Tobacco Road Dart League, Durham NC


The Rolling Paper

Week 5 - February 9, 1998

Current News:
A Captains' Meeting is coming soon; About Dem Ol' All-Star Points; Tons- and 5 Marks-or-Better explained!

Current Stats:
Standings | Weekly Results | Singles | Doubles | Overall | All-Star Points | Tons-or-Better | 5 Marks-or-Better | Big Darts | Player Stats

Season Information:
Spring Schedule | Season Calendar | Who's in Charge Here? | Where We Play | TRDL Home

Back Issues:
Week 1 | Week 2 | Week 3 | Week 4



Week 5 - February 9, 1998

Captains' Meeting Coming Soon!

It’s getting on time to have a Captains’ Meeting. Since the beginning of the season, several proposals have come to the attention of the Poo-Bahs such as the proposed changes in the diddle rule, mandating chalkers and a change in All-Star Point calculations.

Any changes to the Rules of the Road are made by the Captains and generally will not take effect until the season following their adoption.

When a convenient date is found to hold such a Captains’ Meeting, you’ll get plenty of advance notice right here in the Rolling Paper, so keep your eyes peeled for the news!


About Dem Ol' All-Star Points

All-Star Points (ASP) are given for better-than-average throwing - a ton or more in ‘01 and 5 marks or more in Cricket. (See next story regarding the Tons+ and 5m+ awards.)

An award is given to the top three ASP finishers in the league at the end of each season.

This is the way the ASPs are currently awarded:

301
1.0 ASP: Ton to Ton-20
1.5 ASP: Ton-21 to Ton-40
2.0 ASP: Ton-41 to Ton-80

Cricket
1.0 ASP: 5 Marks or 3 Bulls
1.5 ASP: 6 or 7 Marks or 4 Bulls
2.0 ASP: 8 or 9 Marks or 5 or 6 Bulls

There have been suggestions to change this to:

301
1.0 ASP: Ton to Ton-20
1.5 ASP: Ton-21 to Ton-40
2.0 ASP: Ton-41 to Ton-70
2.5 ASP: Ton-71 to Ton-80

Cricket
1.0 ASP: 5 Marks or 3 Bulls
1.5 ASP: 6 or 7 Marks or 4 Bulls
2.0 ASP: 8 Marks or 5 Bulls
2.5 ASP: 9 Marks or 6 Bulls

Any changes to the ASP rules will be brought before the next Captains' Meeting for discussion and a possible vote. Captains should discuss these proposed changes with their team members and plan to be at the meeting.


Tons- and 5 Marks-or-Better Stats, Awards Revealed!

Lurking out toward the right end of the comprehensive page of Player Stats (in MicroType™) every week are two little-known stats we track and give awards for at the end of the season - Tons-or-Better and 5 Marks-or-Better. It’s just one of many ways the Tobacco Road Dart League just a little bit better (stranger?) than any other dart league we’ve encountered.

Essentially, every time you hit a Ton (or better) in ‘01 or a 5-Mark (or better) in Cricket, your actual All-Star Point (ASP) total is adjusted upward ac-cording to what you actually hit (see About Dem ol’ All-Star Points in this issue) and you also receive Tons- and/or 5 Marks-or-Better points as well.

An example:

Last week, Buddy Clinton played in all four legs of his teams match. In 301, he hit a Ton, a Ton-21 and another Ton.
That’s 3.5 ASPs and 3 Tons-or-Better.

In Cricket, he nails 5M, 5M, 7M and a 3-Bull (out).
That’s 4.5 ASP and 4 5 Marks-or-Better.

In 501, he scores a Ton, Ton-50 and a Ton-21.
That’s 4.5 ASP and 3 Tons-or-Better.

In Doubles Cricket, he’s hot - 6M, 5M, 5M and a 4-Bull (out).
That’s 5.0 ASP and 4 5 Marks-or-Better.

Let’s add up his evening and look at the results:

ASPs: 17.5 in four games. ASPav=4.375.
Tons-or-Better: 6 in two games. T+av=3.000
5 marks-or-Better: 8 in two games. 5M+av=4.000

Just remember - ASPav is calculated on the basis of your total number of ASPs in all games while the “-or-Better” stats are based only on the relevant games (you can’t get a 5M in 301 or a Ton-21 in Cricket, now can you?)

Awards are given at the end of the season for performance in these two categories.

Also, see the Tons-or-Better and 5 Marks-or-Better stat pages to see how all these numbers come out in real life.



