Category: Bowlers Journal International

This installment of The One Board originally appeared in Bowlers Journal International, February, 2018

I have the privilege of spending a lot of time around the best bowlers in the known universe, getting an extremely close look at what it takes to compete at the highest level. We can all marvel at their bowling skills—even though we could be that good too if we only had free equipment to use on fair lane conditions in a humidity-controlled environment—but this month, let’s delve into some of the lesser-known skills at which these athletes excel.

Handshakes

Almost without exception, bowlers have extremely strong handshakes. This shouldn’t surprise anyone, as it takes a strong hand to repeatedly hurl 15-pound objects. That’s not all there is to it, though, as lefties also share the strong-handshake ability. It could be as simple as a sturdy handshake being an important thing in real life, and bowlers as a whole understanding that. Or, it could be yet another way for them to compete with each other.

More than merely wielding strong handshakes, bowlers are particularly proud of that fact. Because of that, I’m not going to name even one of the best, because if I do, several other contenders will take offense, fool me into shaking their hands, then not release their grips until I either concede they are the strongest or until they crush my hand, whichever comes second.

Lack of Hand Vanity

Writing of hands, bowlers will mutilate theirs beyond belief to win a tournament. The downside to the ever-important “more games” is the absurd beating a bowler’s hand takes from constantly propelling a ball down the lane. Cuts, scratches, rips, gaping wounds—who cares? Put some tape on it and keep playing.

“I was a manicurist for 40 years,” says a fictional person who may as well be real. “I quit the moment a bowler walked in.”

For a bowler, winning the tournament is always prioritized over prehensile beauty.

Superstition Escalation

Bowlers, like many athletes, are prone to being superstitious, but what’s become even more impressive is the escalation of those superstitions. For instance, a particular bowler had a superstition that required him to sit in the same seat between shots when he was bowling well. When he stopped bowling well, he had to change seats.

One day, he was struggling, so he changed seats, then immediately rolled his best shot of the game. His original superstition called for him to remain in the new seat. However, another thought crept into his head: maybe it’s not the actual seat, but the fact I changed seats.

The bowler was then trapped in preposterousness as he tried to determine whether or not he should change seats again before his next shot, which meant he wasn’t thinking about what he should be doing on the approach. He did not strike on his next shot.

Projecting Hypothetical Math

One of the best places to be at a bowling tournament is near the scoreboards when a cut is about to be made. As many people as possible—ball reps, players who have finished, fans—crowd around the scoreboard, shouting numbers at each other.

Every sentence begins with, “If,” because what one guy does in the 10^th frame only matters if what a different guy did in the ninth frame was one of three things, dependent on whether a third guy converted a split in the eighth, all factored against any potential ties from an earlier squad. And, because everyone processes math a little differently (and most do so out loud), people often think they’re disagreeing with each other when they’re actually saying the same thing amid the incomprehensible rabble.

In the end, everybody’s right. The end, of course, is when the official scores are posted. At that point, everyone can claim to have known all along. No one can be refuted, because blame is easy to place. “Oh, I got bad info on that guy,” or, “I couldn’t see Rash was shooting a perfect game 90 lanes from here.”

Then, the crowd moves from the scoreboards to a neutral pair of lanes for the inevitable rolloff.

This installment of The One Board originally appeared in Bowlers Journal International, January, 2018

In the second annual The One Board year-start countup, we prognosticate 18 bowling-related events that will make 2018 a year worth living. At the end of the year, we’ll look back on these items and be shocked at the realization three of them actually came true.

