Remember on 12/26 when I said we had a match the next day?  I don’t know how I could have misread the schedule–I probably didn’t even look at it–but of course, we had a bye the week between Christmas and New Year’s.

So, Red and I showed up for the match and played for a few hours since we were there anyway.  If you check the stats above, you’ll notice that he played quite a bit better the last two weeks.  Just sayin’.

Oh, and the league office wasn’t being lazy by not sending out the stats reports.  I always forget that he doesn’t issue them the last couple of weeks of the season to prevent teams tanking to one another to manipulate the standings and get into the playoffs in a less than honest fashion.  Kinda lousy to even imagine some people doing that, but they do.  The stats have been updated now that the playoff teams are set.

So, not a bad couple of weeks.  We lost to The Cards 7-6, but only after going down 5-0 to them to start the match.  It came down to the final game in the end, and while it would have been sweet to walk away with the win, I couldn’t be too upset about how we finished the match.

Then it was Brickhouse I last Tuesday, and we played better than we have in a long, long time.  What impressed me most was how well the other team handled what happened.  They were pretty sure that we were knocking them out of the playoffs and they reacted with genuine good humor.  As it turned out, of course, we only knocked them back from 3rd to 4th place, and so they’re still in.

We didn’t make the playoffs, but we didn’t miss by much.  And we didn’t hit .500, but we missed that by only a hair.  We could have all done better this season, but it’s a tough division and we didn’t embarrass ourselves.

All in all, a good time.

Final record: 90-92

I’ll let you know if anything interesting happens at the banquet.  Otherwise, I’ll see you when the next season starts.

I think I’ve got a handle on it, but we haven’t gotten our results from last week yet and since we’re playing tomorrow I figured I’d just post what I have.

Quick recaps:

Office Cafe – Typical loss for us.  We went down 4-0, then battled back to tie it 5-5, then lost the last three games for an 8-5 loss.  Frustrating.

Muggs Away – Our sister team, and it’s always fun playing against them.  It’s even better beating them (8-5) especially since they’re in first place, but that’s a little less impressive when you find out that one of their key players was missing.

Dart Fellas – Fun group of guys.  This match was almost the reverse of the one against the Office Cafe team.  We went up 4-0, they battled back, and then we put them away 9-4.  I wonder if the Office team was as nervous when we did it to them as we were last week?

Two matches left–against The Cards and Brickhouse.  We were nine games out of the playoffs before last week, and unless that number went down quite a bit it doesn’t look like we’ll make the playoffs this time.

Sometimes playing darts is more fun when there’s nothing at stake.

So, long story short, we did what we’ve done all year: terrible start, mini-comeback, fall short.

Final score: an 8-5 loss.

I was waiting for the stats to be sent to us before posting, and since this wouldn’t have been the first time they’d been this late I didn’t think too much about it.  But the league didn’t officially have any matches this week (Casey’s couldn’t make our December match, so we rescheduled to the off week)  so the stats won’t be coming.

The schedule above has been updated, but not the standings or stats, which will get two week’s worth of changes next week.

So, what happened?

Easy enough to describe: we played horribly in the first set of 501, and went down 4-0 before we had time to catch our breaths.  And while we did a good job of coming back and tying it up 5-5, it was just too much of a headstart to give a team as strong as Casey’s.

Special thanks to the Rook for winning the 701 game–our first one in a while!–to end the match on a high note.

Final score: a 7-6 loss.

Next up, 40 and Over for John.  What’ll happen?  Hell if I know!  Well, I know one thing.  I’ll be getting there a little earlier than usual.  Rook’s girlfriend pointed out that we’ve been starting out dismally our last few matches.  Maybe if I start “practicing” earlier we won’t start in such a hole.

It’s been a couple of years since we played against this team, but one thing I remembered about them was that they thrive on momentum.  You have to strike early against Brickhouse I if you’re going to have any shot at beating them.  They’re great at psyching each other up, and if they smell blood in the water you’re sunk.

Unfortunately, we didn’t do anything right the first two games and ended up down 2-0.  No one on our side folded though, which was encouraging, and we found ourselves down only 5-4 heading into the tenth game.

I think if we’d won that game we might have shaken the Brickhouse team’s confidence some.  At least I’d like to think that, and that we could have built up some momentum for ourselves.  It didn’t happen, though.  And the way it didn’t happen was very disheartening: it was a lack of communication.

Vulture and Meister were playing a game of 501 which was coming down to the wire.  The opposition had scores of 5 and 7, so although our team had low scores themselves, each of our players was freezing the other one out.  Meister was up, and he and I talked about what he should shoot for, and he ended up the round with a 7.  Vulture’s unfrozen and can win if the other team doesn’t end it.  They bust.

Then Vulture’s up, with a 21.  He hits a 3.  This should have warned me, but I’m thinking: “An 18 and we win!”  But I didn’t say anything, because I didn’t want to distract him.  He hits a 19, busts, and the other team goes out with the next dart.

Vulture was devastated, so I didn’t ask him how he could hit a number on the opposite side of the board from what he needed.  It was only later that I found out that he thought he was still frozen, and was trying to hit a 17 to get his score to 1.  He missed the 17 and hit the 19, and was upset that his partner was still frozen.  He didn’t realize he’d had a chance to win until I told him.

