Bowling Philosophy-April 2013

This Is 50...

A Perfect "Ten"

Pete Weber's Drive to Greatness

By Thomas Scherrer

Imagine yourself with Doc Brown's DeLorean in 2013 with the ability to travel back in time to talk to one person at their point of professional rock bottom.  Most would point to President Nixon in 1973 after Watergate or President Clinton after Sexgate or Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson after "Tooth Fairy" or Skip Bayless talking to Richard Sherman.  The point is: everyone has doubt and fear creep into their psyche.  It is the most inevitable disease a man or woman can have.  Nothing can stop its onset or determine its cause, nor can anyone diagnose its nature or determine its cure...once it is there, it stays there.  Sometimes, it looms larger over what made you great.  Other times, you would hardly know it exists.  It is like nothing ever happened to you.  You are free of fear and doubt, but instead overcome by confidence and assurance.  Every decision, every move is made with conviction and purpose.  All acts are definitive and assertive.  The results might not work, but the process has been trusted and with that comes a sense of pride and understanding that you did what you had to do and you believed in it.  There was no regression and no reverting.  There is clarity, purpose, and trust.
Back to the DeLorean...I'm a bowling fan as you all know by now, so why not use it to go back to 1995 and visit Pete Weber.  Why?  Let's look at these stats and you'll understand:

Events: 17
Cashes: 7
Match Play: 2
TV Finals: 0
Wins: 0
Earnings: $27,585

For all seasons in which Weber bowled at least 20 events, it was by far his worst in almost every category with the exception of money, which came in 1980-only his Rookie of the Year season.  It was the rarest of sights: how could a player of such talent-a rare blend of power and finesse, in game management, and overall swagger-suddenly lose it, just as he was entering his prime?  Had the game gotten away from him?  Was being the son of a larger-than-life father just too much?  Were the failed relationships hurting his ability to perform?  Was it the late nights of partying and perhaps drugs/alcohol taking its toll on an already undersized body?  Was it the exquisite mullet haircut perhaps presenting too much image over results?  Go back and read those last 6 sentences again and you'll ask yourself one question: why did I start writing about Andre Agassi all of a sudden???

No two athletes in the last 25 years shared so much promise, lost so much so fast, then recovered to become top stars, then superstars, then surefire legends of their game in such a short period of time, you wonder if it wasn't all part of an elaborate plan to remind those who had less natural talent than Agassi and Weber to never waste it.  After all, it looked as if for all the world that both Agassi and Weber were destined to never live up to what they might have been despite what they already had accomplished.  Agassi was arguably the cleanest the striker of a tennis ball and unquestionably the greatest returner in the game's history.  Weber arguably has the cleanest release in all of bowling and unquestionably has had the greatest ball roll in the game's history.  After all, how does one generate so much axis tilt without grabbing it?  Doug Kent tried and became a Hall of Famer, but always fought his timing in the process.  Jeff Carter tried it (along with Weber's golf glove) to the tune of just one title-ironically over Weber.  Many have tried to fire all 5 fingers open like that without grabbing it and they never can.  You can teach a lot of things in bowling: hand positions, grip pressure, lane play, spare shooting, and so on.  You know what you cannot teach?  Pete Weber.  He is as unique a prototype as you'll ever see in bowling.  We'll see a thousand more Jason Belmontes before we'll see another Weber duplicate.  It's a virtual improbability.

Which leads us to Sunday afternoon.  Fittingly, it was April Fool's Day.  A day in which people can say or do anything with enough validity to make it feel like its the truth before you are "catfished" by enough people.  And standing on top of the Barbasol Tournament of Champions after 48 games of bowling?  A man who is 50.  Yes, fifty.  In a generation where speed and revs dominate the sport, someone who once had the revs to be a power player was now relegated to a power stroker or even a power tweener.  This is a joke, right?  He didn't belong.  In fact, none of the old guard do anymore.  Yet, Norm Duke finished 12th; Walter Ray Williams Jr. finished 16th; Kent had a top 20 finish.  But Pete Weber led them all after 48 games.  He needed one more win Sunday afternoon to claim a historic win on so many levels.  But Sean Rash and Belmonte had other ideas.  You see, they tried to blow up the pattern so far to the left that they probably said in their own heads whoever wins our match will win the tournament.  There's no way Weber can get this deep anymore and loft it at this age.  And they were right.  Weber could not loft the left gutter...didn't need to.  Instead, Pete Weber decided to use his talent one more time to slay his 10th major championship.  One that now ties him with Earl Anthony and...oh, wait-that's it!  Weber became the only man to win all 3 PBA Triple Crown events twice in a career and set his own record of 9 Triple Crown wins as well.  He also became the oldest TOC winner in history and yes, did I mention this was his 10th major win?

That last one matters the most.  Now, history shows that Weber and the unmistakable legend Earl Anthony both have 10 majors.  Yes, I mentioned it again because it needed to be mentioned again.  It is very likely that Weber has possibly exceeded any expectations about his career in the past 12 months by winning his record 5th US Open and 2nd TOC to get to #10 while doing it when at his age, bowlers get ready to be called "rookies" on the senior tour.  He even said during the show that he will keep bowling 'til he passes, just like his father, Dick Weber, used to.  In winning #10, he has finally separated himself from Walter Ray and Duke as this generation's greatest big game performer.  He now stands 3 wins shy of joining Williams and Anthony as 40+ time champions, and can consider himself a viable Player of the Year candidate.  After all, #11 might be coming up at his favorite stomping grounds: Bowling's US Open.  Suddenly, we might have to rewrite what we think about PBA history and what Weber has done to place it in this proper perspective.  Chances are people won't rank him higher than Williams (has never beaten him for a title in their legendary careers) and slightly higher than Duke and Mike Aulby based off of majors alone.

But what if #11 comes?  Do we weigh the historical significance of majors over regular victories at long last and say Pete Weber is the greatest bowler of all time?  We honestly should have been doing this years ago but we got wrapped up in the dopey Walter Ray vs. Earl conversation when it was not really an argument as to who was greater.    Pete Weber has given everybody something else to look forward to: does he have one more major moment in him to get #11?  Hop in the DeLorean.

So...what would 2013 Me tell 1995 Pete Weber about 2013 Pete Weber?  I'd tell him that you might be at rock bottom right now, but don't give up the gift.  The struggles in 1995 are going to be worth it nearly two decades later, just you wait.  What would 1995 Pete Weber told me to do?  He'd probably tell me to crawl up my own ass and I'd laugh at it.  Truth be told, there is pretty much nothing I could tell '95 Weber that he already did not know about himself.  He just needed to hide the fear and doubt.  It will always be there.  It never dies.  And that is why Pete Weber has become one of the two greatest big game bowlers ever.  Fear and doubt won a few rounds, but Pete Weber won the fight...at long last.

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

Bowling Philosophy-January 2011

PPBA Tour-Reconnecting with a Lost Friend

by Thomas Scherrer

"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.