Bowling Philosophy-July 2012

The Real Worst Day in Bowling
By Thomas Scherrer

My brethren that I have spoken with in the aftermath of the 2012 US Women's Open final in Reno was one of common agreement: not the worst thing I've ever seen...not as bad as everyone made it out to be...stuff happens-deal with it.  And you know what? I agree.  The reason?  I have seen worse.  I have seen greater farces in bowling televised history.  I hated to blog right after such a controversial event because the more controversy, the more likely one is to bandy themselves in a knee-jerk reaction that may come back to bite them in the ass.  With that being said, I waited, waited, and waited some more and after the warming, what rose from the ashes was this: many called it a farce.  One notable example came from noted reader Steve's Bowling Blog.


Appropriate responses by two of the finalists-Shannon O'Keefe and Stefanie Nation-followed saying that it was a privilege to bowl.  Privileges aside, what the 5 women did on that blustery evening in Reno was handle it very, very well.  They saw the dust accumulation as well as feel the gusts on wind and knew that they were truly in for a brand new ballgame, and shockingly it seems to most, they acted accordingly.  Changing up from reactive resin to polyester bowling balls in an attempt to at least temper what they were seeing, the ladies held their own again Mother Nature and, perhaps, poor decision making by the BPAA.  So what?  We've seen dumber concepts by organizations in their attempt to promote their sporting event, so did some gusts and sand devalue what I saw?  Nope.  Anyone who has ever bowled...say...the Petersen Classic in Chicago would tell you so.  Yet, thousands of people bowl it.  There is $20,000 to the winner and most of the time, averaging 190 will get you to the big pay window.  Of course, the only stated objection is that anyone who bowls "The Pete" knows exactly what they are getting themselves in for.  Duly noted.  But two questions remain that would have been excellent to have seen that night.  First, how would the guys have done given the exact same circumstance and second, how would a left-handed bowler handled it?  


My responses: first, the guys would have handled is miserably.  Why?  Because us men are idiots.  We are macho, pigheaded, stubborn, and above all else, macho again.  All the guys would have stood way left, flung it right, and hoped that resin would be the trick.  Would that have worked?  I'm guessing no because of the wind mostly.  Any gust would have pushed the ball to the left immediately and created even more overall hook, further providing mayhem for the XY gender.  The ladies conceded that resin wasn't working with the environment and went to polyester as a means to at least save themselves from missing the headpin left.  Secondly, for a left handed bowler, I would have argued either way but given the fact that they knew the wind was pushing everything left and the sand was creating early friction, they might have checked down to more skid-snappy equipment or may have gone in the other direction with heavily sanded equipment to counteract the wind pushing the ball away from the pocket.  Sadly, we did not get to see the likes of a Shannon Pluhowsky bowl because, after all, nobody wants to see a lady with short cropped hair, no makeup or earrings, or a hint of a smile who happens to be the second best female player on the planet and gives you a world class performance every time she bowls without saying much at all.  (Crap...that was supposed to be edited by the USBC or BPAA for quality assurance, lucky for me, they forgot to proofread that last line).


Now...as for convoluted arguments that have bearing, I'll make this short and simple.  The worst telecast of all time was certainly not the 2012 US Women's Open or the 2011 US Women's Open (the one where Kelly Kulick leads by 500 pins, then has to bowl at Cowboys Stadium only to lose to Leanne Hulsenberg who made shooting a 10 look like Bobby Parnell in the late innings of a Met game.  Let's agree and say the bowling gods gave her this one back), or any PBA telecast from the late 1980's.  For those with any semblance of history, the late 80's telecasts were low scoring due to the affect the brand new TV lights had on oil patterns.  Go back and watch the '88 Showboat and witness Hall of Famer Amleto Monacelli.  One of the great pure power players of all time and one of the 3 greatest athletes to ever bowl, resorted to a straight ball and relied on high pincount and spares to win the tournament.  A true testament to his legendary career.

