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-November 2012

"Reason to Believe"
How the PBA Tour and World Series of Bowling has gotten the most important season in the sport's history off and running in the right direction.
By Thomas Scherrer-November 10th, 2012

Every season of bowling comes and goes with heightened anticipation, whether it be a local league or tournament, college bowling season, or elite bowling tour events.  There is so much to learn and so much to experiment with from the warm summer months.  Did you purchase new equipment?  Perhaps work on a new hand position?  Grip pressure?  The basics, of course.  Then there is the PBA Tour and its "Super Sized" season, and no, I wasn't referring to Dale Traber's waistline.  That would be in reference to basically run more events-both national and international-to try and gather worldwide exposure, with the intention of trying to accomplish a very stated goal: try, try, try to firmly establish a new generation of bowlers to the audience.  This sport has been forced into adaptation on numerous occasions over the past few seasons, if only to stay relevant, but to ultimately assure the future of the sport in some way, shape, or form.  May it be having more international bowling events, a possible WSOB event outside the U.S., or to possibly engage the PBA Tour into a league.

One week into the Ship Window (what the PBA logo on Facebook looks like), the PBA got off to a very impressive start.

World Series of Striking (and occasional sparing)
For some reason, the WSOB somewhat modeled your local Thursday night men's league in terms of raw numbers.  Again, these are the best bowlers in the world, so guys putting up numbers shouldn't be a surprise to the most jaded of skeptics.  In any event, one question begs: were the numbers too high?!?  Consider these facts: of the 16 TV finalists for the 4 named Animal patterns, the lowest average to make the shows was Tom Daugherty's 232.93 average in the Bowlers' Journal PBA Scorpion Championship.  Think about that for a moment: Daugherty had to shoot just under a 700 series per 3 game block to barely make one telecast.  And thankfully, Daugherty did not have to include his TOC television score at any point.

Wolfe Score
The honors go to Mike Wolfe for his performance in the Alka Seltzer Plus Cold Cheetah Championship.  In a tournament free on heartburn in terms of generating a ball reaction, Wolfe led the "Cheat" with a blistering 253.57 average over 14 games.  Fairly impressive, no?  Wolfe was 51 pins better than Dearborn, Michigan native Jeff Roche.  The difference between Roche and Wes Malott, who finished 6th?  Just 54 pins.  Over the course of just 14 games, the distance Wolfe gained in relation to the rest of the field was staggering, when you consider the scoring environment (very high), and the shortness of the format, and the ever fearing risk-reward nature the Cheetah pattern provides.  One shaky game or one loose shot could have separated some from not just a television show, but even cashing.  Of the 30 best individual averages during the 4 Animal events, all 16 finalists from the Cheetah Championship made the list, with Brett Spangler coming in with the 24th best average at 236.29.  Had Spangler duplicated that performance on the Scorpion Championship, he would have led the event by 13 pins over Osku Palermaa.  

Oh, no...he's going to Z-Score you, huh?
Wha....me?  Why would I ever do such a thing to you?  The answer: to prove a point.  While averages are sexy, they do not tell the story of how great the performances were.  Z-Score does.  We already established the high scoring of the Cheetah Championship; the Chameleon Championship also had its share of big numbers as well.  For example, here are the 10 highest individual averages from this past week (excluding the PBA World Championship):

1. Mike Wolfe                      Cheetah         253.57     
2. Jeff Roche                        Cheetah         249.93
3. Chris Loschetter               Cheetah         248.43
4. Bill O'Neill                       Cheetah          248.36
5. Jason Belmonte                Chameleon     247.29
6. Lennie Boresch Jr.            Cheetah          246.36
7. Wes Malott                      Cheetah          246.07
8. Walter Ray Williams Jr.     Chameleon     245.21
9. PJ Haggerty                     Cheetah          243.43
10. Scott Norton                    Chameleon     242.79

Now, here are the Z-Scores of each bowler, with the ranking in parenthesis:

Wolfe             2.13     (1)

Roche            1.38     (5)

Loschetter      1.07     (10)

O'Neill           1.05     (11)

Belmonte        1.75     (2)

Boresch Jr.       .64     (22)

Malott              .58     (25)

Williams Jr.     1.52     (4)

Haggerty          .04     (T30)

Norton           1.25     (9)   

