This installment of The One Board originally appeared in Bowlers Journal International, May, 2017
Some things in bowling need to be stopped. Obviously, the sandbagging, average manipulation and general subterfuge engaged in by the abhorrent few need to go away, but today, let’s address the completely innocuous aspects of bowling that are well on their ways to becoming clichés.
The Field Goal
Your attempted 7-10 split conversion was a colossal failure. The ball rolls between the two pins, touching neither. You’re already embarrassed, and then you turn around to see several amateur football referees with both hands in the air, signaling the field goal.
You are not playing football. And while you understand what these hands in the air like they just don’t care mean, you’re still highly aggravated over the blower 7-10 that put a stop to your three-bagger (although you are also not playing baseball) and not in the mood to be reminded you missed so badly on the conversion attempt (you are also not playing evangelism).
Plus, no proponent of the field-goal signal ever does it when you hit the inside of one of the pins. Shouldn’t that still be a good kick, as long as the ball bounced to the inside? And what about a 4-5 split? That’s still a good field goal, too, and yet you converted it. Let’s at least be consistent, referees.
The Brooklyn Point
If you’re going to call your own Brooklyn, do it before you roll the ball. It’ll be far more impressive. After you’ve released your shot and missed by an arrow, you’re not the only one who can see you’re going to cross over. You pointing to the left doesn’t absolve you from embarrassment.
I used to bowl with a guy whose Brooklyn Point was part of his follow through, it seemed. He yanked every shot, then immediately pointed left and slapped it out on the rare occasion he didn’t leave a 5-pin. That whole show is worse than the Brooklyn itself.
Take your Brooklyns and cherish them, but don’t wait until the ball is 45 feet down the lane to point at them.
The High Five
When exchanging a high five, you don’t want to use your bowling hand, you don’t want to hit too hard and you don’t want to get covered in the other guy’s sweat. Everything about the high five disgusts you.
Solution: lightly tap the least amount of surface area of your hand to the least amount of surface area of his hand, accomplishing nothing more than an even more revolting experience than all the things you feared about a real high five.
Sure, you avoid his sweaty palm, but now you have to graze his cold, clammy index finger that is only moderately distinguishable from his pus-filled thumb wound, and you’re not sure which one you touched due to your own calloused knuckle having lost all its nerves in a tragic high-fiving incident following a routine 4-pin conversion in 1997.
The Explanation of You Having the Best Look in the House
Did you win? If not, you did not have the best look in the house. The guy who won doesn’t care that you would’ve won had you only picked up 43 of the 44 single-pin spares you missed. Also, if you truly had the best look in the house and didn’t win, don’t tell anyone—you’re explaining your own ineptitude. Stick with the phrase, “I had the worst look in the house.” That way, if you finish last, it makes sense, and if you win, you’re astoundingly good.
The Following of These Rules
After adhering to all this for a couple weeks, please resume your normal routine. Bowling wouldn’t be the same without these harmless, albeit ridiculous, acts. Except that last one. Stop doing that for real.