Category: The One Board

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

As I’ve stated on record many times, bowling vernacular is one of the most fascinating, engrossing and enthralling subsets of speech in existence. Being able to combine sign language that isn’t sign language with English that isn’t English and somehow be understood by another bowler is astonishing.

Thus, I’m not suggesting we rid our language of absurd terms like “skid-flippy” or “bouncy,” as those are crucial to being able to talk over the heads of laymen, which is part of the fun of having a vernacular.

However, there are certain terms we use too often in bowling that need to go away. Here are three:

“Regular Tour”

When people say “regular tour,” they’re referring to the PBA Tour, but it is one of the worst possible ways to refer to the absolute pinnacle of the sport. There is nothing regular about the most exclusive, talent-laden, lucrative and entertaining bowling tour in the world.

Calling the highest level of the game “regular” condemns it to being normal, when it is as far from normal as possible. A normal bowler doesn’t average 220 on a flat pattern, or have companies paying him to wear their logos, or get to compete on national television for a five-figure payday on multiple occasions. A normal bowler doesn’t get a private bathroom. Fine, so that part’s the same.

Maybe we call it the regular tour to distinguish between the PBA50 Tour and the PBA Regional Tour, but that’s a redundant distinction, as the “50” and “Regional” designations already exist to differentiate those tours from the PBA Tour, which stands on its own as the best in all of bowling. It is anything but regular.

“Unfair”

Yes, everything is unfair. That’s a fact. But maybe if we stop acknowledging it, it’ll go away? Yeah, that guy got a better cross, and the lefties have the berries this week (unless you’re a lefty, in which case the lanes are walled for the righties), and one more game (or one fewer game) would’ve hurt the guy ahead of you and helped you, and you hit all the tough lanes while everyone else hit all the easy ones, and the other squad was stacked and yours was loaded with donks, and it rained before you bowled, and the temperature fluctuated wildly, and so on.

These are all indisputable facts. But, since they’re true for everyone, and because nothing in life is fair—for proof, consider magicians, who exploit this truth to the extent that they ask the audience if something is fair, only to use that distraction to be devilishly deceitful—let’s accept the odds are always against us, no matter what, and any semblance of success we can find deserves to be lauded forever. Or turned into a rabbit.

“One Shot at a Time”

The winner won because he “took it one shot at a time,” but when asked to elaborate on what specifically the bowler focused on in those several dozen one shots, he’ll tell you he stayed in the moment and trusted the process, further confusing the issue.

Yes, we understand it means the bowlers aren’t dwelling on what already happened and aren’t thinking ahead to what might happen, and this is probably good advice for young bowlers. But we’re not at a coaching clinic; we’re on the approach with the winner after a major championship and we want to hear what about those one shots, or those moments, or that process, made that player so much better than the rest of the field, most of whom were also taking it one shot at a time while staying in the moment and trusting the process.

The strategy itself is fine, and I’m not saying bowlers should give it up. However, we should henceforth assume everyone knows about the one-shot-at-a-time strategy, and skip past it into the compelling part. It’s much more enthralling to hear about even one of those shots than to hear that each one of them was, in fact, an individual shot.

I know I’m not The Process, but trust me.

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

Since the dawn of spheres, people have been debating about how best to put on a bowling tournament. Should the focus be on fairness to the competitors? Entertainment for the fans? Some kind of science-defying solution that is both fair and entertaining?

Yes, let’s try that last thing.

First, we need to exclude the good players so everyone else has a chance. Except no fans want to watch lesser players bowl, and we need fans to generate sponsorships, and advertisers don’t spend money on fairness. Maybe, instead, we need to exclude the lesser players, because they “play the lanes wrong” and get in the way of the good players. But, without the lesser players, whose bank accounts are the good players going to raid?

Of course, we can’t separate the two groups, because that would put a clear line between professionals and amateurs, which would ruin bowling’s storied tradition of the infinitely blurred line we all cherish so much.

Looks like we need to open the field to everyone, but make sure all players—from the greatest player who ever lived to the lowliest schlub—have an exactly equal chance to win.

