Category: The One Board

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

Remember when Peg Bundy (Married With Children) bowled a 300? How about when Jill Taylor (Home Improvement) did her little dance after every shot and drilled every rack? When Tim fouled on his last shot, he had to kiss her bowling shoes and emasculate himself in front of all his construction-worker friends.

The Conners went bowling in every episode on Roseanne. The folks on Family Matters rehashed every generic bowling plot in existence.

Why does every sitcom venture into the world of bowling? Because it’s compelling. Yes, even to Hollywood folks who don’t care about formats or topography or even correct scoring, there is always something captivating about someone having to pick up a 7-10 split to win whatever low-stakes contest is being held on that particular show. That’s why The Pressure-Packed 7-10 Attempt is the greatest generic sitcom plot in history, easily edging out Person Gets Carried Away Gambling and Child Mysteriously Gets Impossible-to-Find Christmas Gift that Neither Parent Purchased and Then Stare at the Ceiling in Wonder While Sleigh Bells Jingle.

The record, as far as I know, for most sitcom 7-10 conversions belongs to Bronson Pinchot. His first came in 1989 as Balki Bartokomous on Perfect Strangers, a show that needs to be more readily available in some format somewhere (maybe Xtra Frame?). After an ill-timed eye appointment, during which the doctor put drops in his eyes and he “(couldn’t) see a thing,” Balki was put in the anchor position on Cousin Larry’s team, taking on Mr. Gorpley and his goons, who had been winning the league trophy (and rubbing Larry’s face in it) for years.

Stepping up in the 10^th, Balki needed a strike and a spare to win it. He stood on the approach, pins blurry, walked to the line, delivered with his too-new-to-be-controversial two-handed release and blasted the rack for a strike. Could he repeat the shot and win it?

It looked good. “Yes… yes…” said Larry. The dreaded 7-10 split. “No… no…” continued Larry.

Because this was a sitcom, nobody wanted anything to do with the smart play: pick up one of the two pins to tie and settle the match in a rolloff. Besides, if they’d done that, the episode would’ve run long and they would’ve had to cut the final scene in which we all learn a valuable lesson, a crucial component to classic sitcoms.

Balki, through blurry eyes, attempts to make the split. Slow motion kicks in at the foul line, ensuring something inspiring is about to happen. The ball hits the outside of the 7-pin, which gloriously slides into the 10-pin for the conversion and the championship.

Balki, perhaps bolstered by the confidence gained at such a triumphant moment, went on to marry the girl of his dreams, have a beautiful baby boy and presumably live with Cousin Larry for the rest of his life.

Oh, sorry. Retroactive spoiler alert.

Pinchot basked in the glory of that 7-10 pickup as long as he could, not even attempting another one until several years later as a cast member of Step by Step, on which he played Jean-Luc Rieupeyroux.

The Internet Movie Database says this happened in 1997, which seems awfully recent for an episode of Step by Step, but there’s something absurdly picturesque about watching the same man, albeit with a different accent, pick up the same split with the same stock footage.

Confronted with a 7-10 split, some people like to shoot at the pin on the ball-return side, some like to shoot at the pin on the opposite side, some determine their target based on the type of pinsetter, and Pinchot simply uses the same stock footage. Perhaps, there is something to be learned from TV after all.

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

As year-end countdowns satisfy our need for short-term nostalgia while simultaneously padding the bank accounts of internet click baiters, The One Board introduces the year-start countup. 2017 will undoubtedly be a year of intrigue, excitement and history. For the sake of continuity, here are 17 reasons why. For the sake of reality, all 17 involve bowling.