1. Jason Belmonte wins the PBA Tournament of Champions, trying him with Earl Anthony and Pete Weber for most career major titles with 10.
2. Scores of media show up for the Players Championship to witness record-breaking history, but Belmonte finishes third. That’s okay, because everyone knows he will win the USBC Masters in April, so the media all turn up to that as well for another chance at history.
3. Some guy no one has ever heard of wins the Masters. He takes his trophy back to the remote wilderness of the Northwest Territories and is never seen again.
4. Las Vegas sets the over/under at nine seconds on how long it will take someone to mention Chris Barnes’ thriftiness during the Hall of Fame ceremony. No one takes the under and Las Vegas goes out of business.
5. The hottest song of the summer is “Pin Placement” by Positive Axis Point, a new pop trio hailing from Ecuador, Kenya and Indonesia.
6. EJ Tackett wins every single Xtra Frame Tour event over the summer and his second consecutive Storm Cup. The Player of the Year race comes down to Tackett and that guy who wins the Masters. Tackett wins.
7. Jesper Svensson’s first right-arm tattoo is an actual-size depiction of a piece of kinesiology tape. After whichever brand he tattoos doesn’t renew their product-registration agreement, Svensson ironically has to tape over his tape tattoo whenever he makes a show. He makes every show.
8. As World Bowling scoring catches on in bowling, so does traditional bowling scoring in other sports. Baseball teams that score runs in the first inning now have to wait to see how they do in the second and third innings to determine exactly what their first inning was worth.
9. For the 60^th consecutive year, an immeasurable number of people are referred to as great guys.
10. Someone definitively proves how something being too easy is a legitimate excuse for failure.
11. Several intra-bowling romantic relationships struggle because of trust issues. It’s not because the bowlers can’t trust each other, but rather because they can’t trust anything or anyone more than they trust “the process.”
12. Someone designs a tournament that is simultaneously a carry contest and a grind, a marathon and a sprint, a leftyfest and a lefties-locked-outfest, match play and no match play, a simple and convoluted format, and does so while maintaining integrity. No one complains.
13. Albuquerque emerges as the new live-streaming hotbed. Not sure where they get their equipment.
14. “Some guy named (insert undeniably legendary bowler’s name here)” finally becomes cute. Then immediately stops being cute again.
15. In October, during an important MLB playoff game, the baseball players rush to the locker room between at-bats to check in on C-squad qualifying scores from the U.S. Open.
16. Belmonte wins the U.S. Open, breaking the record for most majors and collecting the one major he hasn’t yet won, joining Mike Aulby as the only two players to have won all five. The media, still smarting over two failed attempts earlier in the year, don’t attend and no one hears about it.
17. Lamenting the lack of media attention, the PBA retroactively credits Don Carter with major championships for his World Invitational titles, tying him with Belmonte at 11. This gives Belmonte a chance to break the all-time record, again, at the PBA World Championship. Throngs of media show up. Instead of winning his 12^th, Belmonte finishes 12^th.
18. Pete Weber wins the World Championship at age 56, giving him 11 major titles and creating a three-way tie for the record. The PBA statistician quits and moves deeper into the woods than that guy who wins the Masters.

This installment of The One Board originally appeared in Bowlers Journal International, December, 2017

If you’ve ever been able to force yourself to watch a movie or TV show even though they’re not aired live, and if the production involved bowling, you may have noticed a disproportionate number of the strikes shown are Brooklyns. The characters on screen react as if they’ve thrown great shots, but you’re at home ridiculing the idiot for cheering a Brooklyn, because as we all know, some strikes are better than others, even if they all count the same (unless it’s a fill ball, of course).

Have you ever wondered why there are so few quality strikes in fictional works? Is it because actors aren’t as good as real bowlers (they aren’t, but that’s not why)? Is it because producers and directors don’t care about real bowlers (mostly but not completely true, but that’s also not why)? Is it because directors and editors think a Brooklyn shot is more aesthetically pleasing (I hope not)? Today, we expose Hollywood’s bowling secrets.

The actors aren’t really throwing the shots.

This is probably obvious, but necessary to clarify, as we in the bowling industry typically jump right into differential calculus without first teaching someone how to add. The movie predictably shows the actor making the approach and releasing the ball, then cuts to a shot of the ball hitting the pins, then cuts back to the actor reacting to whatever the scripted result is. The ball that hits the pins is usually thrown by a real bowler (or, in Internet Movie Database terminology, a stunt bowler, bowling consultant, bowling advisor or miscellaneous crew member).