So that’s why you keep talking to your teammates, even if you’re worried about distracting them.  Any time the situation changes, you have to make sure everyone knows about it.  And I can’t be upset with Vulture either, because in a playoff match against Muggs Away a couple of years back, I didn’t realize that I had just been frozen and went out, costing us the game and any chance of winning the match.

This kind of thing happens when teammates assume everybody’s on the same page.

Oh, well.  Final score: an 8-5 loss.

You’ll notice that the schedule has been changed above.  Instead of an off week, we’ll be playing Casey’s RBs, who had to reschedule our December match against them because of another meeting they’re going to.

I don’t know how realistic it is, but I can’t set our goal at a close loss.  We still have a chance to make the playoffs, but we have to start winning.  Let’s see if we can pull of a 7-6 squeaker.

We came into it tied with The Cards, and as we were going into the final game tied 6-6, we all smiled at each other, shaking our heads.  I don’t think either team won two games in a row all night.

Back and forth, back and forth.  It was tense, but exhilarating.  Like two heavyweight prizefighters who can’t land the knockout blow.  Okay, given the standings I guess it was more like to middleweight fighters.  (Pound-for-pound the best punchers!)

Anyway, The Cards won the first game of the night, and we alternated wins the whole match, so you can do the math.

All right, lazybones: a 7-6 loss.

So, we’ve dug a hole for ourselves, but it’s not a particularly deep hole: three games out of the playoffs at the moment.  I admit it’ll be a challenge for us to break .500 in this division, but I’m having fun just being in the hunt.

Next week we have Brickhouse I.  We’ve played them in the past, but not for a couple of years so I’m not sure how we’ll do.  Looking at the standings, I’d guess not so good.  Let’s shoot for a 7-6 upset.

I’d like to thank Casey’s RBs and their supporters for throwing so much traffic to this little blog.  It’s very exciting to have so many new people interested in what I have to say.

It suddenly struck me that I haven’t come across a general interest darts blog, and I was wondering if I could convince any of you to stick around, even without any controversy or petty arguing.

I’ll throw out a topic, and we’ll see if there’s any response, okay?

Where do you buy darts and dart supplies?  My nephew, God bless him–he plays as “Rook” by the way–gave me a gift certificate for my birthday this year.  It was for A-Z Darts.  I bought a set of $15 darts and some supplies, and entered the gift certificate number.  It showed up for the correct amount, but my order was over so I also entered my credit card.

The gift certificate was never applied to the order.  This wouldn’t be so bad, because I can always use darts and dart stuff, but the darts I received from them are the shoddiest things I’ve ever seen.  I had one shaft snap off inside the barrel the first night I used them.  I made do with bar darts for the rest of the evening, but when I went to replace the shaft, I couldn’t get one to screw into the barrel.  Another dart from the same set requires me to use a dart tool to force a new tip into the barrel.  I’m going to try to use up the rest of the gift certificate on flights and tips because I’d never trust A-Z Darts with anything important.

Anyone have a similar experience?  Anyone have any suggestions for a good online retailer?

And yet, we did have some awful shooting.  It’s not like that was an accident,  or it was just a fluke.  It’s not something that happened to us, it’s something we did.  And, to be honest, there were two games that we should have lost but managed to snatch away from our opponents.

So all in all, things worked out the way they should have.

As always, Fiddler’s Green is the best bar in Stamford to play darts–there’s a reason it and Tiernan’s are the only two places I’ve linked to at the top right.  Plenty of room for players and spectators to get comfortable, and in a closed-off area, too.

Good bunch of guys, as well.  One of them spent almost ten minutes before the match trying to help me repair a broken dart before we gave up and I shot with the bar darts.  I think I’ll just stick with bar darts, at least until the break, since I’ve gotten used to throwing with them.

For once, we won the 701 game!  Although it was one of the close ones: three of the four scores were at ’5′ when we finally got out.

Final score: a 7-6 win.  And it was probably better than we deserved.

Next week it’s The Cards at Tiernan’s.  We’ve never played them before, so I have no idea what to expect.

“Mike–We’re going to get killed without you.  We’ll all chip in $20 and get your parents a limo!”

Well, they did get killed without me.  But the stats say they played well.  We probably would have won a couple more games if I’d been there, but nothing too dramatic.

Final score: a 10-3 loss.

——————————–

We made up our missed match against Casey’s RBs the following night.  Some very good players on this team, and there was no fighting at all, which was great.  Lousy place to throw though, with oblivious people ramming into you all the time.

Final score: an 8-5 loss.

See?  I make about a two-game difference.  No more whining if I can’t play!

Sorry for the brevity–just got the stats and standings this afternoon and this was my first chance to post.  The figures do not include Wednesday’s match, so when they come out later this week, they’ll be for two matches.

Tomorrow’s match is against the Dart Fellas.  They’re the one team in this division that we played against last year, and we did pretty well against them when we were at full strength.  I’d like to get back to .500, but that probably won’t be possible to do in one match.  Let’s shoot for a 8-5 win.

I’ll be able to make it to that one, but unfortunately I’ve got to pick up my parents at the airport on Tuesday night, so I’ll be missing Tuesday’s match.  I hope someone will fill me in as to how it went.