I've always been a bar person. I have the greatest respect for a good bar. I like the idea of having a place to go where you can enjoy yourself and schmooze with folks whose company you appreciate. And when you're tired, or tired of the people, you can walk out the door to come back another time. The bar of choice definitely has to provide things to do besides stare at the mirror and munch on beer nuts. That may be one reason why I've stuck with darts for longer than my aptitude has stuck with me.

There are other criteria which must be met for the bar to be acceptable. The people have to be worth spending the time, and the jerk quotient must be minimal. The bar must have one other, less easily defined quality. It has to feel comfortable. Mr. Eagan's was such a place.

I hardly drink any more but, despite that, I still like bars. I know I'm not alone in feeling this way. There are many of us out there, and don't make the mistake that we're alcoholics who are just rationalizing, or that we don't enjoy our own company. We are the people who feel a kinship with Damon Runyon and Spider Robinson's Callahan's Crosstime Saloon. We live in the actuality of the TV show Cheers.

So it is, with the greatest regret, that I recount the passing of a District of Columbia bar, a truly great bar, an institution, Mr. Eagan's, 1967 - 1999.

Every city is comprised of many sub-cities. People who live and work in them often forget that there are other perspectives on the same piece of geography. Bars can be that way. The business lunch crowd has an entirely different sense of a place than the patrons who come in after they get off work at 10pm. It is from the eyes of a dart player that I share with you this elegy. I'll let the softballers and the Happy Hour crew write their own.

Darts has been a major factor in the history of Mr. Eagan’s and Mr. Eagan's has unquestionably been the most influential venue in the history of the sport for the entire Washington region.

The compelling arguments to that bold statement are that the bar was the birthplace of the Washington Area Darts Association in 1969 and, for many years, provided its headquarters. The reader is requested to note that in the mid-seventies WADA was the third largest league in the country. In that period the bar spawned dart zealots who, in turn, left their impact throughout the region. These evangelists sold equipment and encouraged the formation of other leagues. Tournament Darts International was also conceived out of the bar in 1976. In 30 years Mr. Eagan's sponsored over 300 teams. Bus trips, telephone matches, award banquets, the first ladies only regional competition, professional player appearances, charity events, you name it, they all were spices in the Eagan's ragout. It has been a rich, vibrant history.

Jimmy Eagan became proprietor of the established Wakefield's Restaurant in 1967. He met Jacque Roberts when she became an employee and the couple married in 1970. Jacque quickly took up Jimmy's interest in the sport of darts and in 1972 became United States National Woman's Champion. She also served a two year stint as WADA's executive director. In 1972 and 1973 Jacque went to England to compete as representative of the United States Dart Association.

Some of the nation's most respected players and promoters have frequented the bar. This cadre includes such notables as Ray Fisher, Bob Theide, Conrad Daniels, Larry Butler, Helen Sheerbaum, Adele Nutter, Siobhan Burrell, Dick McGinnis and Scotsman, Alex Duff. More recently the chroniclers have come, Chris Carey (author of The Book of Darts) and Paul Seigel (Dartoid). A multitude of players from near and far, professional and amateur alike, have been drawn to the unassuming facade on Connecticut Avenue. Just eight blocks north of the White House, Mr. Eagan's was the site of the World's First Trans-Global Internet Audio Dart Match staged against the Amundsen-Scott Station, South Pole in 1996. For most of its existence it was not unusual for the bar phone to be answered, "World famous Mr. Eagan's". The mirror behind the upstairs bar reflected present and absent patrons as well. Taped postcards and notes from across the country boasted that the devotees liked to stay in touch.

Caricatures by artist Bruce Morris of long-standing regulars decorated the street level walls, among them was the spy, Aldridge Ames (not a dart player), a frequent patron before his incarceration. Downstairs the depictions were of dart teams along with lots and lots and lots of photos.

Over the years the area's dart demographics shifted. The popularity of the sport spread throughout the suburban jurisdictions until eventually, in adjoining Maryland and Virginia, the numbers dwarfed those of the central city. In the eighties Washington began to rebound from the economic woes that had plagued the nation. Unfortunately this had a chilling effect on the city's dart community. Bars and restaurants increasingly turned upscale and were transformed into power-tie enclaves. Even with that, Mr. Eagan's remained a Mecca, a bastion, a neighborhood bar in one of the most transient towns in the world. The extended bar-family, however, continued to attend marriages, celebrate births, commiserate over divorces and mourn at funerals and experience some truly great times.

By and large, a creation of its own attraction, the bar changed little over the years. As all around it became gentrified, and glassed, and vertical, Mr.Eagan's and the two adjoining addresses to the north were the only two-story structures within sight. So buildings age, as do we, and the maintenance and toll increase yearly. With that in mind the Eagans decided to pack their memories and the well-wishes of their myriad friends and retire from the location that was both home and business for over 30 years. I keep thinking, perhaps it was like Sisyphus... but that he really loved that mountain.

Fittingly, after 32 St. Patrick celebrations, the plug was pulled. At 1:30 am on March 18, 1999 when the bartenders announced "last call", it was indeed the final call at "world famous" Mr. Eagan's.