Here’s to the Chairmen of the Dartboard

The British class system can be pinpointed by darts. There are no boards at the Savoy nor the Cavalry and Guards Club on Piccadilly. Because gentlemen, m’dear, don’t play darts. Nor, good sir, do gentlewomen.

Even in its accepted arena, the ubiquitous, boisterous pub, darts is played not in the saloon bar (where a pint costs more and conversations and the carpet are a little cleaner) but in the public bar reserved for lower indoor sports (shove ha’penny and cribbage) and lesser blokes.

Darts were a cruise sport on the Mayflower but only for lower deck types. William Bradford and Myles Standish spent their evenings playing whist in Capt. Jones’ cabin.

Britain’s early darts tournaments were sponsored by a major newspaper. Not by the aristocratic Times of London, however, but by the sex- and soccer-oriented News of the World.

And in 1980, baggage handlers struck Glasgow Airport . . . because one worker was denied a shift change to play in a local darts match.

With an estimated 11 million persons (1/5th of the population) playing the game, championships of darts have been elevated to prime time on British television. The exposure, unfortunately, has done nothing to dissipate the Andy Capp image of the game.

Coverage of the recent world championship produced a first for televised sports: players swigging pints of beer between shots. Some had cigarettes dangling from lower lips. While flipping darts.

I learned the game sometime between having my tonsils removed and knocking my sister gaga with a bag of marbles. So I would have been about 6.

Dad--on a Winmore elm board nailed to the garage door, using feather-flighted darts with lead weights around their potbellied wooden shafts--taught me everything he knew. “Don’t flick the bloody darts . . . smooth back, smooth forward, smooth follow through . . . lean into it and when you grow up you’ll be three foot closer to the board.

“And watch out for the bloke who warms up left-handed and picks up a beer with his right. He’s hustling you.”

I was never as good as dad. Or Jim Pike, the legend who could put three darts between the fingers of a hand splayed bravely against a board. But I learned well.

Darts won beer and suppers and pin money through school, the military, at a research station in Antarctica and a Special Forces camp just west of Hue-Phu Bai. I remain the despair of any carny (and the hero of any kid in search of NFL tumblers or stuffed ferrets) who thought that only one person in a hundred can hit three balloons with three darts. And I did pass on the truck driver, thanks, who warmed up left handed and picked up a beer with his right.

In Canada, in the ‘60s, I had a partner. Cockney, fun Colin Deacon. We’d use house darts so as not to show our hands. We’d pretend we’d just met because close friends are another tip-off. Then Deke and I, his Fast Eddie Felson to my Vince Lauria, would clean clocks.

One night it was the Commonwealth Club on Montreal’s Pine Street. Losers bought the beer. Winners held the board. It was our memorable evening.

Deke was hitting Robin Hoods (a cluster of three darts in the treble 20s) from the first game. Tons (100 points) were his habit. I made three-dart outs of audacious, stupid combinations and even declared them. “Eighty-nine left? Treble 19, double 15, double one. Watch this . . . “

In the end there were 38 pints of beer, our winnings, atop the upright piano at the Commonwealth Club. I couldn’t drink and continue playing. Deke continued both.

“How,” I hissed, “can you drink and keep hitting doubles like that?”

“Because,” said Deke, “everything on the board looks double to me.”

Deke became an editor for Reuters in Washington. He died there more than a decade ago. He was electrocuted while trying to fix an air-conditioning unit.

He should have used an insulated screwdriver instead of an old dart.

The Watneys Pentathlon will be held today at The Crest, 1625 Cabrillo Ave., Torrance. Ten hours of play and a 20-player shootout commencing at 10 a.m. Admission free.