That may not seem fair to the best players, but their ability—which is already unfairly higher than that of the lesser players—should balance out any issues.

To maintain integrity, we need to start with a lot of qualifying games. Let’s go with 10 eight-game blocks, totaling 80 qualifying games. If we’re truly being fair, it should be an infinite number of games, because there will always be someone a thousand pins out of the cut who is sure he could’ve made it if only given eight more games, but if we stop at 80, we’re going to almost always guarantee the best players will be at the top and still have a little bit of hand flesh remaining.

Now that we’ve separated the best players from the rest of the field, we need to make sure everyone makes the cut anyway, because it would be unfair if someone who bowled worse than someone else didn’t advance.

In order to give everyone a chance, we either need to give the players down in the field an opportunity to add pins artificially, or we need to strip the top players of the impressive pinfalls they earned during qualifying, rendering all 80 games utterly meaningless.

Unfortunately, if we make all the players drop their totals and start over in a shorter block, we’ve given a player who trailed by 35,000 pins a chance to defeat a guy who set the all-time 80-game pinfall record. Even an Epsilon-Plus can see that’s not fair. Instead, maybe we should add a match-play round and give players a reward (in the form of 30 pins, perhaps) for winning a match. This adds importance to head-to-head competition, turning the players into competitive athletes and instantly adding entertainment value. Unfortunately, this may reduce fairness as the match-play matrix might randomly determine a slightly more favorable schedule for one player over another.

At the professional level, reduced fairness is necessary, as ongoing high-dollar bowling can’t exist without the coveted added money from advertisers. At the non-professional level in which little, if any, added money is involved, we can weight the format entirely toward fairness, as it doesn’t matter if the event is contested in front of an audience of zero or six billion.

Of course, this means the best bowlers are subject to the least fairness, but have a chance at the most money, whereas the rest of the bowlers get more fairness and less money, but at least they have a nice way to spend a weekend and don’t have to wear slacks.

And that, bowling fans, is the perfect bowling format.

“But,” interrupts a reader, “your alleged perfect bowling format is incomprehensible, incomplete and hasn’t even been fully explained due to multiple tangents and contingencies.”

That’s a fair point.

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

Early in the morning, as the dew still glistens atop the surrounding farm land, pins are already crashing inside the bowling center. Professional bowlers move from lane to lane within a designated range, trying every bowling ball in their armoire-sized roller bags, hurling shots in all directions without care for the actual pinfall, as scores won’t matter for another 40 minutes or so. This is pre-practice practice. Fans settle in behind their favorite bowlers, excited for the full day of bowling ahead of them.

Meanwhile, the competition pairs outside the designated range have been oiled but remain vacant, settling themselves for the competition to come. The calm before the Storm, Roto Grip, 900 Global, Motiv, Brunswick, DV8, Ebonite, Columbia 300, Hammer and Track.

Over a crackling PA system, we hear the golden tones of the tournament director: “Players, hold up on your practice; it’s time to start practice.”

The players carefully pack their rolling closets with bowling balls and wheel everything to the competition pairs.

Fans, who had already settled in, had their breakfast sandwiches delivered to their spots and taken one bite, meaning their hands are greasy enough for any movement to be inconvenient, wonder why their once-prime seats are now completely useless. Frantically, they pack up their programs, purses, coffees, sandwiches and napkins, then bolt to the previously vacant pairs, clamoring to get a great seat for the second time prior to 8 a.m. that day.

Pre-practice practice was nice for the players, allowing them to warm up, test a couple strategic options, and get ready to play, but now, it counts.

Well, no, it still doesn’t count, but it means a little more as they get an additional 15 minutes of practice on what will be their starting lanes. The practice shots they roll now can actually have an impact on the real shots they might eventually roll in the first game of competition.

With eight full games of qualifying ahead of them (followed by a quick break and then eight more games), it’s amazing to witness the endurance of these human beings who have voluntarily added an entire hour of bowling to their already-scheduled 10 hours for the day.

