Modern Living: Darts Away

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It was match time at the Chelsea, a Chicago pub that draws dart players he way Raquel Welch attracts glances, and after several hours of steady practice, the first competitor toed the line and braced to throw. "He was really tired from all that practice," remembers Manager Joe Cassidy. "On that first throw, his follow-through was beautiful. But the dart stuck in his toe."

The Fine Olde English Game of Darts is not usually so dangerous. The most common peril, in fact, is a slow disntegration of precision caused by overdrafts of ale or lager, which most dart 51ayers regard as a pleasantly indispensable part of the game. This is perfectly in tune with the Fine Olde English Atmosphere in which the game flourishes nowadays as never before in ;he U.S.

Feathered Flights. "Our growth is amazing," says mustachioed Bob McLeod, 36, president of the fledgling United States Darting Association. "For every 100 players we had registered last year, we have 200 this year." The listing of darts pubs in On the Wire, USDA's ten-times-yearly newsletter, grows with every issue. McLeod has enlisted 4,300 enthusiasts under the USDA banner so far and estimates the total U.S. dartist population at about 3.2 million.

Sales of dart equipment are rising apace, spurred by the increased interest in sophisticated English weaponry now available in the U.S. through firms like McLeod's Darts Unlimited and Sam Hill English Darts in San Francisco. The darts themselves come in an enormous variety of sizes and shapes, from simple wooden affairs to the Ambassador model, which boasts a gold-plated barrel and genuine feathers called flights. Aficionados would not be caught dead without their own favorite brand of dart. The standard board, favored by USDA and a fixture in most English pubs, is made of tightly packed sisal fiber and marked off in 20 pieshaped sections with a score value of from 1 to 20, and inner and outer bull's-eyes worth 50 and 25 points respectively.* Some pubs, like Washington's Wakefields, have as many as five boards permanently set up.

Three in Bed. The game's heart is clearly located in the urban pub, although the suburbs of most major cities boast leagues too. Typical is the Jelly Belly Dart Association of Greenport, N.Y., which pits about 100 players in team matches every Monday night.

In city pubs like Manhattan's David Copperfield and Ken Beyer's, the dart players tend to be under 40, employed in advertising and publishing. Many are known by noms de fléchette: Harper Valley Fats and Butterball Stabler are regulars among the Jelly Bellies, while Oiley the Pot and Fast Trowel Mazz linger at Duffy's in Manhattan. Even the lingo is special. A "ton" means that a player has scored five 20s (or 100 points), while "top of the shop" is a double 20. Three bull's-eyes in one round is called "three in bed."

The level of the American game has risen spectacularly in the past few years. In 1970, British Champ Barry Twomlow crossed the Atlantic for a series of exhibitions. As expected, Twomlow smeared the colonials. When he returned this year, however, he was dry-gulched by Bob Theide, 27, a Pensauken, N.J., metalworker who currently reigns as U.S. champion; Theide won eight out of twelve games.