Another Story from Warren...

Here's a note I recently received from Warren, in Hawaii. Warren is another passionate darter who has just started playing league for the first time...This sure does bring back memories!

Hey Sherilyn,

Guess who!? Hehehe, well, its been along time since I last wrote you. I'm still playing league and things are looking better for our team. We are in 5th out of 6, but we are on a 3 game winning streak so far. Hehehe, and I've made Player of the Week for the past 2 weeks, and another one of the guys on our team made it last week. I also hit 2 Ton80s. Boy, did that feel good. Here I've written a little about my experience playing for the first time in a soft-tip league.

"My First League - Was It Scary!"

This is my first time playing in any league. So in Hawaii, we have more bars that have soft-tip boards. I haven't been to one for steel-tippers. But, the league started up in the earlier part of August. Me and my friends thought it would be fun to do, since even last place wins something. And plus they hold a buffet at the end where its all you can eat and all you can DRINK. So the four of us decided to join and called ourselves "The Little Rascals." Me, Edward, Raymond, and Edward's friend Mike (since we needed 4 people to be a team). The first game we played was against these guys called "Keep it Real." They were good, we lost 3-12. We played Cricket doubles, 501 singles, team 301, and finally team 701. Because it was our first league night, we didn't know how to keep score. We never played against people we didn't know, and we never played under pressure like that.

The first time each one of us stepped to that line and tried to aim. You could see it in our hands. It would slowly start to shake. The sweat would trickle down our foreheads. And the beer was all gone. Throwing the first dart, just hoping that it sticks to the board. Then throwing the second dart, hoping that it lands somewhere close to the first one (that's if it was even on target), and finally throwing the third dart just happy to be done with your turn. The nerves were in overdrive, trembling of fear and curiosity of what the other team would throw. Then silence. Keep it Real closes out the 20, and scores 20 extra points. This was going to be a long night!

One by one, Keep it Real would pick up a win. But then finally, something out of the normal happened. We won a match. A 501 singles match, which meant that we had one point to our name. It wasn't going to be a shutout!

Now its time for the team 301. This time the other team didn't take us lightly. They started to pound and hit low ton after low ton. For us, we didn't even know what the hell a low ton was up until that night. We never knew that there were names for different marks you can hit. So we started throwing, and throwing and throwing. Scoring as high as 80 or so per person.

Now it was the finally match, team 701. On one side was Keep it Real and on the other was the Little Rascals. Each one of us took turns walking up to that line and throwing. Bullseye, 3, and 1. While Keep it Real managed to rack up another 4 low tons. It was clear, we couldn't win the last match. But we knew we would have them again. Because we knew that we would play each team at least 3 times. So we'll get them one day...

We learned a lot that night of playing. We learned that our fourth guy Mike didn't want to play again, and that we'll be missing a fourth player. We learned what a "White Horse" is. And most important, we learned what first time jitters really felt like and how to remedy that. Drink a beer.

Well Sherilyn, I hoped you liked that story. Also, thanks for all the advice you gave me in the past. It really helped. Now we aren't as bad as we started! I'm already thinking about next season. Hehehe...

Well, till next time... -Warren