This installment of The One Board originally appeared in Bowlers Journal International, September, 2021
Once again, the Olympics took place without bowling. This, of course, renders the Olympics meaningless to all of us, but also makes us once again think about bowling as it relates to other sports. This time, let’s frame our thinking a little differently. We spend so much time trying to get bowling treated as an equal among other sports that we often forget why bowling is actually better than other sports.
Unpredictability
If you go to a Major League Baseball game, you know you’re going to get nine innings (or eight and a half if the home team is ahead or more than nine if the game is tied). When you go to a bowling event, you might be watching six games, maybe seven, possibly eight but perhaps five, with the champion eventually decided in a completely different way than the previous event. Maybe there are bonus pins, maybe not, conceivably it’s round-robin match play unless it’s modified round-robin, perchance a bracket with or without byes decides the winner, or there could be no match play at all, usually but not always culminating in a four- or five-player stepladder, all independent of whether or not there is an all-important cashers round at some point.
It’s working, too. The complete unpredictability (some would say incomprehensible confusion) of bowling formats from event to event is impelling professional baseball. Now, a baseball game might last seven innings instead of nine. Plus, depending on the inning and the situation, there might be a runner standing on second base to start the inning for some reason. The influence bowling has on professional baseball is becoming clearer with each overturned umpire challenge.
Short Weeks
For centuries, the workforce has loved the occasional three-day weekend that results in a short four-day workweek. In bowling, our weeks are even shorter, and not occasionally. Always. When someone wins a tournament and, in his post-game speech, gives the obligatory, “He bowled great all week” plaudit to his opponent, he usually means, “He bowled great yesterday.”
Especially during the summer, with two-day PBA Tour events, two-day PWBA Tour events and three-day PBA50 Tour events, bowling great all week typically equates to enjoying a good eight-game set earlier this morning.
Long Days
Maybe a bowling week doesn’t perfectly align with a calendar, but we certainly don’t get cheated when it comes to time. What other sport allows us to sit for 12 straight hours watching the athletes compete? Maybe a college-football Saturday or NFL Sunday can give football fans a similar fix, but that’s a mere one or two days followed by a full week of nothing before it happens again. Bowling gives us 12 hours of action every day and crams three or four “weeks” into a single real week. No one can touch us in this department.
Everyone is Better than Everyone but No One is Better than Anyone
Perhaps separating us from the rest of the sporting world more than anything else is the magnificent dichotomy embraced by bowling in which we want to prove professionals are better than amateurs while simultaneously refusing to admit some professionals are better than other professionals. Other sports waste time debating the greatest players of all time. Not us. All bowlers are better than all other bowlers but no bowler is better than any other bowler.
A pro shooting 180 on television is far more talented than an amateur rolling 220 during league. Anyone reading this publication knows this is an indisputable truth. But who is the best professional bowler in the world?
Never mind that Kyle Troup, as of July 31, leads the 2021 PBA Tour in competition points and earnings along with winning two titles this season. That could all be very different if only (insert some wild hypothetical situation) led to (insert whichever bowler you like) dominating the season.
As long as we apply the right conditional statements, we can make a case for any pro being the best out there, especially if he’s bowled great all week. That’s part of the fun. Olympics or Nolympics, there should be no debate: bowling is better than all other sports.