“Players, you have two minutes of practice remaining,” announces the tournament director, who adds, “except for those of you on 19 and 20, who will get an additional five minutes due to a breakdown.”

Of all the practice, perhaps the best practice is the our-lanes-broke-down-during-practice practice.

For the uninitiated, there’s no skipping procedure during pre-practice practice nor during real practice. Bowlers don’t have to yield to anything or anyone, don’t even require full racks and can all bowl at exactly the same time if they want. Once competition starts, though, the one-pair courtesy rule comes into play. Yield one pair left, one pair right, bowl.

Thus, the players on 19 and 20, who have been pre-practice practicing for a half hour, plus an additional 10 minutes of real practice, going as quickly as they want (or can) to get as many shots in as possible, suddenly have to yield to the competition while continuing to practice, convoluting the timing of both the competitors and the practicers.

Everyone is thrown off, especially Barry, the fan who, in a well-meaning gesture, inevitably spilled his ketchup-smothered hash browns all over his clean white shirt when he ran to the front counter to inform someone the scores weren’t working on 19 and 20.

After all this, we get to another staple at every bowling tournament: the fifth-frame conversation between the announcers, talking about how they’re surprised the scores are so low after the players got 15 minutes of practice on their pairs. And if that doesn’t make you want to stick around for game two (when the players score better every time for some reason), nothing will.

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

Recently, the incomparable Aaron Smith, who spends a significant amount of his life living in strange cities for the benefit of the thousands of people who bowl the USBC Open Championships every year, posted a photo to Instagram of a bowling ball in a trash can at the Oncenter in Syracuse, this year’s strange city.

Presumably, someone didn’t bowl well, blamed the ball, and left it in the garbage. Aaron (he’s letting me call him Aaron for the purposes of this column he doesn’t know I’m writing) captured this particular moment, but we all know it’s just one of many moments like it. Discarding equipment—often in hilarious ways—is a large part of bowling’s storied history.

A ball in the trash is relatively tame. Bowling equipment has been chucked in large bodies of water, heaved off buildings, kicked into oblivion with disdain, sawed into pieces and rendered utterly useless in any number of other drastic and elaborate ways.

When these things happen (if you’re not the one doing them), the first instinct is to feel sympathy for the ball. Why is it being so unceremoniously cast aside? Being an inanimate object, it certainly didn’t maliciously decide to change its axis tilt or fabricate friction where there wasn’t any. It simply rolled where and as the bowler rolled it. How can it be the ball’s fault?

That should be the end of the argument, as it is absolutely correct with no fallacies.

However, taking that side of the debate implies a bad performance is the player’s fault rather than the ball’s fault, which is a direct contradiction of where we place the credit when a player performs well.

When someone wins a tournament, the first question asked of that person is, invariably, “What ball did you throw?”

Never mind the fact we don’t like the word “throw” when we should be saying “roll,” except in the case of this very specific question that applies directly to the object being propelled.

What we almost never consider is this: the answer to that question is often the same for the champion as it is for the red leader. The person who won used the same ball as the person who was 14,000,000 pins behind. So how can the ball possibly get all the credit for one person’s win and avoid all the blame for the other guy’s loss? And what about the dozens of people who also used that ball and finished between first and last?

Either the ball needs all the credit and all the blame, or none of the credit and none of the blame.

We need to be careful, though, because evidence like this implies that skill, experience, perseverance and execution factor in to who defeats whom in a bowling tournament; that one person might be better at bowling than another.

It is entirely possible the trashed ball wasn’t working as the bowler hoped. Maybe it wasn’t clean through the heads, failed to pick up in the midlane and didn’t hit at all in the back end. Maybe it didn’t want to get off the hand smoothly, creating inconsistency and reliability. Maybe it simply didn’t match up well.

Those are all legitimate possibilities, but the best players figure out what isn’t working and do something to change it. And, since this awful ball might be the perfect ball in a different bowling center on a different oil pattern next week, wouldn’t it make more sense to put the ball back in one’s bag rather than send it to the dump? Maybe. Or, maybe there is some validity to throwing (rolling?) a ball in the rubbish. If such an act brings any sort of calm to a bowler, his mental state conceivably improves, at which point he can roll his next ball with more precision. That, or his next ball will meet a far nastier fate than the one now smothered in nacho cheese.

