Darts

   Hi , I'm Mike O. and this my long and boring darts page

This is me ( notice the darts in my right hand )

    When I was 14 years old my father had bought a bar in Levittown N.Y. which is on Long Island . He named it after himself and called it Brendan's pub . It was a good bar and he did quite well. He got together with some friends and formed a dart league. The league consisted of only 6 bars . Darts was not new on Long Island at the time , but his league was probably one of the first in Nassau County . Well, anyway I used to clean the bar on weekends and during the summer when there was no school . My friend Guy used to help me . When we were done cleaning we used to hang out and play pinball for a couple of hours . Drink alot of soda and hang out with all the older cool crowd .

    One day when we got to the bar to clean up we noticed a dartboard hanging up that hadn't been there the day before . So , we started throwing darts that day and I haven't stopped since. We didn't know what we were doing and threw the darts like they were baseballs until we got some lessons from my father and some customers . The game became real popular very quick . Everyone in the bar was getting into it. So, I took some money I had made working and bought a dartboard to hang up in my room and a cheap set of darts . I practiced my ass off every day. I remember listening to Hotel California over and over in my room and throwing darts for hours. I think that would be about 1975 or 76 . My favorite song on the album was The Last Resort .

My brother Brendan on the left 9yrs old and me 15 yrs old

    I started getting pretty good at it and my father put me on his team . There was like 8 guys on the team and 5 were named Mike . I wasn't old enough to drink or drive .So I took up smoking pot (only kidding). The captain of the team would pick me up and take me to the matches or I would go with my father , but he wasn't that big into playing that much. Over time my game was getting better and I had no problem competing with anyone in the league. The league kept growing and more and more bars came into it . It became a money league which was pretty cool since our team was really good . All the players paid dues and each team got back money at the end of the season . The first place team would get something like two thousand dollars to split and the last place team would even get one hundred dollars to split.

    The money league lasted a few years but then fell apart . Teams that weren't doing good would stop paying dues and the guy who ran the league couldn't collect from them . Then the guy who ran the league took off with the money he did collect. And the teams who did pay got zilch. The league then became a trophy league. No more prize money. Too bad . More and more leagues were also popping up . Darts was on the rise . There were tournaments in the city to go to . Bar tournaments were going on almost every weekend somewhere. I was playing 3 nights a week in leagues. I was hooked. I started missing school because I couldn't get up in the morning. My father had a new bar now, The Cara Pub which quickly became known as THE DART BAR in Nassau County. We had a lot of teams and tournaments every Friday which would draw about 30 - 40 players weekly.

    My 2 older sisters Kay and Pat were both playing also . They had put together an all girl team at the bar. My Mother even joined it. Pat got really good and started playing on my team with the guys. She could beat almost anyone in the A division and was one of the best in the league at corks. In the early 80's she finished 3rd in the ladies singles event at the New York Open and then we had gone to D.C. for the US Open and she made the top 8. I remember Teri Marcello who was the top women's shooter at the time barely beating Pat and walking away saying " Where the hell did she come from " .

  Kay on the left , Pat on the right and me (use magnify glass to see the darts in my right hand ).

    One Friday night in 79' , we were hanging out at my fathers pub playing darts , when Eddie Hovanic (one of the Islands best shots at the time) suggested we go to the tournament in Virginia Beach that weekend. This old timer John who didn't play yelled over to us " I'll drive . I just got a new station wagon and need to break it in." We all turned and looked at each other and said " Cool " . Well, 6 of us headed down to Virginia beach late that evening . There was Me and Guy , Eddie Hovanic and his partner Bob " The Prophet " Collins, My father and John the electrician. This was to be my first MAJOR dart tournament. We drove all night and were there nice and early before the Saturday events started. It was the 6th annual Muscular Dystrophy tournament.

    I'm pretty sure that Guy and I had made the money round 2x that weekend . But that didn't matter. It was a great experience . This guy John who drove us was like no where to be found most of the weekend . He hooked up with some girl at the local pub. He told us he was staying and not going back home . It took some persuading by my father to talk him into driving us back to NY. When he finally did drive us home , he packed up the next day and headed back down to his new lover . Never to be seen by us again.  That was the start of going to major tournaments . There was too many to even talk about. Florida, 6 US opens in DC , Cleveland , Virginia , Boston , Jersey , Connecticut ,San Diego , etc... etc...

    It was in the early 80's that my girlfriend at the time ( Colleen ) used to say I was such a Darthead. We went out for about 3 years before breaking up. They were 3 wonderful years. Wonderful because I was now playing Darts for a bar called Chicolinos . My father was getting out of the business and I needed a new place to shoot out of . My friend Kevin King had called me up to say that Greg Buttle ( former NY Jets star ) was quitting the dart team and they were looking for a replacement. I said yes . The team was pretty good that season with Kevin , Billy his brother  , Bob Smith , Johnny Mac , Steve and myself and a couple of others I'm sure. But it was the seasons to come that made Chicolinos the best dart team in the tri-state area. It was during the first couple of years playing for Chicks that Colleen and I parted . She said we should go our own way, meet someone else , we were to young , etc...etc... Oh yeah, and that I was such a DARTHEAD...

Colleen the first love of my life

(right behind darts that is).

