Bowling Philosophy-January 2012

"804...Determinism or Free Will?"
By Thomas Scherrer

There is a firm belief that when a bowler shoots an Honor Score (299, 300, 800, etc.), they had a break or two that helped enable them to achieve that mark.  Usually, 300's do consist of a break or two in the course of twelve shots, but most people agree shooting an 800 series is today's high achievement in the world of bowling.  Aside from good shot-making, an 800 consists of being matched up with the right ball, right speed, right angle of attack, and of course, right alcoholic beverage.  Ok, I made up one of those parts...you don't always need the right ball in today's league game, but still. 

Shooting an 800 series is, by all accounts, bowling's great work of art in a night.  But I am not here to discuss art, I am here to bring forth a philosophical question that arises to bowling 800 or better: did I shoot 800 or did the circumstances around me determine that I shot 800?  The concept of free will or determinism: what allows a bowler to shoot 800?

Before I continue, most thinkers always ask those questions, mostly regarding why a human being lifts and finger to their face to scratch their nose.  Obviously, the brain senses an itch, and sends a response to the person to scratch it. The finger then tells the brain to lift said finger towards said itch and scratch it, but who is leading whom?  People have had some alternate theories:  first off, parallelism states that both mind and body act on their own, without any interaction.  A second theory is epiphenomenalism, in which it only goes one way-brain to mind and not mind to brain.  The rather illogical yet Tim Tebow'ed form of occasionalism also takes place on each occasion, a mind of immaterial nature wills movement of the body (and to think, I was the last writer in America not to discuss Tim Tebow until today...gosh darn it!), where the gods intervene to make a miracle happen.  No...it is either your will (of choice) or determinism (a set of factors leading to the outcome).

Let's review: in the first week of the 2012 calendar bowling year, I shot 804 in the Thursday Knights league.  A beautiful symmetry to artwork along with shooting an 800 is that there is no constant watching or observing like there is with a 300, the finished product takes 3 games, 30 frames, and about 2 1/2-3 hours.  If we are to describe it artfully, shooting 300 is a graffiti sketch (almost impulsive, at points, reckless, but ultimately matter) while shooting 800 is a Mona Lisa (prolonged, detailed, long-term vision, and of course, significant).  But I digress...what were the factors that helped me shoot 800?  Physically, I didn't feel any better or worse than I had at all this season.  If anything, I threw a few shots that I felt were questionable but raced back to strike and some perfect shots were taps, so theoretically, the law of averages, so to speak, were balanced out.  I did not have a 300 game (my teammate, Jim Lovewell did in the 3rd game and got a nice round of applause for his performance, while my double in the 10th to shoot 800 was met with little noise), but did not shoot lower than 258 in any game I bowled.  I did not change anything in terms of diet, sleep, work effort, or anything else intangible.  I just put on my shoes, took out my bowling balls, practiced, then executed my way to shooting 804.

If only it appeared to be that simple...

Here are some other factors: I bowled with two other left handers that night in Ermie Malagrida and Ross Beaudette.  Both Ross and Ernie play further left than I do, utilizing the dry boards on the gutter.  I start out most of my nights right on the track area on the left side, which at Auburn Lanes is just outside the 2nd arrow (8-9 board), and usually work my in off that to get a blend of the dry boards and the track area as the night progresses.  That is generally the case, no matter how many lefties are on the lane just as a matter of preference.  However, two things changed in my method last week.  First, I started 2-3 boards right of where I normally start, which places my ball path in the "overwalled" portion of the lane; the part where there is sooooo much oil that it makes me take a ball with a duller coverstock to allow the ball to roll in the oil.  It was a far more riskier move in that an early miss right would either create a) overreaction making the ball go high or b) a dead fish entering the pocket leaving weak corner pins.  With that comes the second part: the bowling ball.  I went to my Columbia 300 Momentum Swing, finished at 2000 Abralon with a clean 'n dull touch to it before league began.  There was a feeling of logic thinking that if I could play further inside of the other two lefties with a duller ball, it would simply erase their hold and their pulls would go face or split.  I swear, I was actually trying to make sure both lefties did not get off and strike like crazy that night.  Tangibly speaking, it hurt them and what they did helped me with shinier bowling balls (carrying oil down outside of the lane, providing an extra amount of hold for me outside and perhaps, keeping my ball from losing energy on misses wide).  So yes, I made two choices that I would not normally make on league night, but I was also being helped by the other two lefties to allow everything to come into place.  Was it exploitation?  Was is talent?  Or was it determined to happen instead of willed?  

