DART VICTORY : With just a flick of the wrist--and a cool eye and steady hand--an Anaheim woman has reached the top of her game

Don’t ask Sandy Reitan if she gets the point. She does . . . but she’s just a little weary of puns and barbs (oops) about her chosen profession.

Reitan, 34, is a professional dart player--not just any dart player, mind you, but the premier female darter in the United States and one of the best in the world. In her 10 years as a competitive darter, she has won it all, including the prestigious World Cup.

And before you start snickering too much, understand that she has also made a very handsome living at it, earning as much as $5,000 in a single afternoon for flicking those 26-ounce missiles. As a professional, the Anaheim-based Reitan travels to the four corners of the globe at no expense to herself; the tabs generally are picked up by her sponsors, Unicorn Darts and Lucky Strike Lights, or by tournament hosts anxious to have the top names on their bill (in April, for example, she and 15 other international stars of the game will be in Tokyo vying for $350,000 in prize money at a special invitational match, all expenses paid by the tournament).

As befits any top athlete these days, there are other perks, too, such as product endorsements and the “Sandy Reitan Signature Model dart, available for $14.95 at your better dart stores everywhere.”

What we’re talking about here is the dream of every sedentary, beer-bellied middle American alive--being a top star in a sport that requires absolutely no diet or physical conditioning, no expensive equipment or clothing, and whose arena generally is a smoke-filled neighborhood saloon packed with people swigging ale between burps.

That description is fairly accurate (except for those who reach Reitan’s level and compete in grand ballrooms of major hotels), which makes it all the more mysterious why darts hasn’t become the major sports passion of the average American, as it is for the average citizen of the British Commonwealth.

English stars of Reitan’s magnitude rank with rock music luminaries and drag down upwards of a quarter-million quid a year. Of course, unlike here, darts in England, Australia and New Zealand is a major television sport, attracting more viewers than soccer (except during World Cup play).

Reitan and people such as Tom Fleetwood, founder and general secretary of the American Darts Organization, fervently believe that a full bloom of the sport in the United States is quickly approaching. Begun 11 years ago, the ADO now has more than 100,000 dues-paying members and total purses from sanctioned tournaments will top the $1.5-million mark this year for the first time.

And there is a growing belief that fans just might pay to attend those tournaments, just as they do in other parts of the world. Now, while upwards of 1,000 people will turn out for a major event, they are usually either participants or closely attached to participants.

Reitan was gratified to learn that a recent survey by Bull’s Eye News magazine showed that, while fans weren’t wildly enthusiastic about buying tickets for tournaments, her name was on top of the list of those they said they would pay to see.

One of the deterrents to larger public enthusiasm about the sport, she believes, is a lack of understanding of the rules, something she feels television could cure. “Most people think it’s just a matter of hitting the bull’s-eye and don’t realize it’s a lot more complicated than just that,” she said.

The other mistake most beginners make, she said, is trying to throw the dart as they would a baseball. “When that doesn’t work, they try lobbing it,” she said, “which is also guaranteed to destroy any accuracy or consistency.”

“It’s a game of wrist and mind,” she said, “of holding the dart at eye level, concentrating on the target and flicking the dart with your wrist.”

The key to Reitan’s success, she said, is that ability to concentrate, combined with a discipline that keeps her cool no matter how hot the going gets. And it gets pretty hot for her because everyone is shooting at her. “There are no easy rides for ranked players. No matter where I go, they’re waiting for me and, naturally, they get up for the match . . . and the chance to knock off a world champion.”

Sometimes she actually does get whipped, but not very often. She had a bad year in 1987, earning a little more than $13,000 in purses and winding up “only second” in the national rankings. While she offers no excuses, the ADO’s Fleetwood does. “Her husband broke his hip and was laid up and it was pretty rough on both of them,” said Fleetwood, who predicted that “she will be back as No. 1 this year; she’s in top form again . . . shooting brilliantly.”

Reitan’s husband and traveling companion, Andy Green, 41, is himself a world-ranked professional who bristled at a recent New Yorker magazine article that called Reitan “the Chris Evert Lloyd of the darting world.” “She is the Chris Evert of the dart world,” he said, “but I’mnot the John Lloyd (Evert’s estranged husband, who is not exactly one of the top tennis players). I’ve been among the top 10 in the country for years.”

The couple recently celebrated their third wedding anniversary and Reitan admits that it wasn’t exactly love at the first triple twenty. “He was this big-time professional player when I first met him,” she said, “and I thought he was kind of arrogant and stuck-up. But he wasn’t . . . and he isn’t.”

They compete together as often as they can, but seldom against each other. When they’re not off at tournaments--40 weekends will be thus spent this year--they’re home tending to Green’s two children from a previous marriage and their respective businesses (Reitan is part owner of the Dart Shoppe in Anaheim and Green is involved in real estate and construction).

Practice is important, and a dart board hangs in their living room “to remind me that’s what I should be doing,” she said. But, while many professionals practice six or seven hours a day, Reitan said she’s a “terrible procrastinator, and I don’t do it as much as I should.”

Reitan, who was born and raised in Duluth, Minn., got into the game as most people do, while enjoying a little repast in a neighborhood pub. She was 24 at the time, and while she had participated in a number of sports as a youngster, she hadn’t really thrown anything more than an occasional tantrum. “I discovered right away that I had some kind of natural talent for darts,” she said, “especially after I entered my first little tournament and won my $15 entry fee back.”

A far cry from the $30,000 first prize she will be shooting for in Tokyo in April. And, if she loses, she figures she has a lot of years of competition ahead.

“Look at Lil Coombs,” she said, referring to Britain’s reigning female darter. “She’s in her 60s and never even picked up a dart until she was in her 50s.”

BASIC RULES OF TOURNAMENT DARTS

In tournament (or English) play each competitor begins with 301 points. The object is to get that number down to zero.

You must start with a double score (If you look at a dart board, the wedge-shaped numbered zones growing out from the bull’s-eye are intersected by narrow parallel strips of wire. A hit within the outer strips doubles the number; a hit within the strips about halfway from the bulls-eye triples the number.) and then work your way down to exactly zero.

The final score also must be a double. So, obviously, one must have pretty quick mathematical skills to keep track of the game. And it’s easy to see where strategy comes in, trying to avoid certain numbers toward the end of a game (those, like 3 or 7, that can’t be reached with a double).

While there are variations on the game (professional tournaments usually are 501 points rather than 301, for instance), there are also some strict never-to-be-violated rules. The target must be hung so that the center of the bull’s eye is exactly 5 feet 8 inches from the floor, and the hockey (throwing line) must be exactly 7 feet 9 inches from the outer side of the target. The latter was a compromise reached several years ago with the British who had always stood 8 feet away and the Americans who had stood 7 1/2 feet away.