If you know me well, I'm going someplace dark.  I'm going someplace desolate.  I'm going someplace some relive as historic.  April 6, 1996.  Erie, Pennsylvania.  The Day Bowling Died.  If you have ever watched the arena finals of the 1996 Flagship Open, you witnessed either the single greatest bowling performance in history or the single greatest debauchery of bowling in history.  On the telecast, Erie native Bob Learn Jr. fired the 10th televised perfect game in PBA history over the man who shot the 9th in HOFer Johnny Petraglia (worth noting, Rags shot his perfecto in the 1994 PBA National Championship-a major).  Petraglia shot 279 in defeat.  Learn would then go on to beat his next 3 challengers (John Mazza, Parker Bohn III, and Randy Pedersen) with games of 270, 280, and a clinching 279.  Mazza shot 268 and lost.  Bohn lost 280-279, but was royally screwed with Learn whiffed a 10 pin due to fan distraction.  In a sport where you are usually surrounded by one of the loudest noises in all of sports, which is bowling balls hitting pins, the "distraction rule" is bogus (go ask Cara Honeychurch about noise in a tournament) and allowed Learn to sneak out a win.  It should be noted that Learn did strike out in the 10th against Bohn to take the match, but had the missed 10 pin stood up, he would have lost.  Let's just say Bohn was robbed by home cooking to really lather up the Bob Learn Fan Club.  Pedersen only shot 257, which was only 17 pins higher than his 42 game average but whatever, Pedersen was a hack as a bowler.  Wait, he's a Hall of Famer?  Mazza was one of the more underrated players of the 90's?  Bohn and Petraglia are only two of the 5 greatest lefties ever?  Is Learn also a Hall of Famer.  The answers are yes, yes, yes, and not just no...hell, no.  

For the day, the 5 bowlers averaged 276.50 while Learn averaged 282.25.  His 3 game series of 850 and 4 game series of 1,129 on TV broke the previous records of 812 and 1,070, set by Jim Stefanich and David Ozio (two more HOFers), which brings us to this endnote for me: I watched the '96 Flagship Open on tape.  I watched one man defeat 3 Hall of Fame players and break the records of 2 more.  Learn has 5 titles and a US Open on his resume.  He is a well-respected USBC Certified Coach and was the runner-up to Walter Ray Williams Jr. in the 1996 Player of the Year race, so his peers deemed that one day and his season worthy of bowling's highest annual honor (or it might be that some players wanted to stick it to that ninny, Walter Ray which should be reason #138 why we need to blow up the POY award).  This is by no means a dump on Learn's career, but he was fortunate to be in the right place at the right time, got a favorable decision in the middle of a game, bowled on unquestionably, the softest PBA condition ever laid out on television, and for worse, established the worst possible paradigm for bowling that the sport is still paying for over 16 years later.  

Since the Flagship Open was considered a big time PBA event in 1996, I'm pretty sure a lot of bowling center managers and proprietors were tuning in and bore witness to the outrageous scoring pace of the PBA stars and the light went off: maybe we can do this to attract higher scores and more bowlers.  So let it be written and let it be done, as it says in the Old Testament.  All we see now are outrageous scores and unrealistic averages being put up year in and year out, but we've also seen more bowlers leave as a result of it.  While we cannot fully blame what happened that fateful day to today's bowling environment, the seeds may have been planted that day for the road we have traveled on.  Coupled with the past generation of the PBA being dropped by ABC, failing on CBS, surviving on ESPN, thriving on Tuesday nights, struggling on Sunday afternoons, taped shows, cutesy highlight packages, dwindling membership, lackluster prize funds, and an overall lack of national exposure or respect, we do have a starting point.  Was the 2012 Women's US Open the worst telecast in bowling history?  Not even close.  In fact, check back with me in another 15 years.  It might have been the greatest telecast in bowling history.

For those with a love and knowledge for the Sport of Bowling...this IS Bowling Philosophy.  Namaste. 


 

Bowling Philosophy-July 2012

"Does greatness have a shelf life?"
By Thomas Scherrer

Resume: 10 PBA titles...1960 PBA National Championship....1961 ABC Masters champion....4 BPAA All-Star titles (pre-cursor to the US Open)...5 World Invitational titles (including 4 in a row from 1959-62)...leadoff bowler for the famous Budweiser team...Team Match Games champions ('58 and '59)...6-time BWAA Bowler of the Year...8-time Bowling magazine All-American...10-time Bowlers Journal International All-American...2 time PBA Player of the Year...ABC and PBA Hall of Famer and first bowler inducted into the Madison Square Garden Hall of Fame...Named Bowler of the Century by BJI in 2000...1962 season: record top five finishes in a season (18) and consecutive (7)...ranked 11th among "50 Greatest Bowlers in PBA History" in 2009.