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

Bruce just opened in the ninth, leaving a 204 on the board, giving him a maximum of 234 if he strikes out in the 10^th.

His opponent, Karl, has 168 in the seventh with a spare in the eighth. Karl strikes in the ninth, giving him a maximum of 248, a pace of 238 and a current score of 198.

“That one’s over,” says someone. Could be an announcer, a fan, a ball rep, another player, anyone in the building who knows how to keep score. And, in most cases, yes, it’s effectively over as the two bowlers will probably finish their games in such a way that Karl wins.

But if we have to use phrases like “in most cases” and “probably,” how can it be over?

It’s not over. Karl can gutter twice in the 10^th for 198, allowing Bruce to win on the bench. Karl can double, then go through the face for a five count, giving Bruce a chance to strike out and win.

Or, in an even more absurd scenario, Karl can leave—and whiff—a 10-pin, giving him a final score of 216, and then the person who originally said “It’s over” in Karl’s favor can say the same for Bruce, which is also completely false as Bruce still needs a mark. Even in saying he needs a mark, we’re not fully accurate, as Bruce actually needs the mark plus three additional pins (two to tie).

Bowling rules dictate a match isn’t over until each player has bowled 10 complete frames, but bowling scoring is such that the winner can be unequivocally decided prior to the completion of those frames. The problem is too many people declaring winners before the outcome is actually certain. Until the score of one player is completely out of reach of the score of the other, no one in the building should be declaring anything over.

Perhaps this personal pet peeve appears petty, with the only possible harm coming from someone being wrong, but others can be affected by this as well.

False claims of matches being over hurt fans, who may be watching a particular match until they hear someone they perceive to be an expert say it’s over. The fans leave to go watch a different match, assuming the result of the prior match was already decided, and then later are confused when they find out the perceived winner actually lost. And, in the case of an unexpected finish like that, it was almost certainly more compelling than wherever the fans went, cheating them out of quality entertainment.

It can hurt players, either in the match or whose standing in the tournament may be impacted by the match. If a player is behind and assumes it’s over when it really isn’t, will he be as motivated to trust the process and take it one shot at a time for his last frame or two? If a player is ahead and assumes victory, can he lapse and make the immense blunder everyone has already assumed he won’t make?

It can hurt directors and producers for broadcasts and webcasts, who rely on their analysts to discuss scores. Generally, when a match is over, a director will strike it from his mind and focus on the matches still being decided. If an analyst makes the wrong call on something being over and the director trusts the analyst, then the fans at home end up missing the end of a match that was still meaningful.

The only time anyone should proclaim a match is over is when one player’s current score, assuming gutter balls for every remaining shot, is higher than the opponent’s maximum possible score from that point in the game.

By the way, Karl struck out in the 10^th and shut out Bruce. It was over after all.

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

There are only a few standby locations for company parties: (1) the office itself, after hours, during which employees awkwardly gravitate toward their own desks, never feeling comfortable as they sip spiked punch in their cubicles with a doubly worrisome confusion of either working at night or drinking during the day, neither of which are actually happening; (2) a restaurant, during which employees wish they were out with their families instead of their bosses; (3) a boss’s house, during which employees resent having to be nice to the boss’s screeching kids, who are a part of the shindig for some reason; (4) a bowling center, where everyone has to participate in an activity at which they’re not good, but at least it’s during business hours.

There aren’t many locations in the world that require specific footwear, let alone require it to those who don’t possess their own. Ski resorts require boots and skis, skating rinks require skates and shoe advertisements require models to wear the shoes being advertised, but none of those activities are as prominent to society as rental shoes in a bowling center.