Week 4 - February 2, 1998

A Change in the Diddle Rule?

Among the usual after-match banter at PJ's last week, Captains Doug Jeffcoat (Smokin-n-Strokin) and Ray White (Infidels) suggested two simple ways of speeding up match play on Mondays. The first is an easier change in the Rules of the Road but will likely save very few minutes overall in the course of the evening.

The current rule on diddles would be changed so that the second game in a set would be "mugs away" (the loser of the first game - the "mug" [from the Old English muggin, or sad fellow] - would automatically begin the second game with no second diddle needed). If a third game was needed in the set, it could again be "Mugs away!" or we could keep the current rule which states that the loser of the coin toss prior to the set call the order of diddle for the rubber match.

Captains rule the Tobacco Road Dart League and will be asked real soon to comment on this issue. Please discuss it with your team mates and other Captains.


Mandatory Chalkers for Every Game?

Jeffcoat and White also suggested (to much approval of the darters still lurking about) that whenever practical, idle players should be keeping score. How often have you gone to the board to retrieve your darts and suddenly, all those numbers, especially the triples, looked like a foreign language? Yeah, us, too!

Pop Quiz: Was that 17, t19, d16 really the out you had intended from your 107 or did you just embarass yourself again in public?

Also, we've all tried in vain through beer fog to subract the T21 we just hit (and took three minutes to add, never mind that it was 2 - t20s and that "mandatory one" from 208. How many times have you heard a darter demand a calculator at every scoreboard?

Well, pals & gals, a chalker (score keeper) could very well be the answer! If every sat-out player would be courteous enough to the players in a set, we could knock at least 30 minutes off the time of each match. Captains should make sure their players read and understand the A Chalker's Guide encourage your team to pitch in and cut down on the "brain-dead" time we all spend at the board.

As always, if this suggestion is to be added to the Rules of the Road, it will be up to the Captains. We're also aware that matches are sometimes played on three or four boards at PJ's, so short-handed teams would be hard pressed to have chalkers and players, but the suggestion was made with the "wherever practical" caveat. We here at the Rolling Paper think it's a great idea and we heartily endorse it.


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Week 3 - January 26, 1998

The Name Game

Captains! Please make sure we have first and last names for all your players at least once on every score sheet. We have a couple of new players in the league who are currently just known by first name.

Players! Please check the spelling of your name on page three of this little rag and make sure we have it right. Sometimes it’s mighty hard to decipher squiggly scrawls on registration forms and score sheets.


Packet Pickup and Score Sheet Return

We still haven’t come up with a clever plan to get your packets in your hands every week. This week, all the packets were delivered but we can’t guarantee that every week owing to the logistics here at the World Headquarters Building and Carry-Out. If any of you mugs have any ideas, let us know!

If you’re going to fax your score sheet back to us, please set your fax machine to its highest transmit resolution so we can read it when we print it out. Until we manage to snag the original, one of the matches from Week 1 is a little light in the All-Star point category due to “fax smudge.” We’ll set it straight as soon as we can.


FUEL FOR THOUGHT

(A Small Diversion - Known in the Trade as "Filler")

ON METAPHYSICS
Deja Fu: The feeling that somehow, somewhere, you've been kicked in the head like this before.

ON DEEP THOUGHTS
A day without sunshine is like night.

ON HIGHER EDUCATION
College is a fountain of knowledge... and the students are there to drink.

ON MATHEMATICAL TRANSFORMS
A polar bear is a rectangular bear after a coordinate transform.

ON YOUTH
Some people say that I must be a horrible person, but that's not true. I have the heart of a young boy -- in a jar on my desk.
-- Steven King, 3/8/90

ON MATERIALISM
He who dies with the most toys, is, nonetheless, still dead.

ON INFINITY
If you had everything, where would you keep it?

ON POETIC LOVE
When you're swimmin' in the creek
And an eel bites your cheek
That's a moray!
-- Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers

ON MODERNISM
Q: How many surrealists does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
A: Two. One to hold the giraffe and the other to fill the bathtub with brightly colored machine tools.

ON MATERIAL SCIENCE
Character density: The number of very weird people in the office.

ON EXTINCTION
Save the whales. Collect the whole set.

ON EXPLANATION OF THE END
... one of the main causes of the fall of the Roman Empire was that, lacking zero, they had no way to indicate successful termination of their C programs.
-- Robert Firth

ON EXCUSES
I can't complain, but sometimes I still do.
-- Joe Walsh

ON NUMBERS
Grabel's Law: 2 is not equal to 3 -- not even for very large values of 2.