By now, most of you who know bowling know who this resume (and an abbreviated one at that) belongs to.  If you are in your 60's or 70's, you still consider this man to be the greatest bowler of all time and really, nobody would argue with you.  After all, only Dick Weber, Earl Anthony and Walter Ray Williams, Jr. could even come close to replicating his accomplishments, so at the very least, he is one of the 4 most decorated bowlers in history.  If you are a younger fan of bowling, this resume belongs to the recently departed Donald James Carter, a.k.a., Mr. Bowling.  Mr. Carter's recent passing in January brought a slew of glowing testimonials from legends and icons such as Ray Bluth, Bob Strampe, Bill Lillard, and others stating his status as arguably the greatest.  Even in Bowling Execution by John Jowdy, Mr. Carter is on his top 3 list and, if he had two bullets, he'd snipe the other two rivals and declare  Carter the winner.  And we haven't even factored in Carter's overall promotion to the sport of bowling with his endorsements from Ebonite (first athlete ever to sign a $1 million promotional deal and this was in 1964, what?!?); commercials for Miller Lite, Viceroy, and Wonder Bread; and merchandising gloves, shirts, slacks, books, and yes, "Music for Happy Bowlers"-a freakin record.  Could you imagine Mr. Carter and Johnny Cash passing each other in a recording studio with The Man in Black kissing Don Carter's ring???  Such was life for Mr. Carter throughout his career.  

Look...I know that there might be some opposition to what I am about to say but when Carter was winning the 1962 World Invitational, the bowling world was different.  Much different.  True, repeatable styles and an adherence to controlling ball speed, adapting to lane conditions, changing axis rotations, ect. were all important 50 years ago as they were today, but...would Don Carter be anywhere near the same player today as he was then?  It is a fair question to ask.  After all, bowling has been around over a century and pretty much everyone will rattle off who they think is in their top 10 bowlers of all time.  Most diehards will do the roll call for you: Anthony, both Webers, Roth, Walter Ray, Duke, Holman, Aulby, Bohn, and Carter.  Nobody would argue with you at all on those choices.  All were iconic figures, ambassadors, and consistent-to-dominant bowlers.  Anthony, Dick Weber, and Carter for their Golden Age credentials, their great promotion of the game, as well as their historic runs.  Walter Ray and Duke for their unerring ability to stay relevant years after their peers have fallen away.  Aulby and Pete Weber for their major championships.  Bohn for his modern-day ambassadorship and his success the past quarter of a century.  Holman and Roth for their groundbreaking bowling.  I've touched on this before but as time move along, Holman and Roth might lose some historical credit but they shouldn't.  Both turned a lateral, up-the-boards, down-and-in game and transformed it.  Created rev rate with speed, powerful strikes, crossing boards...basically what you see from everyone in today's game can truly be traced back to what Holman did and especially what Roth did. So yes, being great and groundbreaking is important but why does history ignore groundbreaking?  Because we cannot count groundbreaking!  We have no titles to look at or major championships to discuss.  But Roth and Holman should always (repeat: always) be in a bowler's top 10.  You can pick Holman apart a bit, but if you try to even to pick Roth apart, he will come to your house and stick his cane up your ass.

Why don't we remember bowlers like Ned Day and Don Johnson?  Because for Day, nobody is still alive to remember how dominant he was.  Given Day was able to hook the ball and control speed on lacquer lanes, I can make a reasonable argument that Day, much like Pete Weber, would have made the necessary adjustments in his career and still be an all time great.  Johnson, like Duke got everything imaginable out of his body and used it to be one of the best ever.  He has the most iconic single game in PBA history-the '67 TOC 299.  He also owns a US Open title win at Madison Square Garden.  He won an Open in the same building Mark Messier won a Stanley Cup-that counts for something, no?  And we also forget he was a great coach in his post-career life.  Yet, history seems to place Johnson in the second tier of great bowlers with Brian Voss, Mika Koviuniemi, Jason Couch, Chris Barnes, Welu, and Hank Marino.  And it is patently foolish...almost as foolish as starting a sentence with "And", which I've done twice in the last few moments.