First, we notice that 6 of the top 10 are from the Cheetah and Chameleon, with O'Neill just outside the top 10 in eleventh place.  We also notice that yes, Wolfe's performance was an impressive and dominant performance both in terms of raw numbers and my hippie-wearing, bra-burning, Colorado-pot smoking numbers (I'm only kidding about the pot smoking).  But as for the rest of the bowlers outside the top 11, Boresch, Malott, and Haggerty fail to match up to be even close.  That leaves us 11 players who bowled better between O'Neill and Boresch.  We are also missing the #3, 6, 7, and 8 top Z-Scores...and these gentlemen were:

Brad Angelo           (Viper)        1.57

Sean Rash               (Viper)        1.37

Osku Palermaa     (Scorpion)     1.34

Belmonte              (Scorpion)     1.31

The Scorpion Championship also had double the amount of bowlers that fell into the top 15 Z-Scores (6), than the other 3 patterns (3 each), making it arguably the most competitive tournament of the 4, which would make sense considering the field average of the Scorpion Championship for the 16 finalists was the lowest at  228.39.  The point is, as I've alluded to...averages are not the end-all to bowling.

PB3-The Original Prototype

If there is a sentimental favorite going into the televised finals of the PBA World Championship, one would be hard pressed not to be rooting for Parker Bohn III.  Bohn, a native of Jackson, New Jersey did not make it to the WSOB practice session not by way of absent-mindedness or promotional events, or simple apathy...he was living up to being bowling's greatest modern day ambassador.  With the damages sustained in New Jersey during Super Storm Sandy, Bohn stayed an extra day to help friends and neighbors recover from the horrifying effects of the storm, as first reported by Bill Vint on pba.com.  Bohn then proceeded to bowl just well enough to make the 24th and final match play position, and then lost a tournament tying low 8 games to find himself in the 5th and final position for the stepladder.  At 49, Bohn is sitting on the final few legs of an historic career, one for which he has accomplished everything.  Two Player of the Year awards, 30+ titles, 300 game on TV, 4 Japan Cup titles, 4 Steve Nagy Sportsmanship awards, and countless stories of Bohn being an ambassador, leader, and model citizen.  The one major outlier to his resume is just that: majors, as in he has only one (2001 ABC Masters).  If you could poke a hole in Bohn's legacy, it would be just that.  For all of Bohn's 32 wins, he has been small when the stakes have been the highest on national soil.  If Bohn were to win, he'd have that elusive 2nd major, as well as be the 15th bowler to come from 24th place in match play to a title, amid the struggle millions in the tri-state area are enduring due the dual storms of Sandy and Athena.  Would there be a more emotional and satisfying victory in recent bowling memory?  I dare you to come up with a better one.

Draft-y

If you were lucky enough to view the inaugural PBA Draft on Friday, it was quite a site to see.  For the first time, the PBA is going back to the future by establishing 8, 6 person teams (we thank Mike Fagan for drafting Kelly Kulickk as his supplemental pick, otherwise we would have had to check everyone's heart medication, except Pete Weber-we'll get to that) and having them cwisehad toompete in team competitions still to be determined at Detriot's famed Thunderbowl in January.  Norm Duke got the 1st selection and sort of surprised everyone with selecting Rhino Page.  Sort of surprisingssurprising in that taking a lefty in Page with the first pick, but not an illogical pick for Duke-after all, Page might be the only player on tour Duke can literally talk to eye-to-eye, but I digresso-eyea.  Page, as we all remember led Kansas to the 2006 IBC Championships and is arguably the best left hander in the Ship Window.  In fact, most teams decided having a lefty around was not a terrible idea (well, except Chris Barnes-I know, you're shocked by this is eis revelation and Fagan, but he chose Kulick so he's off the hook, sorta).  

One of those left handers was Scott Norton, chosen by Pete Weber with 2nd pick.  In the process, Weber made history in this decision.  Norton, an open homosexual, has officially/unun-officiallyial become the first openly gay member of a team sport that I can think of in American professional sports.  Yes, the PBA is not entirely a league entity, but the point remains that professional bowling made a bit ofof history Friday.  Fitting that the son of a Hall of Fame dad would draft the son of a Hall of Famee mom, in a landmark moment.  Should it be such an issue?  No, it shouldn't be.  We should clearly look beyond the scope of sexual orientation as to how it pertains to athletic performance by now, but there are still plenty of close-minded people in our society that do not think that this is acceptableacceptable.  I tell them to go read someone else's blog then.  As for everyone else, thank you for your continued support in allowing me to offer intelligent and insightful conversation into the world of bowling.  We are hopefully in for one of the more memorable seasons in PBA history.  We all need a reason to believe.

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