    Danny Rocchi joined the next season and eventually brought Billy Campbell on to the team. Every couple of seasons the team would change a little bit . With someone quitting and someone joining . The Steve I mentioned was Steve Kozinski . An awesome player .He was a pleasure to watch and shoot cricket with. I played for " Chicks " for 6 years . Some of the other great players to play with us was , Steve Sands a friend of Nicky Virachkul (number 1 shooter in the U.S. at that time ) and Kevin Kronenberg . There were lots of others including Mark Allen , who I'll get to later. But, the team that was known as the best would be Billy King Capt. , Mike O. , Steve Kozinski ,Kevin Kronenberg , Bob Smith , Steve Sands , Danny Rocchi and Rodney Mann . Rodney worked there and was just an alternate in the beginning but eventually got pretty good.

Steve Kozinski with Tom Dorgan (84 Us Open Champ from L.I.)

Not a good photo but,

Steve on the left , holding the trophy with me in the center, Billy Campbell hidden between us, Kevin in the back next to Steve Sands 2nd from right, Bob Smith far right .

  Another old photo , this one has our Captain on the right Billy King.

   I mentioned Mark Allen earlier ...

     One of the bars we used to play against was called Mugs Pub . And that was the team that Mark Allen was playing for when I first met him . We hit it off and became friends . We both had 72 Chevelle's , liked to party and loved to play darts . Mark would come down to my fathers bar just to shoot some games with me. He was just getting into it and was a natural .We would hang out hours shooting and partying. We started to play partners in some tournaments . We would shoot with my sister Pat in the mixed triples . We made a good team . Mark eventually joined Chicolinos team for a couple of seasons. We played together on many different teams over the years . But as Marks game kept getting better mine didn't. I would have my moments , but Mark was shooting awesome. I was keeping score for him when he took a 170 out in the NY OPEN. He had become in my opinion the toughest shot on the Island.

Mark in San Diego

   I was letting Mark down in some tournaments . He needed a better partner which he did find . He started shooting with a couple of the other top shooters on the Island (Steve Kozinski,Tom Dorgan and Gary Garcia ) and eventually got hooked up with Dave Kelly from Massachusetts. Dave was one of the best in the country and they made a great team . Mark was know travelling all over the country making money in tournaments . He was even listed in the top 32 in the country by Bull's Eye news . In 87 I flew out to San Diego to meet up with Mark and Dave for the St. Pat's Spring Classic. It was a memorable tournament . When I got to the hotel Mark said I could crash in their room . I would just have to sleep on the floor. No problem for me . Well , I get into this room and there's Nicky Virachkul on one bed , Dave Kelly on the other . Also in the room was Mark , Ray Davidson and Steve Baker. Mark introduced me to all of them . I knew who they were , it was practically the US Dart Team . I felt out of place surrounded by such greatness. It must of rubbed off a little because I finished in the top 16 round in singles cricket losing to Len Heard who was ranked number 5 in the world . I beat him the first game and then got a little nervous when the crowd around our match got larger and everyone was rooting for me to knock him out . Oh yeah, there wasn't much room on the floor to sleep , seeing Mark had told the others they could crash also.

 Mark and Peggy Phillips at S.D. tourney

    We also drove down to Tijuana that weekend with a bunch of people . Mark, Dave, Ray Davidson, Peggy Phillips and Frank Ennis among others. We went to a few different bars , walked around and did whatever. I don't remember exactly (FUBAR). The one thing I do remember clearly was going back across the border . The border patrol wouldn't let me across because I didn't have ID. We all had to show ID and all I had in my wallet was a crumbled up piece of paper saying my license was suspended . He wanted picture ID and I didn't have it . Mark and Dave both told the guy they didn't know me and started to walk away . This guy was serious and they were making jokes . I showed him a tattoo that I have ( A shamrock that says Mike O. under it ) and said " do I look Mexican " and he finally let me back in to the U.S.

The crew at Tijuana Tillies

    Over the years Mark and I were hanging out less and less . We both had families now. We would still see each other at the tournaments . I ran into him at a local bar tournament one night and he looked good . He had gotten his hair cut short which really made him look gray. We hung out and shot darts like old times . It was probably a little less than a year later that I found out he was battling cancer. I couldn't believe it . I was at the L.I. open with some friends who also knew Mark when Laurette Meddis made the announcement about Mark. The news hurt and I couldn't play. To this day I'm pissed at myself for not going to see him while he was sick. But, I didn't want to see him that way. Mark passed away Oct. 19, 1997. I miss him.

   Darts was changing for me now. I had gotten married . Bought a house , started having kids ( My Family Page is coming soon ).It's tough to play as much as I used to . I haven't been out of N.Y. for a tournament in years . I still play in a league . But now its more for fun and a night out . Winning doesn't matter as much  ( we just won the league championship ) . My brother Brendan is on the team now along with my old friend Mike Daly , new friend Eric Buxton and others including my sister Kay's husband Al Foley, Mike McDonald and his friend Kevin Nolan. We came in 4th place this past season . But beat everyone in the playoffs to win the championship. When the going gets tough , the tough gets going.

From left to right

Mike D., Mike O., Brendan , Eric , Mike M., Kevin

Kennedy's Pub 1999-2000 league champs

    I guess I have to update this page from time to time . Don't forget to check out my family page and Zappa page coming soon.

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