So...if you know me for anything, I enjoy a great argument.  I'd place Day and Johnson in my top 10.  There is no way we are replacing Roth, Anthony, or Dick Weber.  No chance I'm getting rid of Walter Ray, Duke, or Aulby.  Do I get rid of Pete Weber?  Um...NOOOOO!!!  Holman???  Surely Marshall Holman, whose career fell apart after the disgusting 1987 POY season and has been virtually irrelevant the last 20 years.  You're right!

No, you're wrong.  Bohn and Carter live outside the penthouse or at least a floor below it.  Bohn has won exactly one major (a fortunate win at best against Couch), much like Holman has seen a free falling of his career since his 2001-02 POY season-which was not debatable at all: it is one of the 5 greatest seasons in PBA history.  I like when guys win majors and Bohn's lack of major titles, coupled with a "been there...done that" type career of Aulby, who won a lot more majors (in fact, all of them), and Bohn is off the jet.  

So is Carter.  Why?  Have you seen how Mr. Carter threw the bowling ball?  Allow me to take an excerpt from Bowling Execution to hammer my point home along with a few other tidbits:

"Carter used a crouched position and shuffled to the foul line with his nose seemingly to the ground.  He kept his elbow bent through the swing and practically pushed the ball down the lane."

In today's modern game, Carter would statistically get blown away by today's power players with their free armswings and powerful releases.  Would he be accurate?  Surely.  In fact, his style would make him a great US Open player in any era so I'm giving him credit for that too.  Plus, all the recent testimonials about Carter was that he was a relentless practice bowler as well, perhaps as a byproduct of his unorthodox style.  So was Tim Criss, a 5 time PBA winner and 1999 PBA National Champion.  So if we were to switch Criss and Carter and place then in different eras, would Criss have won like Carter?  Not likely, but certainly more than he would have in today's game.  So, why do we just assume Carter would as well in a vastly different game?  I don't and you shouldn't as well.  I'd have bloggers and bowling purists skewering me if I said Tim Criss was a top 10 all time player in any era.  Still not convinced?  Let's try this final example on for size: would Don Carter in 2012 even have bowled?  As a teenager, Carter lettered in football, baseball, and basketball in St. Louis in high school, even pitching professionally after his tour with the U. S. Navy.  For his 13th birthday, his mother gave him 13 cents (yes, thirteen) to bowl one game of bowling.  Carter loved that one game so much that he enrolled in an after school bowling club, then was a pinsetter at his local bowling alley where he could...get this...practice for free.  Imagine a 13-year-old Don Carter in 2012 having to pay up to six dollars for one game, plus rent shoes.  Chances are, his mother would have shut her wallet to bowling.  Factor in that Carter did pitch professionally before bowling and it is likely that Don Carter would have never even considered bowling as a viable option, both professionally and financially.  Instead, he might have been a meddling triple-A pitcher in Des Moines or Scranton with the hopes of having a cup of coffee in the bigs (as well as a $500,000/year minimum salary).  And that, my friends, is a shame to think about. 

Factor all this in and Carter's position at #11 on the PBA "50 Greatest" list as being fair and as legitimate as it could ever be when you factor in everything.  So, when we ask if greatness has a shelf life, we have to look at so many factors that go beyond the scope of actual performance and accomplishments.  Was Don Carter better than say, Dave Traber or Michael Haugen in terms of the mechanics of bowling?  No way at all.  You'd rather take Traber or Haugen-better releases, mechanics, and overall form.  Was Carter more groundbreaking than both?  Absolutely.  And that is the beauty of the sport-any sport, in particular.  The debate as to who is better is always a subjective argument.  Groundbreaking versus better?  Same argument applies...and the answer is that they both matter.

For those with a love and knowledge for the Sport of Bowling...this IS Bowling Philosophy.  Namaste.