So, while a non-bowling actor might be more likely to throw a Brooklyn strike than a true bowler, this is not the reason we see so many crossovers, because the actors aren’t actually rolling the shots.

Shouldn’t a real bowler be able to hit the pocket?

Unlike professional bowling tournaments, the stunt bowler does not get 368 minutes of practice before the actual event begins, so his first shot is a bit of a guess. Also, and this is more important: there is no oil on the lanes. Generally, this is a surprise to the stunt bowler.

A movie production involves a massive conglomerate of human beings and heavy equipment, all of which need to be able to move about the set. When the set is a bowling center, they need to strip the lanes of the oil to avoid several personal-injury lawsuits. When the stunt bowler rolls his best guess of a first shot, then hits no oil, the ball is going to pick up fairly early and striking on either side of the pocket is quite an impressive feat. Thankfully, the crew usually doesn’t know enough about bowling to scream “Joke!” as the stunt bowler lofts the ball 30 feet down the lane in order to find the pocket.

Generally, the director is a bowling novice and naïve enough to think a strike is a strike. So, when the stunt bowler crosses over for a Brooklyn, the director is ecstatic. He got the strike he needed and can move on to the next scene, saving a lot of money for his bosses. The unnecessarily embarrassed stunt bowler can protest all he wants, but the director doesn’t care.

In the captivating world of Hollywood, actors don’t throw the shots, a lack of oil means real bowlers have a more difficult time finding the pocket, the director takes the first strike he sees and calls it a day, and that is why we see so many Brooklyn strikes in movies and TV shows.

It’s not all bad, though. If you’re ever feeling down about the lack of good shots thrown on TV or in movies, skip to the final homonymous shot, both of the movie and on the lanes, of The Big Lebowski, and thank Barry Asher for packing the pocket.

This installment of The One Board originally appeared in Bowlers Journal International, November, 2017

I bowled my first 300 game was when I was eight years old. I was the youngest to ever do it, but still haven’t been given credit. I think I’m right behind Glenn Allison on the review list. My brother and I rode our bikes to the bowling alley (they were still called alleys at the time) and I achieved perfection with a 10-pound house ball and ill-fitting rental shoes. My brother can vouch for me. I’d show you the manual score sheet, but I think it blew away on the ride home. That or we used it to clean up a mess of melted cheese. Because it was during open bowling, it wasn’t sanctioned, but the local paper did a story on me. Of course, that was the day of the fateful printing-press fire that prevented that edition from ever going out.

My next 300 game came in league. I was pre-bowling in a near-empty bowling center. There was only one person working that day, and he wasn’t paying much attention to me. As he printed the scores to put into the league file, he noticed my incredible score and asked why seven of the strikes were highlighted. Bad scoring unit, I told him. Kept counting my strikes as nines, forcing me to manually change them to strikes. Obviously.

After that, I rolled a 300 in a no-tap event. It was extremely aggravating, because all 12 were real strikes. Even those who were with me won’t give me credit for it, despite personally witnessing me roll 12 real strikes. No one else even accomplished perfection with no-tap allowances, and yet they wouldn’t give me my proper due for bowling a real 300 game. Trust me, though. I did it.

Fueled by the lack of adoration I was getting, I went on a streak of bowling at least one perfect game a week during open bowling, occasionally putting up a couple perfectos at cosmic bowling, just to show the kids how it’s done. None of that was sanctioned, but I’m not in it for the awards. I know in my heart I did it. And I’m sure those kids are still telling their friends about the time some guy next to them struck repeatedly under the disco ball.

I’m not always perfect; I’ve also intentionally given up several would-have-been perfect games. Once, I accidentally bowled my 11^th shot on the wrong lane. Even though I struck, some rules stickler who happened to be there told me I had to re-bowl the shot on the correct lane. I was so angry at his interference, I intentionally chucked it in the gutter just so he wouldn’t get the satisfaction of seeing a perfect game. I then went to the bowling center across town and struck 12 times in 12 tries.