1. Quebec City’s François Lavoie is named 2016 PBA Rookie of the Year, raising tensions along the Ontario/Quebec border, with residents of the former lamenting the lack of acknowledgment for Guelph native and ROY runner-up, Graham Fach. We don’t know the outcome of the skirmish, but we can be certain it will be decided by some kind of rolloff.
2. Anthony Simonsen qualifies for two of the three major telecasts in February, winning one of them. He will then be declared the runaway lock to win PBA Player of the Year despite 10 months remaining in the season. Eventually, the talk will turn to one or two players who have quietly put together strong seasons and “Just need a major and another title at the World Series” to claim POY honors.
3. Randy Pedersen becomes one of Yelp’s top users when he gives bad reviews to every restaurant that serves him steak and potatoes when all he asked for was a burger and fries.
4. Economists reverse their long-held stance on supply and demand, releasing new information that in order to increase demand, one must simply increase supply.
5. An immeasurable number of people are referred to as great guys.
6. Pete Weber and Walter Ray Williams, Jr., both tired of the hype around who earns overall PBA title 100 first, pair up for the Roth/Holman Doubles event. They lose in the championship match.
7. Major League Baseball begins defining a sell out as, “Each team fields a complete starting lineup of nine players.” Every game is a sellout.
8. League season ends in April and bowlers all over the world experience serious withdrawals. Some cope by entering summer leagues, others cope by spending time with their loved ones and the rest cope by throwing their equipment in the nearest body of water and vowing never to bowl again.
9. In August, pro-shop owners are inundated with customers who, a few months prior, chucked all their equipment in the river and vowed never to bowl again. Pro-shop owners are grateful for the opportunity.
10. Lane conditions become completely fair and unchanging on both sides of the lane for all types of players, who become dissatisfied with no longer having to adjust from shot to shot.
11. The PBA50’s Matrix of Fairness will be honed to a level so fair, there will be a 24-way tie for first place at an event in late summer.
12. At some point during the year, you will carry a terrible shot for a strike. Bask in it as if you deserve it, because your bad breaks will assuredly outnumber the good ones.
13. A new bowling ball will be released that is clean through the heads, picks up in the midlane and hits hard in the backend.
14. Jason Belmonte proclaims about Tom Daugherty, “He can’t beat me in a televised exhibition match,” requiring the two players to have a once-and-for-all battle to determine who can’t beat whom. They tie.
15. Enough Europeans win PBA Tour titles that “18 and 36 125ths meters to success” becomes a popular catch phrase.
16. Bowling history is made at the U.S. Open when the winner admits to not taking it one shot at a time. “I took it several shots at a time,” he says. “I got so far ahead of myself, I imagined flying home with the trophy. Before I knew it, I really was flying home with the trophy.”
17. The 2017 end-of-year countdown will prove 12 of the above 16 items false.

Happy New Year, bowlers and bowling fans.

This installment of The One Board originally appeared in Bowlers Journal International, December, 2016

League night. The shots are rolling, the beers are flowing and the perceived value of the camaraderie increases with each fresh pitcher. While there are some exceptions, rec-league bowling, for the most part, involves alcohol. Warranted or not, the general public associates beer with bowling, largely because they only bowl a couple times a year and drink while doing so, leading some make the misguided claim that bowling isn’t a sport simply because one can drink while playing it.

For all the arguments the ignorant masses make against bowling, this is potentially the most baseless.

We will not devolve into a discussion as to whether or not anyone should drink while bowling. We will merely explore the fact that many do, and how such an act has nothing to do with whether or not bowling, or anything, is a sport.

Fine, so league bowlers drink. Recreational, once-a-year bowlers drink. Some competitors at alcohol-friendly amateur tournaments drink. That means bowling’s not a sport?

Go to a rec-league softball game. Guess what you’ll find, aside from hilariously short shorts, yellow shirts that used to be white and tattered gloves manufactured in 1964? Beer. And recreational softball is to professional baseball what house-pattern recreational bowling is to professional bowlers on a flat pattern. Does a group of 40-year-old men guzzling beers between at-bats mean softball and/or baseball is not a sport?

Baseball is slow, so maybe you don’t think that’s a sport, either. How about hockey? Based on hearsay and conjecture, professional athletes in all sports generally acknowledge hockey players as the best overall athletes. Thus, it would take the argument of a lifetime to prove hockey wasn’t a sport.

And, while your local ice rink is seeking teams to join what they call adult hockey leagues, we all know what those weekly sessions are really called: beer leagues. Because there is beer everywhere. The playing surface doubles as a chilling agent, and many teams value their players on beer-bringing ability more than hockey skills. A case of beer is far more important than a goal or an assist.

With each sandy sip by a recreational beach-volleyball player, under-the-table drink by a ping-pong player and unabashed guzzle by a kayaker, we’re reminded every single sport can be played while drinking. It can’t be played as well, but it can be played.

There is a distinction here inherent to most sports but not nearly as apparent as it should be in bowling: Recreational leagues are vastly different from professional leagues. Jordan Spieth is not sneaking in a shot before taking a shot at Augusta. Alex Ovechkin is not sloshed at center ice, Russell Wilson is only blitzed by aggressive defenses and whoever the current basketball star is only dribbles on the court with his hands. Likewise, no professional bowler is stumbling into the gutter during professional competition. Not due to inebriation, anyway. If it happens, blame the humidity.

To excel at the highest levels of sports, athletes need to be sober (not counting a surplus of human-growth hormone, of course) while competing. To simply play sports for fun, however, sobriety is not a requirement, and whether or not one can or should drink while doing something is not a factor at all in whether or not that activity is a sport.

