"To The Point: The Story of Darts in America" is the first book to detail the history of the sport of darts in the United States. Although its release has been eagerly anticipated in America's large darts shooting community, the book is written and structured in such a way as to appeal to the general interest audience.
The story begins with a description of a darts match in Boston, where 10,000 members of the Minuteman Dart League compete on pub and club teams every Tuesday night in season. In the second chapter the author explores the history and mythology of the sport in Great Britain. From there the reader is taken on an authoritative and entertaining tour of a century of dartsplay in the United States.
The book's sharply drawn characters and lively prose are enhanced with an interesting array of photographs and illustrations. These include a late 19th century photograph of a bowler-hatted darts team and American darts photographs of the 1940's from Time-Life,Inc. and Temple University's Urban Archives. The final photograph in the text is a classic action shot of Stacy Bromberg, ranked number one woman dart shooter in America, at Blueberry Hill in St. Louis in April, 2001.
The research for the book is thorough, even the location of the first dartboard in America is pinpointed (Ridge Street and Nicetown Lane, Philadelphia). The reader is taken along on the author's field expeditions which include a darts-pub crawl in Philadelphia, a trip to the Library of Congress and the Smithsonian Institution and a sojourn in Albany, NY where darts team scores in the newspaper, "Knickerbocker News", in the 1930's, are discovered. The author, ranging across the country in search of clues and provenance of darts in America, finds a richly textured, exciting segment of American culture that has been,until now, if not overlooked, certainly under-reported.
The author traces the evolution of the American-style darts games many Americans grew up playing. Also covered in-depth is the "darts explosion" of British-style darts in the 1970's and the effect of the introduction of viable electronic darts machines in the mid-1980's. The book ends with a report on the "world war" between darts promoters in the 1990's and a look at the future of the sport in America.
"To the Point: The Story of Darts in America" is a fascinating portrait of an American pastime which grew to be more than just a game.
Dan William Peek is a marketing consultant and writer whose articles,essays and reviews have appeared in numerous periodicals. He currently contemplates life in America from the home in rural Missouri which he shares with his wife, Joy, a microbiologist and medical consultant.
