Bowling Philosophy-April 2010

2009-10 PBA Tour: The Season of WOW

by Thomas Scherrer

As the official book closes on the PBA's 52nd full season of touring national events, I feel like a card player in Las Vegas as the clock approaches 4AM during a marathon of blackjack: alternately giddy and deflated, drunken and dazed, confused and even more confused, and ultimately highlights of being up 2 grand, then having a Mo Rivera-like closer coming in disheartening me. This season can be easily summed up as being "WOW...did that just happen?!?" on audio replay for months on end. First time champions, major champions out of nowhere, Player of the Year storylines, Cinderella stories, pros turned amateurs winning, amateurs turned pros winning, PTQ bowlers winning, hell, women winning for goodness sake!!! WOW...it all happened this year. This 2009-10 season was a season that lived on and off of every conceivable brink you can imagine and we all came out remembering something about what bowling fans just witnessed.

For instance:

• The World Series of Bowling that happened, roughly 12 years ago it feels, gave the PBA a home base for a few months. Were the fields in Detroit lower than expected? Yes. Was the scoring pace anemic for television execs? True. Did the bowling curtail players seasons? Possibly. Was it worth doing again? Absolutely.
• The Cheetah Championship was a 90 minute program that described what it takes to win a PBA event over the course of a week of bowling. Features such as multiple matches, interviews, player profiles, and the story of upstart Ryan Ciminelli, for which his story was only beginning in the 09-10 season.
• Tom Smallwood's journey from everyman auto worker to laid-off auto worker, to PBA exempt player, to PBA World Champion over the incumbent Wes Malott. The American Dream, Part One.
• Walter Ray at age 50 winning the Motor City Open over names such as Barnes, Weber, O'Neill, and Jones.
• Then Walter Ray striking again at the Masters over Barnes...again.
• Anthony LaCaze nailing down a clutch double to win his first title.
• Rolloff, Part One: Jurek vs. Fagan. Jack Jurek finding a way to finally win a tournament, some 15 years after he won his last (and only) title.
• Rolloff, Part Two: Belmonte vs. Ziesig. Save some space for this moment.
• Brian Kretzer at long last, securing victory over Patrick Allen in the Match Play Championship. He deserved it just as much as any of the first time winners this season.
• The Real Deal's Appeal: Billy O'Neill's 2008-09 season was the beginning, 2009-10 was The Leap, 2010-11 could be the true beginning of bowling's next all-time great (just wish it happened this year).
• Brian Ziesig...need we say more? Relaxed, calm, cool, unassuming, funny, humorous...etcetera. How about these words? Talented, successful, champion. Grande Cabeza gave us the American Dream, Part Two.
• The American Dream, Part Three: Kelly Kulick. What else can you say? Greatest performance in our sport's history given the circumstances.
• The Un-American Dream: Chris Barnes. A lost season to say the very least.
• The Party at Scroggys: what a fun ride it was for Mike Scroggins in his quest for the most unlikely POY in PBA history. He came up one game (and one virtuoso Pete Weber game) away from stunning the bowling world.
• The Greatest One? Walter Ray, age 50, seventh POY award. I don't have to like it, I don't have to believe it, but I have to respect it. And please....PBA: let's work out a way to see if we cannot find an easier, more exciting way to find out the real story of the PBA season and the Player of the Year. We can all work on it people, this is an intelligent group of people in bowling.
• And to the fans as always, the real MVP's of the PBA. For all the signs, the yells, the screams, the Hambone signs, and of course, the sacrifice. You, the fans of the PBA deserve your own WOW.

This was a good year to be a fan of bowling...here is to the summer and to the historic 2010-11 PBA season. As always, we'll try to do better the next time around. Namaste.