Several other instances, after I get the first 11 strikes, which admittedly happens every game, I intentionally pick off a certain number of pins. I’ve bowled every possible 290 score at least a dozen times, always during open bowling with no witnesses, because, again, I don’t care about the accolades. Because I’m so humble, I now make it a rule to never bowl an honor score when anyone is looking. Fanfare would make me uncomfortable.

Recently, I broke that rule: I bowled four consecutive 900 series during open bowling one Saturday. 144 strikes in a row. Some would say that’s gross.

After my 144^th strike, I packed up my single bowling ball and walked toward the door. People hollered after me, “Don’t you want to see how many more you can throw?”

“Roll,” I corrected. “Not throw.”

This installment of The One Board originally appeared in Bowlers Journal International, October, 2017

Bowlers will never be known as complainers. They always look at the positive side of any situation and are constantly focusing on the good things that happen to them rather than the bad. This is amazing, because there are so many forces conspiring against bowlers, it’s hard to believe bowling is possible at all.

Humidity

Modern bowling shoes are built to combat changing conditions on the approaches, allowing bowlers to replicate their comfortable slide whether someone slathered cooking oil on the approach or spilled soda on it seven hours ago, which has now dried into a disgusting pile of what might as well be sap.

Did it rain last night? Has it not rained in a year? Will it rain later today? Does it feel like it should be raining but it isn’t?

Constant humidity changes, especially on synthetic approaches with moisture-retaining smaller, shallower pores or, if you ask a different expert, wood approaches that naturally absorb moisture, directly impact the comfort level of the bowler. The intrusion into a bowler’s comfort and confidence is far more detrimental than the actual physical difficulties encountered by having to adjust slide pads or change one’s entire approach.

Often, the most valuable player at a bowling tournament is the HVAC mechanic.

Lights and Shadows

The house lights themselves aren’t bad, as bowlers need those to help them see, but when you start adding complementary illumination to the environment, not only are you installing something for bowlers to avoid looking at, but you also create shadows. And shadows can move.

A bowler on the approach with a light behind him is prone to seeing shadows change on the approach as people wander about in the background. An extra light might reflect off one of the 50 non-distracting-but-always-moving bowlers and objects in the bowling center, creating a surprising twinkle over a player’s target line, only to be eclipsed by a shadow from behind, resulting in the bowler missing by an arrow and crossing over for a Brooklyn strike. This, justifiably, is rage-inducing despite being the best possible score in a single bowling shot.

This isn’t even taking into account the immense heat an LED light, like those occasionally used by Xtra Frame, gives off. (Scientist’s note: LED lights do not emit heat.)

When we get into TV lights, there’s truly no hope for a bowler. Brighter than the sun, these lights have either been proven or disproven, depending on whom you ask, to affect the oil, completely changing or not changing the playing environment. With only 15 minutes of practice prior to the show, there’s barely time to adapt one’s eyes, let alone learn how to play the lanes.

Good Breaks

Sure, bowlers secretly enjoy good breaks, but they add more mental turmoil than the 11 pins they’re worth. Bowlers aren’t allowed to be happy with good breaks; humble acceptance is the closest emotion they’re permitted to show.

If you win with a good break, you get less credit for the win. “Oh, he only won because of his lucky carry, or his Brooklyn, or his opponent’s stone 8.”

Never mind if the lucky carry was in one frame during a 70-pin blowout win, or a Brooklyn at the front of a nine-bagger, or an opponent’s bad break on a fill ball after the match was decided in the eighth. A good break stains your glory.

Plus, if all things even out, a good break means there’s a bad break coming soon, and if you get lucky in a supremely important spot, you’re guaranteed to be unlucky in another important spot in the future.

Nothing at all, aside from imminent doom, can come from a good break. Fans of irony, rejoice: a good break is actually the worst break a bowler can get.