If you walk onto a ski slope with your own boots and skis, you’re in the majority. When you step onto the ice in your own skates, you’re in the majority (and, if you’re a teen, you’re likely on a date, laughing at your never-skated-before ladyfriend because that’s what you think courting is, not yet figuring out you’ve yet to achieve a second date with anyone). When you walk into a bowling center during open play with your own shoes, all eyes turn to you.

It’s a safe assumption anyone reading this publication possesses his or her own bowling shoes. We’re the people who walk into the company bowling party with a 48-ball roller and handheld shoes, immediately intimidating everyone else, especially the two guys in accounting fighting over the last pair of size-10 rentals.

Then, the pressure is on to actually perform up to our aura. These people expect us to strike every time, and that’s the burden we put on ourselves, even if the real truth is all we have to do is hook the ball a little and everyone will think we’re pros, no matter what our score.

To us, though, the score is paramount. This is our chance to be Guy Who Bowled 250 around the office for the rest of time, which is way better than our existing moniker of Guy Who Stole Cheryl’s Cheerios Twice.

If we’re not striking, we have to mitigate the situation. We must corner someone—preferably the office gossip leader—and explain how the lanes haven’t been oiled in weeks (with an inevitable explanation of lane oil and that yes, it does exist), and even a plastic ball is hooking off the lane (throwing in a meticulously detailed sidebar on cover-stock composition, of course), and if only we’d brought our 50-ball roller, we’d have the extra two we needed to combat these abhorrent conditions.

To further make our point, we have to explain our strategy for the rest of the party. Since we only have 48 rocks from which to choose, we’re going to have to ball down, move left, increase our speed and try to keep the ball right enough long enough to hit the appropriate breakpoint, then hope we carry, which is no guarantee because there’s something off about these pins.

No one will understand, especially as they watch Ted from IT alternate between incompetently dropping the ball three feet short of the foul line and inadvertently launching the ball 20 feet through the air, striking every time.

Ted becomes Guy Who Bowled 250, and we become Guy Who Has His Own Shoes But Isn’t as Good as Ted. The next day, we quit our jobs, throw our bowling equipment in the river and move to Switzerland to take up skiing.

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

One of the most important homonyms (or homographs, if you want to get extra picky) in bowling is “approach.” It can refer to the actual area in front of the foul line on which bowlers stand prior to rolling their shots, as in, “This squad is three hours behind schedule because everybody is standing on the approach yielding to no one.” Or, it can refer to a bowler’s stride toward the foul line, such as, “Finally, someone took it upon himself to make his approach and get this squad moving again.”

With all that out of the way, let’s approach the issue of humidity affecting the approach to the point it hinders a bowler’s approach.

Invariably, when the weather is particularly nasty outside a bowling tournament, someone will proclaim it as “Great bowling weather.” This is a good statement in that it allows strangers to have a friendly, albeit substance-free, exchange. Even if it only raises their spirits a tiny bit, it’s worth it, as the world needs more friendly moments.

However, taken literally, “Great bowling weather” (and its similar safe supply, “I’m glad bowling is an indoor sport”) implies the game is immune from the elements. Weather does whatever it wants, but while that may impact golf or baseball, bowling is unaffected.

Not true, obviously. What happens outside drastically influences what happens inside. And, when we say “inside,” we not only mean inside the bowling center, but also inside the bowlers’ heads.

A Tacky Approach

Synthetic approaches, with their small, shallow pores, can’t absorb much of anything, which is why you shouldn’t bowl during the day in August when don’t-even-know-what-a-positive-axis-point-is-but-still-fun-loving kids are spilling their soda and candy all over the place. When it rained the night before, or is raining right now, or might rain within a day or two, humidity collects on top of the approach, making it stickier than usual.

In this case, don’t be surprised to see a lot of practice slides (one of the greatly underrated aspects of the sport) stop short. If you’re a bowler, make sure you have your slickest sole pads ready.

A Slick Approach

Has it been remarkably dry? Cold? The opposite will happen. The same way you constantly need to add and remove thumb tape based on how the weather and other conditions affect the size of your thumb, you need to change your approach to your approach on the approach based on what the weather is doing to the slipperiness of the approach, the redundancy of which, I hope, is beyond reproach.