ON WORLD POLITICS
Diplomacy is the art of saying "nice doggy" until you can find a rock.

ON DRUGS AND DEVELOPMENT
There are two major products to come out of Berkeley: LSD and BSD (Unix). We don't believe this to be a coincidence.


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Week 2 - January 19, 1998

Like they say, no news is good news. Only stats were published this week.


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Week 1 - January 12, 1998

Welcome to the Spring `98 Season

--------------------------------

ALL Captains Please Read All This Stuff!

-------------------------------
Howdy, all, and welcome to the beginning of the second year of darts in the Tobacco Road Dart League. There’s, as always, a lot of new stuff that everyone needs to be aware of, so captains are well-advised to slip a copy of tonight’s Rolling Paper in their dart case or hip pocket for future reference.

· This season, we have eight teams playing out of six bars, and four of those bars are new to the league. See page two for team rosters (as of presstime) and a short description and directions to the bars.

· Please make sure that all of your players have paid their dues no later than Week 3 (January 26). You’re gonna be in a world o’ hurt if you’re playing unpaid players by then.

· If you are adding new players to your rosters tonight, please make sure you print their names legibly on the score sheet. See previous note about dues payment.

· ALL Captains: Tonight’s packets contain handy pocket schedules for the season - one for each player. Cut these suckers in half and pass ‘em out!

· Home Team Captains: In your packets tonight, there are two larger schedules that are for the bar. PLEASE make sure all the bars have these schedules!

· Also in your packets tonight are 14 score sheets, one for each night of play. Don’t lose them! There’s also a packet of five score sheets for the bar. Make sure they go with the schedules!

· (Special note for PJ’s Teams: since your editor-of-questionable taste is playing at PJ’s tonight, he’ll take care of the schedules and extra score sheets for the bar. You will, of course, get pocket schedules for your team.)

· Visiting Team Captains: You’ll receive all those score sheets and bar schedules next week when you are at home.

· Please read (and then re-read) the article, Four Ways to Return Your Score Sheet. Since the Down Under Pub is no longer hosting TRDL teams, we’ve added some new (and one downright revolutionary) ways to get that score sheet back into our hands by Thursday.

· Please read and consider the article, “Should the Rolling Paper Go All-Electronic?” regarding the possibility of publishing this little rag in electronic form only.

· Please read the articles about the TRDL presence on the World Wide Wait - there’s some very interesting news that you’ll want you and your team to be aware of.

Other than all that normal, beginning-of-the-season news, all we have left to say is, “Shoot well and have fun!” That’s why we’re all out here, right?


Four Ways to Return Your Score Sheet

Since we no longer have any teams playing out of the Down Under Pub downtown, we’ve decided that there must be a better way to get the score sheets back from you Fine Folks for stats processing. Being the clever souls that we are, we’ve come up with not one but four different ways to do the deed!

· If you’re playing in the same bar as Anita Tyndall or Patrick Murray (and your match ends before theirs does), they’ll be more’n happy to carry it home with them.

· You can mail it in. The address is on the score sheet right under the date line. Be advised that mail from Durham to a Durham address still goes to Raleigh for processing. You’re going to have to mail the sucker on your way home from the match Monday night to have any prayer of a chance of getting it in our hands by Thursday.

· You can fax it in. The fax number is near the mailing address on the score sheet. Please fax both sides of the score sheet (even if it’s totally blank) and use the highest resolution your machine is capable of sending.

Þ You can be part of history-in-the-making and submit your scores electronically via the TRDL website. So far as we know, we are the first (and only) dart league in this corner of the Milky Way galaxy that offers its members this option. The URL (pronounced “earl”) of the score sheet form is, of course, on the score sheet itself. If you choose this option, please read the Instructions and Known Issues & Bugs pages before you try it.


Should the Rolling Paper Go All-Electronic?

The wide-spread use of the internet (and the World Wide Wait in particular) have suggested to a few forward-thinking folks in the TRDL that perhaps we should quit killing trees to produce the Rolling Paper and distribute it from our website.

This is just in the talking stage now, but seven of our eight teams have at least one person with web access who could, conceivably, print out the Paper for team mates. The money we’d save would be put in the pot for the season party.

Talk it up with your team and talk to us!


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Maintained by: Patrick Murray.