Bowling, just like any other sport, has different levels of skill and importance. Bowling, just like any other sport, can be played while drinking, but athletes who care about their performances refrain from drinking while playing.

It’s not a sport if you can drink while playing it? Then there are no sports.

This installment of The One Board originally appeared in Bowlers Journal International, November, 2016

If you’re a member of a television family, Thanksgiving means putting a fake turkey on the table and telling your fake extended family everything for which you’re fake thankful. If you’re a member of a real family, you don’t have to do any of that stuff and simply hope the football game is visible from your chair. If you’re a member of a bowling family, it’s kind of like being in a real family, except you don’t care about the football game, instead devoting all your attention to Uncle Bastion’s detailed account of his crucial thumb-tape adjustment leading to a 250 game in league the night before.

What, then, are bowlers thankful for? Is it the ability to end a sentence with a preposition when not doing so would sound incorrect despite being correct? Probably not. Let’s reflect.

Yes, bowlers are thankful for turkeys, even if we now prefer “three-bagger,” as the emerging elitist vernacular implies anyone who says “turkey” is a turkey. A similar movement is happening among Thanksgiving enthusiasts, discussing the best ways to roast, grill and carve three-baggers.

Competitive bowlers are thankful for prize funds, partly because of the money available but mostly because of the joy achieved in pointing out how the money is either too top-heavy or too spread out. If there is one guarantee* in life, it is that there will never be an acceptable prize fund in any bowling tournament at any level. Ever.

Professional bowlers are thankful for the respect and reverence heaped upon them by amateur bowlers. Whereas professional baseball players are berated by amateurs who average .530 in rec-league softball and are one glove sponsorship away from the big leagues, professional bowlers are roundly applauded for their far-superior skills and abilities.

Foreign players are thankful for Bowlers Journal International, where they can be named to the All-American team on an annual basis. Likewise, after winning two PBA Tour titles in Detroit at the Fall Swing and two gold medals for the United States at PABCON in Colombia, American Sean Rash is the frontrunner to be named next year’s captain of the BJI All-Norwegian team.

College bowlers are thankful for rotator cuffs. Obviously, these groups of muscles and tendons are crucial to bowlers of all levels, but they’re especially imperative to the collegiate game, where incessant high-fiving is almost as vital as the phrase, “Come on, pick me up.”

Parents of college-bound children are thankful for youth bowling. Those who took their kids bowling every weekend are celebrating a windfall of scholarship money while parents who absent-mindedly encouraged their kids to waste their time studying are learning the fine art of cleaning out attics and creating unique eBay usernames. Will someone please purchase shouldabowled14’s Micro Machines collection or imaturkey111’s VCR? Their kids need books.

We’re all thankful for superstitions, placebos and other inconsequential factors that give us the confidence necessary to be our best at whatever level we compete. Without that lucky parking spot or familiar sandwich, the pursuit of athletic success is futile.

Ink salesmen are thankful for preposterously cluttered tournament-entry forms, airlines are thankful for overweight baggage fees, mechanics are thankful for overloaded axles and HVAC professionals are thankful the lane man takes all the blame for any subtle change in the interior environment.

Who’s left? Youth bowlers? Youth bowlers are thankful for bowling. They like it. Let’s not get in the way of that. Now pass the potatoes into my non-bowling hand, please.

*Based on infinite entries.

This installment of The One Board originally appeared in Bowlers Journal International, October, 2016

The first nine months of the year were good for The One Board. I was lined up, repeating my shots and crafting with confidence. Then, in an excited haste to get to another bowling tournament, I rushed off an airplane, inadvertently leaving behind my trusty first-draft notebook that housed three potential columns, and now I sit here finding myself unsure. I know I have to make a slight adjustment off September, but I can’t risk overadjusting and getting lost. The 10th month is crucial, because I can’t achieve perfection (or better: a 289) without the first 10 columns.

I’ve been doing everything just as bowling has taught me. I’ve taken it one column at a time. No, one sentence at a time. Geewillakers, one word at a time. I’ve proclaimed my preference to marathons over sprints while sprinting to the next sprint. I’ve had the right pen in my hand and was in the right part of the page, looking for hold and writing to it. I talk frequently with my pen rep, devising the best strategy to find the friction necessary to get the ink from the pen to the page, then calling in a graphologist to decipher my scribbles as I type them into a word processor under the watchful eye of my computer rep who helped me determine the optimal layout on my laptop screen.

