Baseball is THE game on an American board. It’s “1 to 9”, all points count.
It is the game that you’ll find being played in all of the major tournaments, and 90% of the leagues (or better). It’s SO popular that you may notice the innings shot in a game of baseball often have an image of a baseball on the board itself!
So, to play the game, let’s start at the start. Each shooter gets three darts per inning. You start by shooting at inning number one. Player one throws their three darts.
If the game is being played by teams, all of the shooters on a team take their turn, and then all of the shooters on the opposing team shoot.
Once players are finished shooting the first inning, you advance to inning number 2. Rinse, lather, repeat your way through the innings ending after the ninth inning is shot.
If the score is tied, move on to the tenth inning. Whoever scores more in that inning wins. If it’s still tied after ten, shoot at the eleventh inning, and so on.
So that’s it – three darts at an inning, play innings one through nine! A perfect score is an 81. And just like an 18 is a perfect score in golf, no one is ever perfect.
In case you’re wandering into your first tournament, this is how they typically decide the shooting order for the match . . .
Determining the Shooting Order
Players (or one player representing a team) shoot one dart at the cork (the ‘bullseye’ in pub darts) to see who goes first. The player closest to the cork has the choice of going first or second. If the first player hits a cork, and the second player hits a cork (he is said to “top” it), whoever tops the cork chooses.
Often the game of baseball is played in three game sets. Loser of the first game gets choice of position going into the second game. The third game, if necessary, is once again decided by throwing the cork.
Recap:
- Game 1 – Shoot the cork
- Game 2 – Loser chooses
- Game 3 – Shoot the cork
Something to note here is that during the cork shot, according to the ABDA Rules on the subject, the shooter does get to pick up the dart and shoot again.
Not the ONLY game in town
Although starting with the game of Baseball is a great idea, it is no the only game you can play for fun or competitively on an American board. Just like you game play “Around the World” or “HORSE” with a basketball, or playing the different versions of “Poker” – there is a lot of variety available on a dartboard.
How do you keep score? What are the points for the white area , the thin white area, the red area and the blue area?
I’m sorry Nancy,
I must have broken that article in two when I moved the website. It really doesn’t do much good without noting the scoring areas.
In each “pie shaped piece” that is a numbered innings, there are three areas for scoring.
The big inner “white” or uncolored section is worth a single point.
The red area is worth 2 points
The thin outer uncolored ring is worth 3 points.
Players get three darts per trip to the shooting line, so there is a max of 9 points available to score any inning.