This installment of The One Board originally appeared in Bowlers Journal International, September, 2017

One of the most common arguments against bowling fandom, coming from those who don’t watch professional bowling, is that bowling is too easy. All you have to do is a throw a ball 18.288 meters and knock down 10 pins. Anybody can do that. Right?

To anyone who’s bowled even a few times, that argument holds no merit. Bowling sometimes looks easy when the pros do it, and while it is possible for anyone of any skill level to throw a strike (or even a few in a row), only some can understand what it takes and only the best can sustain that performance, especially on the difficult lane conditions confronting professionals.

Some bowlers and bowling fans will go back at the detractors and say, “If only you understood how good these pros really are, you’d like it.”

Unfortunately, telling people what they should like usually doesn’t work.

Yes, it would be nice if everyone understood the incredible talent level of the best bowlers in the world. However, we’re not going to hook any new fans with the if-you-only-understood-how-good-they-are argument. That’s like suggesting your local CPA firm would have a crowd of onlookers cramming into the hallways and cubicles because word got out they’re the best CPA firm in the world.

“Hey, let’s go downtown and watch the CPAs do taxes,” says Warren, an avid CPA fan.

“Why would I want to do that?” says Warren’s friend. “It’s just math. Anybody can do it. It’s easy.”

“You don’t understand. It’s not just math. They have to know each person’s specific situation, adjust to the tax laws and use the best strategy to get the maximum refund.”

People, for the most part, are not going to be drawn into something simply because they’re told it’s highly complicated and difficult. In fact, studies show complications and difficulties are the two leading causes of quitting anything.

Bowling is Difficult

There’s one thing that may be more challenging than bowling: a bowler trying to explain to a non-bowler how difficult bowling is.

If you’re a bowler, at least two of the following are true: (1) you’re married to or dating a bowler; (2) you have the number 300 or 900 in your social-media handles; (3) you can easily talk over the heads of the general public with intricate knowledge of cover stocks, cores, layouts, thumb tape, oil patterns, adjustments, topography, deliveries, fairness, speed, angles, surface, shine, forward rolls, axis tilts, kinesiology, oil viscosity, humidity, hypothetical situations and putting it all together, completely synchronized, on the way to a perfect game.

This is all fine amid wonderful bowling nomenclature, but a potential new fan can’t be attracted to all this until that person has a very basic understanding and genuine interest in the act of knocking down 10 pins.

Go Bowling

Why not take someone bowling? Instead of explaining how difficult it is, take a friend and go have fun playing the game. Your friend will naturally start asking you questions. How do you hook it like that? Why did you make the guy put us on two lanes instead of one? Why did you bring 48 bowling balls when there are racks full of them here already? Why didn’t you tell me not to step past the foul line?

Your friend—just as you did once upon a time—will gradually come around at his own pace. He will start to learn about oil, experiment with different drilling layouts and lament the fact it rained last night. Soon enough, he’ll know how difficult bowling is. Your friend, thanks to you taking him bowling, is luring himself into the never-ending learning opportunity that is bowling.

This installment of The One Board originally appeared in Bowlers Journal International, August, 2017

One topic that is discussed heartily in all sports is the pace of play. Why does it take more than three hours to play a baseball game? Why do the last two minutes of a basketball game take longer than the other 46? How is it possible football takes so long when so much of the time involves the players getting into position while the clock runs?

The same conversation is crucial to bowling, where it’s time we NEED MORE GAMES discuss NEED MORE GAMES how long a sporting event NEED MORE GAMES should NEED MORE GAMES last.

To speed the game, Major League Baseball now allows pitchers to intentionally walk batters without having to throw the pitches.

The National Hockey League imposes a delay-of-game penalty on a defensive player who shoots the puck over the glass, which ironically delays the game as the referee puts the player in the penalty box.

The National Basketball Association is considering options to speed up its games, particularly looking at the final two minutes, which currently either take what seems like three hours for a close game or—in defiance of space and time—less than two minutes in a blowout.

In bowling, we NEED MORE GAMES.

