The eight-team Church Dartball League, started in the 1950s and made up of players from Toledo and Oregon Lutheran congregations, combines baseball-style plays with the recreation of throwing darts.
“It’s a fun sport,” said Bob Haar, a member of one of two teams at First St. John Lutheran Church, 2471 Seaman St.
“You don’t need any athletic ability, really. All you’ve got to do is throw underhand at the board. We throw underhand [using special darts] because it’s over 19 feet down to the board from the tape stripe, and so we have to in order to get some leverage.”
Dartball is a Lutheran tradition in the area, Mr. Haar said. “I’ve been in this league since I’ve been playing, and I’ve been playing 45 years. I’m 62. I started when I was in high school.”
He said new players typically come in having family connections. “Usually it’s sons and grandsons of current players. It’s not something that you come in and decide to want to play dartball at a particular church. I imagine our age group is heavily favored to over 60, but we do have younger players.”
Women play at times, but it’s a male-dominated pastime, he said.
Dartball has a baseball-diamond styled board, with different squares and other areas for hits, strikes, balls, fouls, outs, and other game possibilities. “Nineteen percent of what’s up there is good,” Mr. Haar said. “The other 81 percent’s bad. There have been times when teams have gone 0 for 27 and not got one hit.”
The dartball concept stretches back to the 1920s, and americanstyledarts.com states that one company, Apex, first sold dartball boards in 1923.
The baseball setup includes the team composition.
“We have nine players on each side,” Mr. Haar said. If there are fewer members, the vacant spots earn automatic outs. “It’s just like a batting order — one through nine — and if the person goes up and gets a double, they take the darts off and then the next person tries to throw another double to get an RBI and a run home.”
The games last for nine innings, and a team plays three games each Monday, making a 42-game season. The tournament, with seven-inning games, is not based on standings and is held midseason, giving an opportunity for all the teams to gather at one time.
Mr. Haar is the keeper of all the statistics for the league. “There was one game that we had four hits,” he said, and “the other team only had one hit, but the other team beat us 1 to nothing because they had a home run. It was an interesting game.”
Home runs are uncommon, he said. “We have our doubles hitters and our singles hitters [reaching larger squares on the board], but it’s very hard to go right down the center [to the home run square].”
Another time there was a wild pitch: “One player put a dart up on the ceiling. [The mood] got a little rambunctious, a little exciting, and it stuck up in the ceiling for a few weeks until it finally came down.”
Dartball can get competitive.
“We are a church league,” Mr. Haar said, “but sometimes guys can be a little picky [about darts on boundaries].”
Don’t anticipate bench-clearing brawls, though.
“Never. Nope. It’s all Christian fun,” Mr. Haar said.
That type of fun includes the refreshments. It’s cake, milk, and coffee, he said.
Contact TK Barger @ tkbarger@theblade.com, 419-724-6278 or on Twitter @TK_Barger.
First Published March 13, 2016, 5:00 a.m.