When you factor everything in like bowling Pla-Doh, an 804 happened to me last Thursday night.  This is the philosophy of the mind at its highest language and ethos.  If my brain operated in deterministic ways because of every variable surrounding me, was there any free will in my decision making?  If I chose to freely pick the Momentum Swing over the Pure Swing or Perfect Rival, then were there other factors allowing this to happen?  Ultimately, if this was all determined, then is there any space for free will, and in turn, personal responsibility?  Does that make shooting 804 any less special?  Does it take away from what a special moment for myself?  It is all hard to say and hard to explain at the same time.  I just know that for the first time since my Junior year of college, I shot 800 for a 3 game series in bowling.  And I have more questions to answer as to how I can do it again.




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

Bowling Philosophy-December 2011

""Plus/Minus"
Evaluating actual consistency in bowlers and a few thoughts on the Winter Meetings and Ron Santo

By Thomas Scherrer

Before the final BP post of the calender year, there are two baseball related issues I feel I need to address:

1) Jo'se' it ain't so!  I have literally and figuratively watch Jose Reyes grow up from a 19-year-old can't miss prospect to a 27-year-old NL batting champion, whose skill set and offensive and defensive talents are undeniable and exhilarating to watch.  I have often referred to Reyes as "the most electrifying man in baseball".  Forget exciting, just electric.  Every movement, every at bat, every megawatt smile was electric to not just Met fans but baseball fans.  At both Shea Stadium and at Citi Field, Reyes' every step was worth watching.  He would lead off in the bottom of the first, reggeatron blaring in the background, crowd cheering for hopes that this man, this leadoff hitter who flies around the basepaths like a point guard running the break in basketball and had thunder in his bat-thunder that could drive a rope into the vast Citi Field gaps and give fans an early reason to cheer: a triple with a customary head-first dive into third, a clap of both dusty hands, then mugging to his teammates with the "spotlight" gimmick, which showed off his flashiness (and in some cases, his on-field arrogance that turned off the opposition).  It was magical...when it happened.  Now, Miami Marlin fans will get to see Reyes' talents on South Beach as he signed a 6-year, $100+ million contract.  The Reyes Era has ended and with many a Met fan outraged.  Not at Reyes, but at the organization for not going to whatever lengths needed to retain Reyes.  
Sensing this, I immediately put on my logic cap and applaud Met GM Sandy Alderson for standing his ground on a player who:
A) Averaged 98 games a season the past 3 years.
B) Has had half a dozen DL stints in his career, mostly to his legs.  You know, only the lifeblood of his offensive game.
C) Despite being considered and elite leadoff hitter, has never walked more than 80 times in a season, and his career best  in 2007 (77) included 13 intentional walks and...
D) In that infamous '07, was benched twice by Willie Randolph in games for not running out a ground ball, and in the penultimate game of the season/collapse (the Maine 14K, 1-hitter masterpiece), got into a near-brawl with said Marlins that only pissed a 90-loss team off, only to turn around the next day and pummel Tom Glavine to put an exclamation point on the '07 Fold Job.


All that being said, Met fans are sore at Alderson and the Wilpons (dubbed, the "Coupons" by locals) for not keeping Reyes at all costs.  Met fans feel like they were screwed, but someone else got screwed just as much if not more.  His name is David Wright.


Wright, in the final year of his deal with the club, has been a lifelong fan of the Mets, grew up watching the Norfolk Tides, was drafted by the Mets, has been a constant fixture, the babyface of the organization to all their younger fans.  Older fans see Wright as a good but not great ballplayer, not very clutch, a defensive liability, and pretty much a player that has been traumatized/scared/underperforming by the far-reaching pastures of Citi Field toward his production numbers.  Given the Mets current state of affairs, it seemed logical that only one of the duo would be a Met and Wright for the moment is the lone survivor.  His future as well, might be open for a new address possibly by the end of the Winter Meetings, signifying the darkest week in the organization's now 50 year history.  And that is saying something.