Pink Floyd said (while competing on a Wall, mind you) you can’t have any pudding if you don’t eat your meat. Roger Waters hasn’t returned my call, but it’s a virtual certainty the true meaning of that line is you can’t have any more games until you’ve proven you can bowl your current games in less time than it takes to fly a gigantic metal airplane from New York to Los Angeles.

At every level, especially professional bowling and excluding youth bowling, the pace of play continues to get slower. There is no reason professional bowlers should need five hours to play eight games, even if there are four on a pair with a lot of newbies who don’t know the cross or a tough lane condition that requires a lot of two-shot frames.

“Which part do I come watch?” asks a fan with multiple life-related responsibilities and interests.

“All 12 hours, of course,” I reply. “And there are another 12 tomorrow and the next day.”

In those 12 hours, we see two squads bowl eight games each. If they could bowl a game in 20 minutes, as the best in the world should be able to do, we could cram 36 total games into those 12 hours. We shouldn’t, because that would send all the bowlers to the orthopaedist, who would then become overworked to the point of needing an orthopaedist herself, but we could.

I’m not arguing against qualifying, which is essential to the fairness and integrity of the sporting event. I’m not arguing against a particular number of games, either. I’m not even necessarily arguing against the total day of bowling lasting 12 hours, as the logistics of field and venue sizes almost always prohibit everyone from being able to bowl simultaneously. I am arguing for the casual fans who might walk into a bowling center and be interested enough to ask questions and find out what’s going on until they realize they have to sit there for 10 more hours and nothing definitive happens until the weekend.

How many baseball games last six hours? Of those, how many are immediately followed by a quick break to mow the field and then another six-hour game? And how many fans sit through all 13 hours, including the hour to mow the field, and then come back to do it again for the next three days?

It’s time we bring the pace-of-play discussion to bowling. For almost every other major sport, three hours is the approximate acceptable length of a single block of competition. It’s better to leave the fans wanting more than to leave them wondering how much more there is.

This installment of The One Board originally appeared in Bowlers Journal International, July, 2017

What have you been doing the past two months? And what will you do the next two months? Welcome to July, the month with the dubious distinction of being as far away as possible from league bowling’s traditional season. Two months ago, you rolled your last ball. Two months from now, you’ll roll your first ball. In between, we all bear the dreaded inescapable abyss of not being able to bowl league. With evenings free, hamstrings not fatigued and mental health growing, we have no idea what to do with ourselves.

Sure, you can get your bowling fix by watching the PBA Tour, PBA50 Tour, PWBA Tour and more on Xtra Frame, ESPN and CBS Sports Network, but you’re not actually bowling. And yes, you can go to the lanes and throw a few, or you can enter the USBC Open Championships for a nice weekend of fun and experiences, but unless you’re a high-level competitive bowler, those things are all fleeting, short-term solutions to a nagging problem: you physically can’t function if you are not going to the lanes and bowling three games once a week (rather, it’s probably more accurate to say several times a week) in a USBC-sanctioned league.

Perhaps you joined a summer league, which is a good idea, but everyone knows summer leagues aren’t the same. The weather is different, the participants are different and the overall vibe is different. The first week of summer league feels a lot like the time you found out Aunt Susan wasn’t really your aunt: weird, confusing and a little frightening. We should all bowl in summer leagues, and they’re fun, but there’s nothing quite like the traditional 900-week season that begins after Labor Day.

“I get antsy,” says one forlorn league bowler. “Every Tuesday night, I feel like I need to be doing something, and when I realize it’s bowling, I frantically pack up all my equipment and am usually out of the driveway before I remember bowling season is over.”

He does this weekly for four excruciating months, never actually making the full trek to the bowling center despite the fact he’s already in the car with his armoire of bowling balls.

“There’s just nothing like league,” he continues. “I can bowl alone, but who’s going to vouch for my 6-7-10 conversions? Who’s going to chastise me for rolling a 2-pin?”

