Bowling Philosophy-August 2013

The Big Nasty finally won the big one, but where will he rank on the UOPBAPW?

 
"The Porthole": After the Warming (Part I)
by Thomas Scherrer

     After a long hiatus from blogging on the world of bowling, there has been a return to glory for the August edition of BP; namely the return of the Unofficial Official PBA Power Rankings, a quick update on how the hell I decided to evaluate things that happened overseas, the USBC Masters as well, but today...a Final Frame.

     In 2002, I picked up the first edition of Bowling Execution, written by John Jowdy.  Coach Jowdy had long been an advocate of a free armswing delivered from the shoulder, coinciding with the Over-and-Under drill to permit a smooth and free release delivering the ball onto the lane.  His most ardent student was the man who wrote the Foreword, PBA/USBC Hall of Famer David Ozio:
  

"At the end of mt first PBA tournament in 1985, he (Jowdy) walked up to me, grabbed me by the scruff of the neck, and said, 'You're going with me.'  He informed me that he had seen enough good players struggle.  He convinced me to join him and two other PBA bowlers, Dave Husted and Kent Wagner, at another bowling center to work on our games.  He was intent on teaching me the art of the free armswing.  At first, I was hesitant; but having nothing to lose, I made the smartest decision of my career.  I set my ego aside and listened to what he had to say.  The first hour was a little perplexing.  I had thoughts of opening the parachute and jumping out, but I decided to continue the experiment a little longer.  This was the turning point that launched  my career into the PBA Hall of Fame."

     Over a decade after I picked up that book, it has shown the scars of time.  Page corners folded over, water/soda/juice stains at the top of the book, fraying on the border of the cover.  But unlike the condition of the book, the content of what's inside of it has withstood the test of time.  John Jowdy had placed his thoughts into exactly 200 pages (perhaps ironic given 200 was the declination between being "plus" or "minus" in a tournament) and opened a window to the world of all bowlers.  Maybe because he had so much to offer, he needed to write it down.  Maybe he needed to upgrade his financial windfall for all those free lessons he doled out (Ozio included).  Maybe he thought time was running out for himself.  After all, Coach Jowdy was in his early 80's, always with an oversized cigar in his hands or mouth and perhaps a less than quality diet living in San Antonio all those years before heading to California.  Perhaps he thought it was time to share his thoughts with the world before he passed or went crazy or both-sometimes one can symbolize the other despite being physically alive.  This was as close to a bowling memoir as we might ever see.  

     Hopefully, we'll have some talented enough writer talk to Mark Roth about why he wanted to revolutionize the game with power and how his life has changed post-stroke.  Hopefully, we'll have some talented enough writer talk with Carmen Salvino so he can share a bunch of great action stories from his native Chicago and the sink of corruption that action bowling is.  Hopefully, we'll have some talented writer talk with Norm Duke or Pete Weber or Walter Ray and talk about the myriad of changes they've witnessed over their legendary careers regarding oil conditions, lane play, bowling balls, formats, television, earnings and above all things, all their hairstyles.  Luckily for us, Coach Jowdy took the time to share some of his stories with the many players he taught in his career; names like Ozio, Del Warren, Tim Criss, and Marshall Holman all looking to establish or re-establish themselves as stars on the PBA.  

     I only witnessed Coach Jowdy once in my life and it is a story worth writing about: it was the 2006 US Open in North Brunswick, NJ.  I travel down with my William Paterson teammate Greg DeJesus to watch the final 16 games of match play and we are there early enough to beat some of the finalists into the building.  You might remember some of the names: Walter Ray walking in, all 6 feet, 2 inches of him, looking unassuming (or bored), and quite tired.  Mika Koivuneimi walking in, all the more 6 feet, 4 inches-all arms and legs.  Really, an incomplete athletic body except when he puts a bowling ball in his hand.  Ryan Shafer saunters in, really, that's how he walks.  Jacket on, insulin pump hidden underneath his jacket, ready to eventually end the tournament at the top seed in the stepladder final.  Other names like Mike Fagan, Tommy Jones, and Robert Smith, who would all make the ladder (Jones would win the title); Norm Duke and Rhino Page (when Page was an amateur and had curly hair-yes, he had hair then) talking eye-to-eye while warming up because...well, they are the only two people that each other can talk to eye-to-eye without having to see a chiropractor the following day.  Randy Pedersen was making a deep run that week as well and gathering a very large cheering section, which showed me that true bowling fans respected Pedersen and were rooting for the color commentator to make an 11th hour comeback to make the television show as a competitor.  Tommy Delutz Jr. stopped by in the morning to watch along with Kelly Kulick and her then-boyfriend Jim Tomek.  There were several bowlers who had not made it to match play that were there, fully aware of what the US Open meant and how hard it was for the remaining 24 players to get just that far, waiting to see who would make it through the sport's greatest test.

     I also remember Nathan Bohr throwing the first shot of the day, as well.  There is one problem with this: Bohr wasn't one of those 24, he was bowling further down in the bowling center away from the action.  He was working on his game.  It showed his sensational ambition and dedication to his craft that at 8 in the morning, the only guy bowling was a player whose tournament was over.  But he wasn't alone-an elderly gentleman was with him, one hand on his right shoulder, the other hand slightly in front and above of the bowling ball.  He was imploring Bohr to deliver his pushaway to his free hand so he could push it down and let gravity take care of the rest.  It was the free armswing...it was John Jowdy in his mid to late 80's, at 8 in the morning working with a player no longer in the tournament.  Talk about passion for the craft, indeed.  

     As the day progressed, Jowdy would work with other players away from the tournament, mostly listening to players first, then basically suggesting this or that and then watching players turn into striking machines, players full of confidence once again after having their skulls bashed in by the demanding US Open lane pattern during the week.  I distinctly remembered the Bohr-Jowdy interaction the most, mainly because it was just the two of them and it made me reflect back to the Ozio story.  While Bohr has not reached the heights of what Ozio did while working with Jowdy, it is worth noting that Bohr has hung around on tour for 7 seasons in a sport where the attrition rate is higher than you think.  Whether or not Jowdy helped Bohr that one day is only known by the student, but the teacher had at least left his imprint.  

     On August 1st, we lost the teacher at 93.  But looking back on it, we really didn't.  The teacher left his mark on so many players that today's elite coaches such as Warren and Mark Baker stand on Jowdy's shoulders today.  The teacher will never give another personal lesson again but his students of the past will carry on at the very least, his message.  Maybe not the same message but a similar purpose: to make bowlers better.  Really, that's all we ask for as fans, observers, and players of the game.  Despite never having spoken to me or even known my existence (unless he loved reading my BP blogs in San Diego), the teacher taught me the fundamentals of bowling properly in today's game that I can say still hang with me today.  It was the best $19.95  I ever spent for bowling technique, yes but the teacher actually allowed me to see that somebody could write about bowling and remain engaging and fluid while doing it.  Perhaps that was his greatest lesson to me.  Rest In Peace, Coach.  Say hello to Don, Dick, and Earl.  

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.