However, as a Met fan, I see the anger and hatred but this team was not likely to be winning for a few more years.  Why start giving gobs of money when you don't know which direction your ballclub is heading?  Plus, there is a option year for Wright in 2013 as well.  By then, things might very well have changed for the Mets from a financial and performance standpoint.  Plus, a baseball team is 25 players, not just one player.  The Cardinals and Rangers showed us how valuable all 25 players were en route to a World Series.  Yes, both teams had their superstars but you win baseball games as a team, despite it being a mask of individual performance.  The Mets drew a line in the sand, Reyes got a better offer, and has moved to a team with a borderline franchise player/borderline clubhouse cancer in Hanley Ramierez.  It might be something Met fans might actually be thankful for in years to come.


2) What in the Hall took so long???  If you woke up this morning as a Cubs fan, you finally get to see Ron Santo as a baseball Hall of Famer.  If you are Ron Santo, sadly, you are still dead at the present time.  Mr. Santo died last December and one year later, will be inducted into Cooperstown among the immortals.  The Veterans'  Committee voted Santo in this year, where in years past, his resume wasn't good enough for enshrinement.  The only thing that has changed on his resume is that he is dead.  If you care even a little bit about baseball today, you should feel sick about all this.  Yes, I know the Veterans' Committee has been revamped this past year to help solve some injustices, but I am utterly disgusted that Ron Santo is now a Hall of Famer after his death.  For the record, I'm a very hard grader on HOF players.  I've stated before that Trevor Hoffman should not be one, yet he will be.  I do believe that Curt Schilling, John Smoltz, and Josh Beckett, based solely off their postseason performances are and will be at some point.  Bill Mazerowski, the man who hit the Game 7 1960 WS game winning homer, is a Hall of Famer and probably should not be.  Roger Maris for his historical 1961 season, which with each dirty needle gets better over time, keeps warranting Hall of Fame merit, is still not a Hall of Famer and I don't think should be.  Yes, Pete Rose bet on baseball but he is a Hall of Famer and they should just give him and Joe Jackson their plaques and move on.


Look, I'm not a ninny on Hall players but I want it to fully represent the best of what baseball has to offer and that includes how they get in as well.  Santo's Hall nomination is great for the family and for Cub fans to remember a very, very, very good player.  A great player, in fact.  But not a Hall of Famer.  The only reason I say no is that for many years, his body of work was not good enough for Cooperstown, so now that he is gone, it is suddenly good enough?  I'm highly dubious about all of this.  There are far greater injustices that the Veterans' Committee could have looked at.  Hell, certain Hall of Fame caliber players have been dead for many more years, and yet, they weren't elected in this past weekend.  Let's just move on before I throw my Kindle at something.  At least Bill Simmons' Pyramid for basketball greatness makes sense.  This does not.  Again, happy for the Santo family...sad that Ron Santo won't be around to see it.






With that, let's get to something you would use in hockey: plus/minus bowling.  Often, only good players are talked about in such tones: I like Bowler X; he's consistent...Bowler Y is a real solid player-averages 220, grinds out good games all the time, never gets shut out...bowler Z has got a lot of skills, can play anywhere and shoot a good score no matter what's out there.

All fine comments, and stuff you have surely heard or said or was even told about you.  And once again, that little elephant in the room creeps up.  A player's average.  Look, this is solely for the use of team bowling because that is where most of bowl and how most of us actually make some type of money while bowling.  Individual bowling is more based off how can you, the sole person, bowl against the field or against the conditions.  Team bowling is a totally different animal: instead of bowling against 3 people on a pair, you are bowling with 3 people on a team, and against 4 other people.  There is more lane traffic, with more shots, variable styles of play, some styles which make lane play, even on house shots, a challenge if not broken down correctly.  Plus, there is the notion of what you average as a player.  Take for instance we take two players, both with the same average or close to it and we chart their game score and do a running average after each game, as opposed to doing it by series (sidenote: why a league hasn't tried this formula as an average is perplexing...I know it takes some math but, seriously...how many times has a good player gotten beat by a lower average bowler because the latter has a higher handicap and pulls a 240 out of him?  Shouldn't we calculate his or her average after that game to reflect a true average, and in turn lower their handicap?  This would ultimately help out the better player, you know, as long as they weren't dumping or tanking themselves.).  


For example...