To write a successful column, one has to catch a break here and there. It’s essential to capitalize on those breaks as well as the beginnings of sentences and proper nouns. When a poorly constructed sentence somehow plays well with the audience, a true veteran piles on with one of the best sentences in literary history, putting up two in a row and placing immense pressure on the other writers to try to keep up.

The key is committing to the sentence. The conditions vary constantly, and I may not be sure about a particular phrasing, but if I commit to it and trust it, it’ll either be perfect or I’ll learn from it for the next sentence. I have to learn from my mistakes and go forward. Stay down on the keys and post my punctuation marks.

Once I let it go and it’s off to the editor, there’s nothing more I can do. I can only control what happens before I get to the send button. As Pete Weber said his dad said, everything that happens before the sending of the column is 100% me and everything that happens after is 100% luck.

I don’t read anyone else’s writing. I can’t let what they’re doing affect where I may be. It’s a grind. I need to stay in my own world and focus on myself, then whatever happens, happens. All writers are great guys or gals, so I’m happy for anyone who succeeds.

The grind is what makes it all worth it, which is why I only buy whole coffee beans. Sure, pre-ground beans cost and taste the same, but unless I have to put myself through even a slight inconvenience, is the cup of coffee really worth it?

I’m not here just to get a check. I’m here to win. But, even if I don’t win, I’ll at least be able to say I got a check. Maybe. Well, definitely, because I’ve worked out an intricate system of income sharing with my fellow writers, guaranteeing no one gets rich but we all get at least one sandwich per week. That’s all the assurance I need.

This installment of The One Board originally appeared in Bowlers Journal International, September, 2016

Finally, the hideous nuisance that is summer is on its way out. No more suffering through extended vacations, no more being subjected to outdoor warm-weather leisure activities and no more relatively low energy bills. Mercifully, those irritants are coming to an end and we can all get back to what matters: bowling three games a week with a group of people we haven’t seen since the last time we bowled three games.

In honor of the return of league bowling, I present a true story of self-aggrandizement only league bowlers can understand. Especially if you can relate, and I know you can.

When someone bowls a perfect game, as Paul did one fine Tuesday night, he deserves accolades. Whether it was his first (it wasn’t) or his 90th (it wasn’t), everyone within the vicinity will make a point to congratulate him in some way. Almost.

After knocking down the 12th and final strike, Paul was greeted with applause, high fives, handshakes and even a hug from one particularly exuberant reveler. Everyone in the entire league congratulated Paul in some way. Everyone, that is, except Brad, who also happens to be Paul’s teammate.

Among the hoopla surrounding Paul’s well-deserved moment, Brad shouted, “Okay, I got ‘em,” meaning he overcame the odds and successfully marked all the scores on the score sheet. His proclamation was the signal to the first bowler on the opposing team to press the button and start the next game.

Paul’s perfection came in the second game of the night, and with one to play, we’d already been graced with two incredible moments. First, Paul’s 300, and then, even more impressive, Brad’s documenting of the scores.

In the third game, Paul didn’t let up. On his final ball in the 10th, he needed four pins to shoot 800. While a 300 game is the most widely known astonishing accomplishment in bowling, we all know an 800 series is typically regarded as more difficult and impressive within the bowling community.

Paul, as he’d been doing most of the night, struck on his final ball, leaving him with an 806 for the night. Again, accolades were showered upon him by anyone in the purlieu who saw and interpreted the scores.

Brad, however, had done something even more impressive and relayed his feat to anyone who couldn’t avoid hearing: among his three games, he registered two 163s. The same score twice in one night. Incredible.

Because of Paul’s ability to trump his 300 game with an 800 series, and Brad’s unbelievable efforts in bowling two identical scores, then amazingly writing down not only those scores but also the scores of everyone on his pair of lanes, somehow, on this league night, a 300 game was the fourth-best accomplishment on the lanes.

To recap, here’s the list of achievements that night, ranked from most impressive to least impressive:

1. Writing scores on a sheet of paper.
2. Rolling the same score twice in one night.
3. Bowling an 800 series.
4. Bowling a 300 game.

A 300 game is a noteworthy accomplishment. An 800 series is even better. But without people like Brad, we might have to settle for those types of achievements meaning something. Thankfully, we know both pale in comparison to the ability to write scores on a sheet of paper and the incredible consistency required to bowl two games of the same score.

Brad’s love of attention is just one of the many reasons league bowling is a worthwhile pursuit and why we should be rejoicing at the closing of beaches, shuttering of patios and the conclusion of general comfort. Put away your white clothes, clear your calendar and load your 78-ball roller into the car. League season is finally back.