"Bowling Blind"

Bowl Long Island

Ebonite Monday Open

Well apparently, I've got a lot to learn...

This is not meant to be formal or sarcastic because when it comes to bowling in general, the line between sarcasm and formality is blurred greatly only because I have always tried to live by the mantra to not take yourself too seriously. The ability to laugh at yourself is greatly appreciated among friends, family, and your enemies. If you can laugh at yourself the list of enemies is much much shorter unless they are totally unresponsive to anything. Last night was the case that you can laugh at yourself and you have an unresponsive opponent and the adage comes out that someone was looking for trouble.

For some oversight, lets get into what happened last night at the 'Patch. The Ebonite Monday Open league at BLI is a split season (two 18 week sessions) with each half having a winner as well as an End Of Season overall champion to the team that had accrued the most points at season's end. This was week 15 and the league is getting into "money time" where position round matches are coming one after another for the last few weeks of the half to determine who the first half champion is. My team going into last night's play was in 4th place and with a great late season charge can actually win the thing. My teammates are Billy Shannon and Mike Boble, who were very good players in high school for Commack in the early part of the decade and won two Suffolk County titles in high school. That would make them familiar with winning along with myself who won two state championships in high school, two conference championships in college and 3 all-event wins in college for William Paterson. Do we have Walter Ray's resume...? Hell, no. Have we had our share of team success? Yes we have, just not as a collective unit. Andohbytheway...we are a 3 man team in a 4 person league. Yes, in an open league where there is no cap on team averages in a highly competitive league, we have been bowling with a vacant bowler at the top averaging a consistent, yet uninspiring 160 and despite all of that we have still found our way to the top 4 of the league.

After sneaking out the first game by 14 pins, we won the second game by 57 pins giving us a 71 pin lead in total wood heading into the last match. Another win against a team over us in the standings would be huge in that the march actually winning the league would now be a 3 team race. With that being said, every pin is important in head to head match play for points each week. I had an uninspiring 204 the first game while my opponent, fellow left hander Mike Angelus shot 249. I snuck out a one pin win in game two over Mike A. but was still down roughly 50 in count to win my series point. The last game was really never in question as Mike B. and I came out striking. Mike A. was staying close with me with strikes...and then the 7th frame came into play. Billy caught a light mixer after his match play opponent opened and he gave it a slap out. Unlike Billy to do it but a nice break after his opponent gave him an opening. Mike B. then struck and then Mike A. finally gave me an opening to get back into the series point by leaving the 3-7-9. I was working off the first six and this shot was going to give me the chance to get back in it. I made my shot and took a half step to the left and gave a little "Yeah!" call out when all ten went back to the pit. And that is when the trouble started...

Peter Doyle, our opposition's leadoff bowler just shook his head and said audibly enough, "Boy...you guys got an awful lot to learn about winning." When Billy heard it, he wanted to know what Pete meant by that. Pete was talking about Billy's slap out and my little cheer (had he looked hard enough, that hit got me to a point where had I shot 300, I would have won my series point and that hit was the shot that got me back to even against Angelus) and said we had the match won, we had it wrapped up and there was no need to give off the celebrations. Boble and Billy wanted to keep up the conversation, but I told them to quit it and that it was a dead issue. However, Pete and the boys kept going on about for a few more shots (I casually noticed that no one else on his team even said a word about the situation or even defended Pete in the conversation) until we made peace. Pete shook our hands and said it was done with but after he was done bowling, he quickly packed his bags and left. It seemed for all the world that Pete was, most assuredly, not over it. As it turns out, I did need all 3 in the 10th for the 300 and the series point and threw an awful shot in the 10th to give that away. A 264 final game gave me another 700 series for the night and my 5th this season, but all I could think about was what Pete said: do we have a lot to learn?

By all accounts, Shannon, Boble, Scherrer, esquire is the youngest team in the league (that is our last names but not our team name...that is aptly called "We Need a 4th"). We have been bowling with a major handicap all season and yet, here we are with a chance to pretty much heist a first half league title. What Pete Doyle said about us learning a lot is a tough line to take. It is not like we are young punks that came from off the street and are taking advantage of modern technology (or not nearly as much as anyone else is...we are all helped by the technological advances), I like to think that Billy, Boble, and I are good guys who might not always be bowling great but we know how to win games in team competition and that is the reason why we have made this run. Another factor might be that everyone thinks that with only 3 bowlers they should beat us handily every week and no one has really bowled lights out against us. If they did, that 160 number we get every game would prove to be too much for us to make up. So I ask Pete Doyle, who I have no issue with at all, and will not because what he said is nothing that I have not heard before or probably won't hear again...I ask you, "Sir, are you sure we have a lot to learn about winning or do you think you have a lot to learn about losing?"

I like to think that learning how to lose and understanding that in today's league game, the best teams or the most talented teams do not win. There are more politics involved in league play than there is on Capitol Hill in a session (aside from the daily question most politicians ask: "General Tso's or Sesame?"). The politics might have actually led to a downfall of more league bowlers falling like Republicans (see, two political references in one blog!). Bowling for most people is still a way for everyone to disconnect once or twice a week, to hang out with friends, to have a beer or two (Bowl Long Island does have 2 fers on pints past 10pm every day) and maybe to throw a few strikes. For the upper class of bowling, league is about winning money but politics, technology, and poor sports ruin it for most of us. For someone like myself at 24 years of age, I still have aspirations of making a living out of bowling in some form. I care too damn much about seeing bowling fall on its face. The only problem is when you hear what I heard last night about having a lot to learn from a bowler that doesn't even know you, it makes you worry about what we've come to in bowling. I guess in the long run, we all have a lot to learn about each other in this game.

Coming soon: Yours Truly hands out his calendar year bowling awards for 2008. For any comments or suggestions as to what the bowling world wants to hear, email me at Senordoscien527@aol.com.