Thursday, August 4, 2022
Column HR363
Soapbox – Rants and Raves!
There are times when the ODC ascends the soapbox to rant and rave, even without the aid of Stupid Fluid…
It’s easy to rave about Pal Lim as he’s the 10th wonder of the sporting world right behind Tom Brady and Manny Pacquiao. The timing is appropriate for no other reason than he has more dart lives than a sack of cats has lives. Written off, time and again, he springs back to prove critics wrong. At the recent World Cup critics wrote, “Paul Lim looks and plays old.”
At 68 he gave the young zipper snappers a lesson recently in Japan where he’s now based. He scored a double dipper singles win when he annexed the 2022 WDF Japan Open and the Bud Brick Memorial Tournament. Brick was a long time tyrant/dictator of Japan darts, a WDF Vice President and all around scoundrel whose stock and trade was chicanery.
Lim’s WDF singles win came after a 17-year hiatus from the WDF. The win qualifies him for the WDF World Masters in The Netherlands. More importantly, Lim collected 2 million Yen ($245,000) – a nice haul for a guy that “looks and plays old.” Take that Ponce de León.
The WDF may be faced with a conundrum (which is not an object that can be used for safe sex) come their World Championships in 2023. A WDF Gold singles win comes with an invitation to the World Championships…
The New Zealand WDF Gold women’s singles was won by Victoria Monaghan. As she is a transsexual (MtF) this could pose a question for the WDF: “Does she play against men or women?”
It will be the WDF Executive’s call to make. The WDF Executive showed a shameful lack of guts when they banned Anastasia Dobromyslova using a spurious Olympic rule as an excuse. That dog won’t hunt in this case as the Olympics have specific rules regarding transgender athletics.
One rule calls for expensive and rigorous testing procedure. (Ever notice that a female to male transfer person never wants to compete against men?)
The WDF may be saved from making the decision as airfare from New Zealand is anywhere from $2,200 to $3,300 and the invitation doesn’t include travel or lodging. Swimming to England is not an option.
Should Monaghan compete as a woman the LGBTQQIAAP crowd will be very loud while doing a Snoopy dance. If Monaghan competes as a women all women’s advocates will raise holly hell. Other players will probably stay silent. Hopefully they’ll refuse to play but that won’t happen.
The ODC? “You are your originally factory-installed equipment.” Dr. Immense Balls has been quoted as saying, “Wokism can shrink some male factory-installed equipment when it comes to making decisions.” (See the banning of Anastasia Dobromyslova as example #1.)
Geezers and Geezerettes remember when the American Darts Association (ADA) was born. It was given birth when the American Dart Organization told the machine operators to “take a hike” as in “we don’t need you.” Former ADO VP, the late Glenn Remick, started the ADA for machine operators. His son Karl now runs things. To quote the old Virgina Slims’ motto, “You’ve (They’ve) come a long way, baby.”
Since those machine-only early days the ADA now has steel and senior darts. Their inroads into steel and senior darts makes them a serious contender to replace the ADO. The ADA does have a couple of advantages over the ADO – a paid staff and a flow of income.
Last weekend, the ADA arrived in Las Vegas for their 30th Championship with both machine and steel darts. What a concept – the ADO should have done this 20 years ago. Instead, the ADO stayed with a useless business model that’s on life support.
The ADA Championships and experience was described by more than one player as a “Charlie Foxtrot” event. When asking players their individual opinion it was like saying, “Besides that Mrs. Kennedy, how did you like Dallas?”
Many complained that with the events starting at 10:00 AM and ending sometimes after 1:30 AM it was survival based on fitness. That’s never high on a darter’s “to do” list (not to mention that long days cut down on discrete and indiscriminate canoodling).
The tournament, played in a casino, had specific rules that no food and drink be brought in. To enforce this edict there was an “Enforcement Nazi” at the door. Recognizing that darters need sustenance, food and beverages were available at the bottom the escalator where smokers went to fuel their habit in the sports book/bar. On Saturday, baseball great and degenerate gambler, Pete Rose, was in the crowd.
Also at the bottom of the escalator was a Panda Express where “Authentic Chinese Cuisine” was served by Jose, Maria and Pablo.
One lady darter spoke of her experience after visiting Panda Express…
“I went to Panda Express and tried to get back in to play. I was almost raped.”
“How many times did you go back to Panda and then try to bring in food?” asked the ODC.
Delayed reaction, then a smile.
As of this writing it’s been four days since the tournament ended (assuming it has) and there are still no results. That’s unusual, as Darts Connect has match results – but not event results.
The ODC does know that two Canadian lasses (Trish Grzesik and Maria Carli) came down to the lower 49 (Alaska’s above). They each captured a singles event and joined up to win one of the Women’s Cricket Doubles.
The tournament has produced a large number of positive Covid-19 tests since players have returned home. The timing couldn’t have been worse with the biggest money tournament in the USA on deck this weekend in Nashville. Another case of “what happens in Vegas” didn’t stay there.
Who says you can’t teach an old dog new tricks? The ODC learned that Gummies have replaced, to some degree, the tried-and-true Aiming Fluid (Beer) and Group Tighter (Schnapps) of the ODC’s Golden Years.
The PDC’s World Series will be off to Australia and New Zealand shortly. Not traveling is Peter Wright who, after consulting with Dr. Immense Balls, has decided to stay home.
As transparency is so important in today’s culture the Old Dart Coach would like to report that he was given a set of Russ “The Legend” Lopez signature darts. They were given to the ODC, in shocking purple, with the understanding that any person that buys a set of the “Legend Extreme” darts from Bottleson Darts at full price will also get two free breakfast tacos.
This message was not approved by either The Legend (aka The Breakfast Taco) or the Bottleson Dart Company.
Stay thirsty my friends.
