"When you come swimming into view/and I'm hanging on your words like I always used to do." -"The Background", Third Eye Blind In some respects, this is an obsession. Like all obsessions, it is a gift as well a curse. A gift for giving you purpose and pleasure in a sometimes sick and cynical world; a curse for giving you the blind passion to follow it even to its inevitable death. These are the opening words to how I start chronicling the 2011 bowling calendar year-a mixed bag of emotions. Seemingly, bowling has given its hardcore fans the feeling of being an on again-off again lover: the emotions and the dirty talk in private is great and keeps you hooked, but they are also crazy and insane, whether it be your wandering or lying eyes or you keep waiting for it to mature and grow up or maybe you have had enough of the lies and the BS and the late nights out with no phone call. You're done...you say you're done...you tell your friend you are moving on....you have to get on with you life. Then suddenly, that same lover comes back with the following: they say they have cleaned themselves up, modified their expectations, stopped being jealous or crazy or just plain immature and are looking to settle down and they want you to be a part of it. They also start off with a bang: they show you their commitment with a key to their apartment or their car and they want you to trust them. The highs won't be as high, they claim but the lows won't be as low.
You are not done.
The Tournament of Champions is that key, the PBA is that lover, and the quarter-million dollar check to the winner is their "I've still got it" moment to show you that all is not lost. This high will be far greater and more rewarding. Glad I turned bowling into a Carrie Bradshaw column.
Come Saturday afternoon, a bowler's life will truly change when they hoist the PBA's marquee trophy and its largest payout to a winner ever and the main question that will be on the minds of everyone is whether or not this change in the lover is something you will see once a year or is it a once-in-a-lifetime moment? A flash in the pan? One more notch to look out and say Damn, there's gotta be something better out there . Truth be told, is there anything better? Can this year's Tournament of Champions truly save bowling's erratic and often maligned past from becoming an footnote to its obituary? Hard to tell. There are some facts that need to be presented about this week's epic major bowling event: a) There is a million dollar prize fund for the TOC; b) The winner will might make more money in one week than they have in their entire careers bowling and c) After this event, bowling will either go back to the same song and dance or make the turn towards respectability.
The PBA has made it clear by their motives (not necessarily by their words) that they have put all their eggs in a basket with the TOC and in some respects, you cannot blame them. The recent events of the TOC in the last few years has given PBA fans the truly good and grand that bowling has to offer: clutch bowling, dramatic comebacks, dramatic collapses, dramatic failures, glorious drama, and of course with Kelly Kulick-history. The hope is that all of the past TOC moments come to fruition with more money on the line plus the coverage of ABC returning to man the the televised finals after a 14 year hiatus, which makes for the casual fan to stand up and say Wow, maybe bowling is making a return for the better. Let's go take our kids out to the lanes tonight and have some fun. Again, hope and faith are only so strong of words. I have belief that this will work out, but how do I truly know? The truth is that we won't know until much further down the line whether this one week could save bowling. Too many insiders have already said the simple and obscene: They sold the soul of the TOC to make this happen . What they mean is having all types of PBA winners (pro, regional, senior, and women's series) be eligible to participate. My answer to that-as a passionate caretaker of the sport-is to say so what?? Let's not be so cynical and obtuse about all of this for a moment and just savor what we are going to see on Saturday afternoon in Las Vegas. We are going to see a bowler become a changed man for life. The lottery ticket the PBA hopes will pay off for many years to come. Believe in it. Trust in it. Have faith in it. If not for the PBA, then maybe for yourself.
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