 501 anchor. Hits more tons than the rest of us put together.
Lori Dupuy (me)	Keeps the stats. Throws 22-gram tungsten. Aims at the treble 20 and is learning to be satisfied with the 20.

We're called the Lab Rats because Elsie and I work in the lab. Ernesto and Zach have stopped asking to change it.

HOW TO PLAY, THE SHORT VERSION

The board. Twenty numbered pie slices, 20 at the top. The skinny outer ring counts double, the skinny inner ring counts treble. The green ring around the center is the outer bull, 25, and the red dot in the middle is the bullseye, 50. Three darts a turn, so the most you can score is three treble 20s: 180. That's a "ton-eighty," and when somebody throws one the whole bar yells. Any turn of 100 or more is a ton.

501. Everybody starts at 501 and counts down. You have to finish exactly on zero, and the last dart has to be a double (the bullseye counts as a double 25). Go past zero, or leave yourself 1, and you bust: your turn's over and your score goes back to where it was.

Cricket. Only 15 through 20 and the bull count. Hit a number three times to close it (a double is two hits, a treble is three). Once you've closed a number and the other side hasn't, you score points on it. Close them all and be ahead or tied on points, and you win.

That's the short version. The long version, with how to keep score on the chalkboard and how to think about your outs, is on its own page: How to Play Cricket and 501.

DARTS MANNERS

Nobody hands you a list when you join a league. You find out the rules of manners when somebody gives you a look. Here's my list, so you can skip the looks.

Shake hands before the game and after it. Win or lose. Say "good darts" and mean it.
Don't stand behind the thrower, or right next to the line, or anywhere they can see you out of the corner of their eye. Stand back and to the side and be still.
Quiet while somebody's throwing. Cheer after the third dart, not during.
Leave your darts in the board until the chalker has your score. If you pull them first and there's a question, you lose the argument.
Don't walk in front of the boards to get to the bathroom. Go around. There's a reason the path is there.
Chalk when it's your turn to chalk. At the Hollow Log the loser of the last game chalks the next one. Write neatly, subtract right, and don't call out what somebody needs unless they ask.
The loser buys. Ernesto says this is the only rule that matters. It's a soda for me most Tuesdays, since I drive, but a rule is a rule.
No excuses. The flights were bent, the board was loose, the light was funny. Nobody wants to hear it. I have tried all three.

MY AVERAGES THIS SEASON

Here's where I let my inner lab tech out. For 501 the league keeps points per dart: everything you scored, divided by the darts you threw. For Cricket it's marks per round: every hit that counts, divided by your turns at the line. These are my singles games only.

WEEK	501	DARTS	PTS	PPD	CR	RDS	MPR
1 · 8/31 Bar Flies	W	27	501	18.56	L	10	1.70
2 · 9/7 Hollow Log	L	24	461	19.21	W	9	2.11
3 · 9/14 Third Shift	L	21	399	19.00	L	8	1.63
4 · 9/21 Board Stiffs	W	24	501	20.88	W	8	2.50
SEASON	2-2	96	1862	19.40	2-2	35	1.97

CR = Cricket. RDS = rounds (turns at the line). My Cricket marks by week: 17, 19, 13 and 20, which is 69 marks in 35 rounds.

Last spring I finished at 17.92 and 1.71. So that's a point and a half a dart better in 501 and a quarter of a mark a round better in Cricket, and yes, I made a chart of it on graph paper, and yes, it's on the refrigerator.

Notes to self:

Week 2: sat on 40 for my last two turns and couldn't hit tops (double 20) to save my life. Single 20, single 20, bust. Twice. Lost by one turn. Practice doubles.
Week 3: drew Bob Sheehan of Third Shift in both singles games. He was out in 501 while I still had 102 left. There's no shame in losing to Bob, I'm told. I'm told that by Bob.
Week 4: went out on double 16 with my 24th dart, and my Cricket was the best I've ever thrown: 20 marks in 8 rounds. Elsie bought me a soda.
Four tons so far. High turn 140 (two treble 20s and a single 20). High out 96 (treble 20, double 18).

FALL 1999 STANDINGS
after Week 4, Tuesday, September 21

PL	TEAM	W	L	GAMES WON	LOST
1	Third Shift	4	0	23	13
2	Double Trouble	3	1	22	14
3	Lab Rats	3	1	21	15
4T	Hollow Log Regulars	2	2	19	17
4T	Flight Risk	2	2	19	17
6	Bar Flies	2	2	18	18
7	Bull Dogs	0	4	13	23
8	Board Stiffs	0	4	9	27
	16 matches, 144 games	16	16	144	144

Week by week (games won in each match of nine):

Week 1 · Aug. 31
Lab Rats 6, Bar Flies 3
Hollow Log 5, Double Trouble 4
Flight Risk 5, Bull Dogs 4
Third Shift 7, Board Stiffs 2

Week 2 · Sept. 7
Lab Rats 5, Hollow Log 4
Double Trouble 6, Bull Dogs 3
Third Shift 5, Bar Flies 4
Flight Risk 6, Board Stiffs 3

Week 3 · Sept. 14
Third Shift 6, Lab Rats 3
Hollow Log 6, Bull Dogs 3
Double Trouble 7, Board Stiffs 2
Bar Flies 5, Flight Risk 4

Week 4 · Sept. 21
Lab Rats 7, Board Stiffs 2
Third Shift 5, Hollow Log 4
Double Trouble 5, Flight Risk 4
Bar Flies 6, Bull Dogs 3

Around the league:

Bob Sheehan (Third Shift) threw the first 180 of the season in Week 2, and in Week 4 he went out on 161: treble 20, treble 17, bullseye. Third Shift is 4 and 0 and he is mostly why.
Theresa Bachmann (Double Trouble) leads the league in Cricket at 2.64 marks a round. We play them next week. I've been practicing my 18s. I don't want to talk about it.
Lance Cartwright (Bull Dogs) bought the whole back room a round after his first ton ever, in Week 3. That's the spirit, Lance. You'll get them next week.
The Board Stiffs are 0 and 4 but they are the nicest team in the league and they bring cookies. I'm just saying, there are other ways to win.

Next Tuesday, September 28: Lab Rats vs. Double Trouble. Come watch. Stand back and to the side.

Stats from Robin Garza, our league secretary, who does them by hand on Tuesday nights so the rest of us can argue about them on Wednesday. Any typing mistakes are mine.

You are thrower number

since January 1999

Questions, corrections, or you need a sub on a Tuesday?
[email protected]

How to Play Cricket and 501 »

Last updated Wednesday, September 22, 1999