In this case, you may want to wear rubber-soled athletic shoes to prevent yourself from hilariously gliding onto the lane. Obviously, that is an exaggeration, as you should always wear bowling shoes when bowling, unless of course you’re participating in a televised celebrity exhibition.

A Paranoid Approach

We can look at forecasts, but we can’t be certain about the weather until it’s actually happening. We can look at previous lane analysis, topographical maps and oil-pattern graphs, but we can’t be certain about the lane conditions until we actually roll a ball.

The only thing about which a bowler can be certain is the weather outside will change the conditions inside to the advantage of every single person in the building except him. He will be at a distinct disadvantage and face insurmountable odds. Everyone else will have everything exactly as they like it, meaning all they have to do is show up and they’ll make the cut.

When he makes the cut, though, it’s because he overcame all obstacles, battled an unfriendly approach, navigated an oddly changing oil pattern and pured every single shot. Then, the weather changes again overnight, to the advantage of everyone but him, and he finishes 20th.

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

During any random day in any random bowling center at a very specific time (that being during open bowling), sociology enthusiasts can bear witness to the ridiculous resentment between two types of bowlers: those who take it seriously and those who don’t.

Or, rephrased from each opposing side, those who take it too seriously and those who don’t respect the game.

Because it’s open bowling, all levels of skill and passion are welcome. Tiny children rolling bowling balls down those weird dinosaur ramps and then running back to their parents without any care for the pinfall, having accomplished their goal of rolling the ball down the dinosaur’s back, can be placed right next to a highly competitive five-person team tuning up for their annual USBC Open trip.

Teens trying to impress their friends with how fast they can hurl a 6-pound ball down the lane can find themselves adjacent to a pro who rolls a 16-pound ball 20 miles per hour with 600 revolutions on it, which is objectively far more impressive.

One group is there to have fun while the other is there to get better. That’s not to say the fun group can’t accidentally get better or the serious group can’t accidentally have fun, but those are not their respective primary objectives.

Because of that, the groups resent each other.

While the serious group practices and attempts to work on a certain aspect of the game, they generally don’t want a hoard of screaming college kids to the right, rolling several balls simultaneously, at least two of which hit the rack, leading to one of the kids nonchalantly walking down to get the ball and collapsing on his face, lying there in hyperbolic laughter until an employee has to forcibly rectify the situation. While there is a bit of schadenfreude in it for the serious bowlers in the knowledge that kid will likely have elbow problems the rest of his life, it’s still not ideal.

Likewise, the screaming college kids don’t want some guy who isn’t even keeping score nearby, as the kids’ inherent decorum might force a twinge of necessity to not be as big of a spectacle as they’d like to be, thereby limiting their fun.

Even if that twinge exists, the guy practicing doesn’t perceive it, thereby loathing the lack of respect shown by the fun lovers.

Of course, proprietors want them all (assuming the fun group isn’t destructive). Everyone pays the same, although the serious players are more likely to have access to a discounted rate, and bowling-center staff will do their best to keep these groups separate, if open lanes allow it, as it maximizes the experiences for both groups.

Since most readers of this publication fall into the serious group, we can get introspective here. Some of us are completely immune to all of it, maybe even thriving off the distractions as an attempt to hone focus.

Others expect four-year-old birthday celebrants to have a deep understanding of one-pair courtesy and how last night’s rain will impact their pushaways.

Most of us fall between those extremes, possessing a ranking scale, even if subconscious, of what is tolerable and what isn’t. Perhaps a family bowling together and having fun is unobjectionable, but it becomes irksome when they begin rolling the ball between each other’s legs. Maybe it takes a little more to irritate you, such as a foul-line photo shoot, with teenagers loitering endlessly on the approach. Possibly, you need to witness blatant disrespect or obliteration of equipment to be annoyed.

The only thing of which we can be certain is that all the while, those fun-loving friends wish they could stay ahead of the moves like us. Their envy is more powerful than any of our irascibilities, and that is why practice is fun.

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.