Sports are too risky

Sports are dangerous. Football, hockey, online dating. You play long enough, odds are you’re gonna wind up hurt.

In these, my declining years, when I can injure myself without picking up a ball or hitting a puck, I don’t play sports.

As a kid, I tried my hand at baseball and football; I stunk at both. In high school, there was cross-country, but I only did that so I could hang out with my girlfriend, Corky, who was a serious runner. Once she dumped me, I dumped cross-country.

In addition to stinking at sports, I also seem to lack whatever competitive gene some people possess, that “spark” that prompts them to push themselves, to work, to “just do it,” to sweat and strain and … lordy, I’m exhausted just writing about it.

Fortunately, there are sports for guys like me. Bowling. Golf. Darts. Sports that involve beer and deep-fried food.

As with all sports, I stink at bowling, golf and darts. I play them anyway because, well, beer. It has a way of making whether I win or lose seem less important.

Also, it’s hard to injure yourself at a bowling alley or golf course. Darts, likewise, can’t really be described as high-risk. I mean, you might get unintentionally stuck by some newbie with more darts than sense, but generally speaking, it’s safer than hockey. As evidence, I’ll note here that dart players usually have all their front teeth. And if they don’t, odds are they didn’t lose them throwing darts.

That said, I’ll admit that years ago I nearly lost not only my teeth, but my life over a game of darts.

It was at a little West Side bar during the height of the dart league craze. I’d gotten involved in darts in order to – surprise, surprise – hang out with a cute brunette who played on a league. Laurie was no better at darts than I was, but it was something to do on a Tuesday night.

I’d done OK during the early evening league matches, limiting my intake to one Bud Lite per game, which I knew from experience left me able to continue finding the board with my dart right up until closing time.

Most of the league players had gone home, but Laurie and I hung out to practice afterward with a few friendly games between the two of us.

When the big guy asked me if I wanted a quick game of Cricket, I should have said no. Laurie was ready to leave, as was I. But the guy was insistent.

“Just one game,” he said. “C’mon.”

I couldn’t argue with that kind of logic.

To keep it interesting, we bet a beer on the game. I didn’t expect to win; the guy had a set of fancy darts in a leather case that looked pricier than my car.

But I did. Win, I mean. It was just blind luck, but I beat the guy badly.

“One more game,” he said, as I dropped in the last triple-twenty for a win. “Five bucks on this one.” The guy, who had a posse of buddies with him, was not going to take no for an answer. Since he was built like a clenched fist with a face designed to strike fear into any cellmate unlucky enough to share space with him, I agreed.

While he warmed up, I went up to the bar and bought another beer.

“Hey, pal,” the bartender said. “I wouldn’t be too quick to beat that guy.”

“No?”

“No. That’s Derek Newmann,” the bartender said, lowering his voice. (I’m changing the name here because the guy might still be alive and I’m still scared of him.) Turns out I was playing darts with the state’s top-ranked kick-boxer, a guy with a long history of trouble with the law, mostly assault charges.

My strong tendency toward self-preservation kicked in and I actively tried to lose the next game. Incredibly, I didn’t. Even when I barely aimed, my traitorous darts seemed determined to fly right into those doubles and triples.

Suggesting Derek needn’t pay me the five bucks was a mistake. He took it as an insult. I think he took most everything as an insult.

Derek and his crew followed us out. They stood in the entryway looking at me the way wolves look at a wounded doe, trying to decide if I were worth the effort.

I was real happy when my car pulled away with me in it, still alive, still with all my teeth. It was a long time before I went back on the West Side. After that, I gave up the darts league.

Sports are too dangerous.