This installment of The One Board originally appeared in Bowlers Journal International, September, 2023
Finally, September is here. The PBA50 and PWBA Tour seasons are over and the PBA Tour season is mostly over, with only the Lucky Larsen Masters and PBA League events to go, so at long last we can ignore all the professionals and do what we do best: focus on our own games as recreational leagues are once again getting underway.
In our recreational leagues, we don’t have to worry about rankings and who should or shouldn’t be eligible for anything. We get to pick our friends as teammates, who only rank in the senses that they are rank amateurs and they emit rank odors after a maximum of three practice shots.
Obviously, there are many bowlers who compete in leagues and tournaments on multiple oil patterns throughout the summer, and those people are more than ready for fall. However, the vast majority of league bowlers begin their weekly pursuits of greatness on house shots in September after a few months off. For the latter group, it starts with cleaning out and restocking the bowling bag. This is easy because the latest bowling ball combines cover A with core B, so simply purchasing the new ball allows us to remove ball A and ball B from the bag, a two-for-one swap that opens up a slot for another new ball, which conveniently combines cover B with core A.
It’s a three-ball roller, so we should probably fill the last slot with a plastic—no, let’s keep this old favorite of ours just in case. I’m sure we won’t be shooting many spares and if we have to, we’ll definitely have no problem throwing reactive resin at them. Plus, this ball helped us win the league four years ago and it’ll give us confidence to know it’s there.
We probably don’t need new shoes. These still look good. Plus, they’re comfortable. We know how they slide and comfort on the approach is huge. These things are sleek, too. Covering them with booties would be a travesty, partly because we want to show off the shoes but mostly because we outgrew booties at approximately six months of age.
Accessories. We definitely need our towel. Or should we try a shammy this year? Let’s pack both. We’ll need 60 spare finger inserts, 30 for each finger, just in case we lose both on every shot. Wait, though: we’ll probably bowl 900, which will be 36 shots. We’d better pack 36 of each finger insert to be safe. Let’s gamble on the thumb. We have one we can move from ball to ball, but if that breaks for some reason, maybe it’s a sign to embrace the two-handed game.
What else? The pros have dopp kits full of powders, glues, tapes, scissors, knives, etc. We’re not sure what any of that is for but let’s order a few dozen to cover us through the season.
A bunch of small bills for smalltime gambling, a few decks of playing cards, a little notebook we could conceivably use to make notes on our games but won’t, another towel and another shammy for good measure and that should be about it.
Are we forgetting anything? Oh, maybe we should practice. Touch a bowling ball for the first time since April. We could probably get to the lanes next Thursday… well, no, we’ll be fine. We’ll use the first nine weeks of the season as practice. That should be enough. The league is just for fun and it’s not sandbagging if we’re trying. Besides, nine weeks of practice among real competition should have us sharp enough to enter the USBC Masters next year as one of the favorites to win. And, as Masters champ, they’ll have to give us free bowling balls. Right?