Let's say Bowler 1 bowls the first game of their season and they shoot 227 and Bowler 2 shoots 246.  After one game, their averages are 227 and 246 of course.  Now Bowler 1 shoots 279 in game 2 and Bowler 2 shoots 235.  After two games, Bowler 1 has a 253 average and Bowler 2 has a 240.5 average.  On the surface, Bowler 1 has the better average but wasn't as consistent as Bowler 2 in their first two games.  So, how do you use plus/minus in relation to all this?  This is how we get there: Bowler 1's game 2 score of 279 made his average go up by 26 pins to 252, which if we do simple math (279, the game score-253, the player's average after that game), his plus/minus is +26.  As for Bowler 2, his average after two games was 240.5, but game 2 was only 235, making his plus/minus -4.5.  Again, on the surface Bowler 1 looks to have an advantage in this too.  Or do they???


Why should having a wild influx of scores be considered a good thing?  Wouldn't it make more sense to have a player who is closer to zero than it would be to have a plus/minus of 100?  If you think about it, it means that yes, the player can be more explosive than maybe the other players, but is also a little bit more erratic and is prone to major drops as well?  Look no further than my social experiment known as the Thursday Knights league.  I looked at the 6 players that averaged over 235 and took one bowler that averaged 200-210 to see if I was either A) wrong or B) genius or C) drinking while I typed this.  After 12 weeks of bowling the top averages went like this:


1) Charlie Pezanko (238.63)
2) Jim Lovewell (237.90)
3) Chris "Goof" Gauvin (237.24)
4) Steven "Wheels" Dale (236.19)
5) Myself (236)
6) Chris Monroy (235)


Now, we get to each bowler's plus/minus (starting from the highest plus to the minus):
1) Gauvin (+166.37)
2) Lovewell (+160.05)
3) Dale (+55.26)
4) Me (-5.48)
5) Monroy (-85.29)
6) Pezanko (-181.58)


So, lemme get this straight:  Pezanko has the highest average, yet he is the most apt to swings in his game, according to plus/minus.  Going back to the premise that the closer a player is to zero, the more consistent they are game to game, you are going to think this was a biased blog post by me:


1) Me (-5.48)
2) Dale (+55.26)
3) Monroy (-85.29)
4) Lovewell (+160.05)
5) Gauvin (+166.37)
6) Pezanko (-181.58)


Again, I have to state I started with my own numbers, saw the plus/minus and went through everyone else's numbers, thinking someone would be closer to zero than me or amazingly hit zero.  Didn't happen.  But what about the 200-210 bowler and where they stand in all this?  I took just one bowler, thinking that their plus/minus would be at least in the 150 range.  This is what I got:


Average: 206.11
Plus/minus (as of week 12): -102.02
Peak plus/minus (game 20): +165.79
Bowler: "Beamer" Stacy Beamanderfer


What does all this mean?  I'm not totally sure.  In a foxhole, would I rather have Lovewell on my team...wait, he already is, so that's easy.  Of course I would.  But what about Goof or Pezanko over Beamer?  If I am looking at the more tangible numbers (average), of course.  But if I needed a reliable bowler who I could trust with more consistent scoring...?  It's open for debate at least.  But there is one more thing to bring up: a bowler's peak plus/minus.  I said Beamer's peak was +165.79 came after game 20, but that means over the last 12 games, she has a minus over 260, which is quite a drop off.  So, let's look at that peak plus/minus and what game it came in (from lowest to highest):


1) Me (-79.57 after game 13)
2) Monroy (-85.20 after game 24)
3) Dale (+159.85 after game 14)
4) Pezanko (-181.58 after game 36)
5) Lovewell (+228.21 after game 21)
6) Gauvin (+246.35 after game 28)


OK, again shoot me.  I have no idea what that means other than I am still trying to make sense of who is actually a consistent player.  If, in fact my plus/minus is now -5.48, that means I am riding a wave where I am bowling better than I was earlier in the year, while Monroy's peak came the last game he bowled which means, for his great talent, is slumping a bit.  Maybe consistency is truly unattainable, but perhaps knowing when you are peaking or slumping as a player could perhaps help players and teams match up against players of a similar pattern, which could make team bowling even more competitive than it ever was before.  Hopefully, I didn't fry out your brain cells doing this.  As always, consult your physician before reading my blog and Happy Holidays!!!






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