Bowling Philosophy-March 2010

Time Stands Still
by Thomas Scherrer

By all accounts, the PBA Tour's 2009-10 season has been marked by the "WOW!" factor in terms of storylines and drama-filled events. In a season where we have seen laid-off auto workers (Thomas Smallwood) to can't miss talents (Bill O'Neill) to PTQ qualifiers (Anthony LaCaze) to ladies (Kelly Kulick) winning PBA titles, the WOW! factor appeared to be run dry of new stories in this crazy and curious PBA season.

Now...you can add amateurs to this list as well. On Sunday afternoon, Brian Ziesig of Levittown, NY lived a bowler's dream by winning his first professional title in the GEICO Mark Roth Plastic Ball Championship. The win for Ziesig, the first ever by a non-member in a standard PBA event, was made even sweeter, with the tournament emanating from AMF Babylon Lanes in Long Island. A proverbial home field advantage, Ziesig beat the iconic Walter Ray Williams Jr. and then two-handed phenom Jason Belmonte, with the latter coming in an electrifying title match where both players struck out late to force a 247-247 tie and then to sport's ultimate sudden death: a one-ball roll off. Belmonte's first and only offering left an absolutely devastating solid 7 pin. Ziesig stepped up needing a strike to claim victory and did just that, getting a friendly lean on the 10 pin to claim victory and literally tear the roof off of AMF Babylon Lanes (which some people in bowling wouldn't actually mind if all the roofs of AMF centers blew off).

Some might see the tomahawked 10 pin over Belmonte and rolling the 2-8 to beat Williams as signs of destiny from Ziesig, or perhaps some pure luck. However, Ziesig's bowling need no apology or excuses. One of the finest players Long Island has to offer, he earned this victory by putting on a tremendous performance all week long. In a week where technology went back to the future, so to speak by having each player use only two plastic bowling balls, Ziesig took on the game's best with about as much equity as you can get in bowling. Talent and skill won this tournament, as well as a solid 238.12 average, and the ability by Ziesig on television to easily be the most comfortable a person has been on TV all year by anybody bowling. Jokes with Rob Stone and Randy Pedersen, not taking himself too seriously, stepping up in the title match against Belmonte needing all 3 strikes to force a roll off and then doing so like it was nothing more than a Thursday night at South Levittown Lanes. For all you knew, Ziesig could have been drinking a Coors Light (or 4) off the approach area: he looked that damn relaxed, it was eerie.

Personally, I can say I don't know Brian Ziesig well enough to call him a friend or a buddy, but I do know this about him: his bowling was never in question. This tournament win by no means validated who he was as a bowler or even as a person. That part of his legacy was always intact, however what Ziesig did for most of us who have watched him these past several years locally validated our dream. It was a win not just for him, but we all felt like we won Sunday. Of course, we cannot say that actually happened: Ziesig won, we cheered, we screamed, hell, part of a NEBA tournament in East Haven, CT where I was bowling, time stood still. Ziesig was the main attraction even though he was not in the bowling alley. He wasn't even in the same state!!! He was living out a dream most of us dare to dream when we are younger, but no longer can dream due to the real world. There are bills to pay, jobs to endure, kids to raise, and other to-do's in the world. But for Brian Ziesig, he made us forget about that: in an event where bowling went back in time, technologically speaking, time stood still figuratively. So what if we couldn't actually see Ziesig's winning shot (that's because everyone stood up in the building!!!), the crowd let us know; Randy and Rob let us know; and even our collective amateur hearts let us know. Brian Ziesig was a winner with or without this title, but this makes it all the more sweeter that for one week, Big Head was Big Man on bowling's campus for one week.

Other Tidbits on Bowling

• The 2009-10 season now has a serious dilemma on their hands. There is a good possibility that the Player of the Year race might actually be tied at season's end. As of right now, both Williams and O'Neill are tied with 56 points with one event left, the Marathon Open in Baltimore. While it makes for great drama to see if both The Real Deal and DeadEye make the televised finals, if neither make it, it does open up the reality that there could be a share of the POY...kinda, sorta.

• The tiebreaker for the POY race will be determined by the Harry Smith Point Leader list for which Williams leads right now. While it would be a fair and simple way to determine who should be the 09-10 POY, it once again presents a question as to who fans think is this season's best player. Yes, I've got a literal marathon blog coming up about this later on in the week.

• Has the Kulick Factor worn off? It seems as if Kelly Kulick's historic Tournament of Champions victory has passed through the media with scant attention. Yes, it got local media outlets, some TV interviews, and a brilliant Rick Reilly article on espn.com. It also got some heat from fanhouse.com's David Whitley that it cannot be seen as a legitimate sporting event because "if the best female in the world can beat the best male in the world, it doesn't qualify".

• Glad to see David Whitley has a job in sports. He has also railed all over NCAA women's bowling, for which he basically denounced it as being legit as well, figuring that while Whitley was looking for Vanderbilt's 2007 national championship, he "should have looked for a plate of golden nachos atop a silver pitcher of beer". No truth to the rumor that this clueless (I had another vulgar word in place of clueless) writer has actually attended one of Vanderbilt's two hour practice sessions or any of their workout's in the gym, but yeah, he's qualified to write about bowling just like I am qualified to write about health care reform.

• As for Vandy, they walk into the 2010 NCAA championships, once again as the prohibitive favorite to win the title. The last two seasons, things have not gone according to plan. Makes you wonder if a program that has thrived primarily on recruiting the best talent in high school and not actually developing players and creating roles for them has fallen behind the curve on teaching players to be better instead of trying to build a fantasy team. Sounds harsh? The results the past few have shown that talent alone doesn't win in a team sport. Yes, there will be more on this next week as well for April's Bowling Philosophy.

• Speaking of plastics, the Brockton County Bowling Association is having their second Hall of Fame Classic as Boston Bowl in Hanover, MA April 11th. The tournament consists of 3 games, 90% handicap of 230 average, with two separate blocks at 11am and 1pm. The format is eliminator style, half the field advances and so on until there is a winner. Players can only use plastic or rubber bowling balls for competition. This is more of a personal wish, but I wish there was more events like this where technology was not the sole factor in who wins tournaments but more on talent. The only way to make the game more equitable is to have flatter gutter-to-gutter patterns or make a rule enforcing not merely a rule on restricting technology but limiting it.

• To take this one step further, college bowling Tier One events in college only allow players the use of 5 bowling balls. I used to hate this rule when I bowled but now I understand the financial and logistical reasoning behind why Karl Nikolai instituted this rule. It also gives the game more of a sense that it takes lane play, strategy, ball speed regulation, and hand position changes to be good on top of having good team skills and communication as opposed to Bowler X is carrying all over the place and Bowler Y is not despite having more tools in their bag.

• On Mark Roth: we always talk about how great players are, but never how important they are/were. If this past week's GEICO Mark Roth Plastic Ball Championship was a reflection on how loved Roth was, then we should all be so lucky. As for his importance to the game of bowling, try these questions on for size: are there better players in bowling history than Mark Roth? Absolutely. Are there more important players in bowling history than Mark Roth? Who? WHO?
  

Tommy Scherrer is now back working in the bowling center, as well as a USBC Level One certified coach. He is also on the radio Wednesday nights from 7-8pm. Log onto audiojournal.net and click on the Listen Live link to listen to myself and Adam Durrance broadcast a recap of the Worcester Telegram and Gazette.