This installment of The One Board originally appeared in Bowlers Journal International, October, 2020
Typically, this is the time of year when league season would be several weeks old and excuses for why our averages are so low to start the season would be flying. Some bowlers would be struggling due to not having touched a ball since the end of the previous season. Others would have difficulty because they hadn’t yet gotten accustomed to the new six-ball arsenal they just bought. A similar group would be at a disadvantage because they didn’t have new six-ball arsenals and were doomed to compete with the relics released almost a month ago. Sandbaggers would prattle on about how “it’s just one of those nights” for five straight weeks.
This year, leagues are quite different, if they even exist, so it’s important we find at least a few familiar comforts to keep things semi-normal.
Thankfully, new bowling balls will continue to be released every few days, so anyone suffering from a ball-related calamity can get quick relief. The rusty folks who haven’t rolled a ball in months will start to get their swings back as the season progresses, so they’ll be fine. The sandbaggers, as they do every year, will find their games at just the right time to capture the league championship, so no worries there.
Other similarities, such as a patchless existence (unsubstantiated rumor: USBC purchased this very publication using the money from the bring-back-the-reward-patch fund), will make leagues feel as if nothing has changed.
We will still be able to claim the lanes are walled for our opponents and impossible for ourselves, a familiar certainty we can count on forever. In some leagues, opponents will bowl at separate times or on separate lanes (or both) in order to limit the number of people in the building, giving our accusations more merit while simultaneously becoming more baseless.
Gambling, side pots and other table games will probably stay the same. Once we get through the door and have been reminded we’re supposed to be terrified of each other, we’ll forget we’re terrified of each other and have fun. We might not high-five as much, but that’s a practice long overdue for removal from the game.
High-fiving in general has always been strange even if there’s nothing really wrong with it. But when college bowling decided every single act by any player, whether successful, unsuccessful or completely unrelated and irrelevant, required all members of the team to slap hands, things got out of… hand. The only reason high-fiving is done—at any level, even the pro level, where most of the guys and gals detest it—is because it’s done. By that twisted logic, if we stop doing it, we can continue not doing it because it’s no longer done.
However, if we’re afraid of the transfer of germs, a high-five is actually the safest option among the alternative congratulatory tactics. Consider a fist bump in which people, who wipe their noses with the backs of their fingers, touch other people’s similarly snot-ridden finger backs. Or, ponder the new craze: the elbow bump, a fantastical contrivance in which two people coughing and sneezing into their elbows have found a method to transfer those coughs and sneezes in a more polite way.
While these comforts will help us find familiar enjoyment for at least a few hours a week while we bowl our three games with no hope of receiving a reward patch, we will have to remain flexible enough to adapt and adjust to some of the changes required in order to have a league at all.
Of course, if we were flexible enough to be able to adapt and adjust to changes, our averages wouldn’t be so low. Maybe things will get better when the humidity drops.