Thursday’s Hot Clicks: Crowd Goes Wild for Incredibly Rare Darts Achievement
Get fired up for darts!
Darts is one of the biggest spectator sports in Europe. An event in February in Germany attracted about 12,000 fans, the most for a live darts competition since World War II. Although, when ESPN spoke to numerous fans ahead of a match in 2017, half of them claimed they’d never watched darts before.
The majority of the crowd on hand at the Grand Slam of Darts on Wednesday in Wolverhampton, England knew enough about darts to know that what Dimitri Van den Bergh was doing was spectacular. Van den Bergh recorded the 53rd televised perfect nine-dart finish in history, and the crowd loved every second of it.
True darts heads will probably get mad at me for describing it like this but my understanding of the game is that you throw darts at spaces on a board that are worth a certain number of points and your throws have to add up to exactly 501. The quickest possible way to get to 501 is with nine darts, which had only been accomplished by 24 players in televised competition.
Van den Bergh became the 25th player to pull off the feat, sending the fans and announcers into a sort of frenzy I don’t think I’ve ever seen for a perfect game in baseball. Van den Bergh not only won his match against Stephen Bunting to advance to the quarterfinals, he also earned a bonus check for £25,000 ($32,000) for the nine-darter.
The Jazz played a truly horrendous game
The Jazz lost by 50 points last night. Fifty! They only managed to score 68, while allowing 118 to the Mavericks, who aren’t even that good. Ricky Rubio led the way for Utah with 11 points. The game wasn’t even a blowout until the second half. Dallas went into the locker room leading 58–46, and then outscored the Jazz 60–22 in the second half. Vegas usually gets these things right but the Jazz were actually favored by five points on the road in Dallas. The game also fell 26 points shy of the over/under.
Looks like the Steelers don’t really miss Le’Veon Bell
Tuesday’s 4 p.m. deadline for Le’Veon Bell to report to the Steelers and sign his franchise tender came and went, and so now Bell is out for the whole season. His teammates didn’t wait too long before rummaging through his locker and taking all his stuff.
Don’t sleep on the fact that the players waited for the media to be present in the locker room before they started divvying up his property.
The best of SI
This story of a former Indiana two-sport star found dead in a river is painful but very well done. ... Andy Benoit broke down the film of the Rams’ now famous “Halle Berry” audible. ... Zach Miller is still helping the Bears while recovering from an injury that nearly cost him his leg.
J. Peterman on N. Peterman
Around the sports world
Danica Patrick says Aaron Rodgers first started flirting with her using lines from Dumb & Dumber. ... Kristaps Porzingis did an interview about his rehab and diet where he forgot what cookie dough was called but correctly said “it’s so fire.” ... A 24-year-old woman is in charge of a hockey team in Norway’s top league.
Normal stuff for Zion Williamson
There’s absolutely no excusing this
The player, Kewan Platt of Division-III Fitchburg State in Massachusetts, has been suspended indefinitely and even banned from campus.
How awesome does Ebbets Field look in color?
Even Rip had to admit this was spot-on
Stuart Scott would be pleased
The Booyah will play in the same division as the Fond du Lac Dock Spiders.
Jimmy Butler is going to make Kevin Durant and Draymond Green look like best friends
Not sports
A Harry Potter Pokemon GO-like game is on the way. ... A drunk woman is accused of trying to steal a live lobster from the tank at Red Lobster. ... Netflix is trying out a cheaper mobile-only subscription.
This $1,100 doll is less life-like than a free bobblehead
Idris Elba himself had to respond, of course.
King of the Hill in Japanese feels like a very strange anime
Jonah Hill breaks down his most iconic characters
A good song
Email dan.gartland@simail.com with any feedback or follow me on Twitter for approximately one half-decent baseball joke per week. Bookmark this page to see previous editions of Hot Clicks and find the newest edition every day. By popular request I’ve made a Spotify playlist of the music featured here. Visit our Extra Mustard page throughout each day for more offbeat sports stories.