What do you do with your surplus of time? You could clean out your basement, paring your arsenal to the important pieces for league season and disposing of the rest. Except you can’t get rid of that ball—it’s your first 300 ball. And you can’t get rid of this ball—it converted the big four once. And this one? The first ball you ever hated. You definitely can’t trash the first ball that ever irreparably cracked. With the sentimental value being so immense, it’s best to leave these never-to-be-rolled-again treasures on the rack and buy a whole new batch of equipment when the late-summer releases hit the pro shops.

Perhaps you could take your family on a multi-week vacation, but then you’ll be tempted to buy a motorhome, fill it with all those bowling balls and subconsciously plot a course that for some reason takes you to Overland Park, Peoria, Milwaukee, Towson, Atlantic City, Windsor Locks and Akron. In that order. Your kids will be almost as confused as you are.

If you have the ability, maybe try hibernating. Go home after your league banquet in April or May, burrow into a cave and sleep until bowling returns in September.

For now, at least you’ve made it this far. Just two months of nothing to go.

This installment of The One Board originally appeared in Bowlers Journal International, June, 2017

Bowling is not the only subset of culture with a nomenclature unique to itself, but it’s definitely one of the most unique among the unique. Every geographical region, corporate guidebook and alleged close-knit group of friends has its own way of communicating. The beauty of such a phenomenon is the linguistic intricacies sound normal within those groups, even enhancing the level of engagement and fun within the group. The even-more beauty is how absurd it all looks when you analyze it from the outside.

Homonymous Synonyms

Your ball rolls down the lane, looking good for the first 30 feet or so. Then, not so much. It’s not quite hanging, not quite skating and definitely not out the window, but there’s something weird about it. Your assurance that it’ll cut back to the pocket quickly dissipates as you watch it try to turn but never fully succeed in doing so. After watching all the pins except the 2, 4 and 10 fall, you turn around to see your loving teammate, who says, “Got a little skittish down there.”

You need a moment to process his feedback. Did he say “skittish,” a real word, meaning nervous, that personifies the bowling ball as a frightened hermit too scared to turn to the pocket? Or did he say “skiddish,” a fake word invented by bowlers that means the ball is skidding too much? And, since both homonyms end up meaning the same thing, why does it matter? It matters because you want to know if your teammate is worthy of praise for using an underused vocabulary word (skittish) or if your teammate is worthy of praise for using insider jargon (skiddish). He definitely deserves some kind of recognition.

Too frustrated with the 2-4-10 to figure it out and definitely too skittish to compliment your teammate, you let it go.

Sk8 Or Die

“That ball is too skid flippy.”

Staying with the skidding theme, we consider the problem that has plagued bowlers for as long as it has helped skateboarders win gold medals at the X Games: skid flips.

Of course, skid flippiness can be a good thing, although we almost always hear it in the context of a ball being too skid flippy or a player desperately needing—but failing to achieve—skid flippiness.

Skid flippiness, invented by Tony Hawk and made famous by Tim Mack, comes from reading the lane front-to-back rather than left-to-right, as the bowlers at the highest levels do, since it directly relates to backend reaction, whether desired or undesired.

Being able to hold a conversation about skid flippiness not only proves you are part of the bowling community, but also makes for a great story some random eavesdropper will be telling her family later about the two goobers talking about skid flippiness.

One Time

“One time!” shouts a bowler hoping for his ball to knock down all 10 pins.

At that exact moment, it makes sense. But over the course of any period of time longer than that exact moment, it is completely preposterous.

The bowler is literally saying he hopes his ball can strike just this one time. Except he says the same thing next frame. And the next frame. He wants his ball to strike one time every time. For an implied pact with the mythical bowling gods, it’s quite selfish and expectant.

There is no way a bowler would ever be happy again if the bowling gods got sick of being taken advantage of and made sure that one time was truly the only time. Shouting this phrase is a maneuver of the highest risk.

Just once, I’d like a skittish skiddish ball to get skid flippy down lane when it matters, giving me the most beautiful strike in the history of bowling. And then I want that to happen indefinitely. Easy.

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.