Bowling Philosophy-September 2011

"The Disease"
by Thomas Scherrer

At the very least, status quo prevails...

I come to the bowling audience as man confused-very confused.  It is time of the year once again for fall bowling leagues to commence in the way of making teams, deciding formats, electing officials, and the beginnings of a balanced prize fund to please the masses of bowlers across the country.  One thing that is never mentioned, not surprisingly, are lane conditions.  Not that league bowlers care anymore about the nature of "house shots", they just accept it as part of the culture in league bowling today.  No matter how much people chatter about it, complaining that it is too easy and creates too much parity in this handicapped league world, the opportunity is there to openly complain about it yet never truly advocate for change.  There are those, however, who choose to go outside the status quo and want to bowl on more challenging conditions or bowling in classic scratch leagues.  There are others...they say they will go away from the status quo and follow those who dare to be bold and daring and actually find out what they are made of for close to 9 months.  In the end, they are all talk and no walk.  Too much bark and not enough bite.  A bully being backed to the end of the bus.  There is a better word and yes, this will be my harshest criticism yet: Mouthy Hypocrites.

The Mouthy Hypocrites are a minor yet all-too-important group of league bowlers: upper-middle to upper class league bowlers (220+ average), usually in the peak of their bowling primes (late 20's to early 40's-yes, it is that large an age group, which makes it all the more sad), who claim that they do not like the nature of bowling today, speak out on change and want change.  However, when the possibility of change arises, they make excuses.  Fair enough, we are in the middle of a recession so adding on another league to their portfolio is financially unsound.  I respect that and understand that.  But when the moment comes that they have a chance to make a decision, they ultimately do not put their money where their mouths are.  

Sad but true.

Last night, I walked into Auburn Lanes (I left out AMF for purely selfish reasons, hope you don't mind Fredricksburg) along with my girlfriend Michelle and our teammate Eric Frost for what we would hope would be the inception of a brand new venture at Auburn.  This would be the Worcester Country Invitational Scratch Classic League.  Created by GM Eric Mahoney, the concept is to have a 3-person scratch league with some money behind it for two 15-week halves with a) no average cap, meaning you can have an elite bowling team and there is no rules against it-a veritable dream team of bowlers considering that Auburn is roughly 45 minutes to an hour away from bowling hotbeds such as Hartford, CT and Springfield, MA and even Rhode Island and also b) no house shots.  But c) not sport shots, rather Kegel's Navigational Challenge Pattern series.  These shots ratios aren't sport complaint 3:1 but 4.5 or 5:1 ratios.  Not quite as challenging as the brand new Team USA Experience patterns, but nowhere near the atrocity of 10:1, 15:1, or heaven forbid 20:1 rationed house shots, where Ray Charles could average 210 today.  Oh, in case you didn't know Ray Charles is blind and dead!

 Mahoney had made his push for the league, heard lots of response from bowlers looking to embrace a more equitable challenge to bowling, made the fliers, and hoped the masses would step up.  What did he get...?

STATUS EFFIN QUO!!!

Mahoney based his prize fund off of 20 teams (highly ambitious for a beginning league), and hoped for the best and he got, at best 5 teams to show up.  Now, to be fair, hurricane Irene just swept through the east coast, finishing itself off in New England and leaving those without power, so all of this is subject to change.  But it was sad to see certain people that surely said they were behind it in the bowling alley that night and not walk into the meeting.  Should I be pissed as a bowler?  Yep, but my league season is pretty much set despite all this.  I'm tied into the highly competitive Thursday Knights league with Jesse Cote this fall as well as being a substitute for the Team USA Experience League Tuesday nights (depending of course, on if that gets off the ground with its status quo issues).  But for Michelle and Eric, two highly talented bowlers with a passion to compete on the best with the best to get better, had this as their only league.  Instead, with all the factors in play, Mahoney elected to push the league back to the beginning of October in hopes that more time and promotion will lead to more teams.  Hopefully, it can work but unfortunately, it seems as if status quo has been set once again by bowlers.  With that, Eric and Michelle no longer have a league to bowl in as of yet, and might very well miss out on a year of bowling.  Two talented players with no home and no exposure.

So, what is the problem?  

believe you are a top-tier bowler?  Yes, yes, yes and sadly yes.  (Note: that last yes was in relation to a certain bowler being called a house bowler while he was beating them in the summer's Experience session.  Two things: 1) grow up-we are all house bowlers in some respects and 2) a best 11-out-of-21 plastic ball challenge is a fair way to settle this verbal spat.  Toss some money around and we'll put it to charity for a good cause, but I digress...)

Perhaps, it is just too late for us to change as league bowlers.  We are a part of the Bob Learn Jr. Generation.  We walked into every bowling center for a league in the last 15 years and we have proprietors and GM's seeing the ability to manipulate lane machines to dress lane beds for maximum scoring potential.  Every night is the Erie Civic Center across Bowling America.  Scores of 300's and 800's being tossed up almost frequently, and in some cases a weekly occurrence.  I recently looked at the Auburn Honor Roll wall and looked at the amount of Honor Scores thinking and joking out loud, Perhaps they should make a list of the bowlers who have not shot an Honor Score...it would be shorter!  It has what we've become and there is no way of changing that...for us.

While we "practiced" last night after the league meeting discussing things on one of the Kegel Challenge patterns, John Zawalick, of DJ's Pro Shop was talking to Michelle about helping out on Saturday's with junior bowlers and lessons.  Then, almost like the biggest DUH moment I have ever had in nearly 20 years of bowling: it might be too late for us, but not for the kids.  Auburn has a very solid Saturday junior program, with more and more players maturing into future league bowlers in the area and, subsequently, future house bowler hacks and Mouthy Hypocrites.  Why not at least give the junior bowlers a chance on the Challenge patterns?  First of all, kids are still developing as players and this is the best way to at least mature players more properly.  Will their averages drop a bit?  Yes.  Will it separate junior bowlers in terms of talent?  True.  Will it make them better.  Absolutely-short and long term.  No need to make kids bowl on near-flat lane conditions, but if you explain to them at a young age when they are not quite as jaded as us twentysomethings are, that they are tweaking conditions to make them better, most kids should be pretty receptive to it.  In fact, how many junior bowlers actually know what they are bowling on now anyway, so what is to lose on that?  

What is to gain on it is far more greater in that if this junior generation starts bowling on more challenging conditions and wants to bowl on more as they get older, you erase the Mouthy Hypocrites to the point of irrelevance.  Perhaps it's time we simply concede changing the present and let's start trying to shape the future.  It might benefit bowling in the long-term.  It still might give us some hope for the future.  As Andy and Red said in some movie, hope can be a good thing.



For those with a knowledge and love for bowling, this IS Bowling Philosophy.  Namaste.