This installment of The One Board originally appeared in Bowlers Journal International, December, 2022
By now, league bowlers have gotten into a nice rhythm and are carrying fairly accurate averages several weeks into the 2022-2023 league season. Some experienced veterans are wondering why this season appears to be so much harder or easier than last season with no discernible changes to their games. Other veterans are bowling the same scores for all three games they’ve always bowled, every week, for the last 25 years. Sandbaggers are trying to keep their scores low but not so low that too much suspicion arises. Honest beginners are seeing their averages steadily rise with no ill intent. Nachos are being consumed, beverages are being sipped and friends are having weekly fun competing.
League bowling is tremendous.
The midseason for league bowlers is also the off-season for professional bowlers, except we all know there is no true off-season for pro bowlers. They are genetically programmed to be rolling a bowling ball at all times with a complete inability to stop for even the shortest respite. In addition to practice, tournaments, every sweeper they can find and piling up an unquantifiable number of Instagram videos, pro bowlers also join leagues.
League bowling, as established, is tremendous, but even on challenging conditions, can’t prepare professionals for the level of competition they’ll face when the Tour resumes. There are obvious benefits to repeatedly throwing shots (for example, honing repeatability), working on developing or altering techniques without the pressure of a poor adjustment costing them six figures, and simply staying in bowling shape so their thighs aren’t on fire after their first 632-game qualifying block at the U.S. Open.
Compared to other professional athletes, bowlers might have it more difficult than anyone else in preparing to resume the highest level of competition in the world. NHL players from multiple teams and without regard to their stick sponsors often form small groups and get together to skate throughout the summer. It’s not the pressure of a real game, but it is NHL-caliber passing, shooting and goaltending talent with whom they’re skating. They’re forced to stay sharp in order to keep up with other elite players, even at an informal skate.
Basketball and baseball players play in summer or winter leagues, respectively, again among other elite players. Football players await their discharges from the hospital just in time for training camp, putting them all on the same level entering the season.
But bowlers don’t necessarily get to compete with peers in leagues or even in many tournaments and sweepers. This means they don’t get to work on certain very important things, the most obvious being the lane conditions and how the oil changes. No matter what pattern is out there, it’s not going to break down the same way in a league as it would in a professional event. There also isn’t the same level of competitive drive among the league bowlers as compared to the professional players. Building a big lead over the guy who would rather play the crane game than take his turn doesn’t mean nearly as much as earning a 400-pin cushion over the entire U.S. Open field for guaranteed second-place money.
So, when a league bowler is in midseason form, a pro bowler is getting toward the end of his or her off-season preparation in an effort to turn midseason league form into preseason pro form, hoping he or she practiced all the right things and maintains the muscle memory and mental attitude to compete with the best. Then, after pre-bowling for 12 straight league weeks and shooting 10,800, loads up the SUV with the 98 latest bowling balls and hits the road.
Bowling is unique to (better than) other sports in this way as well: the acceleration into midseason form. After the first qualifying round is finished and the local restaurant is chosen for superstitious reasons and squad equity is questioned, all of us—pros, fans, disinterested bystanders—are thrust into midseason form.
Like it never stopped. Good luck and high scores. Pro bowling is tremendous.