Monday - September 15, 2014

As You Like It: Out On the Lanes Again

Bowling blogging!  I know you’ve missed it. Rich K is even asking for it. So here you are.



Friday Fun League is up and running. Winter league has begun. And so have our problems. Once again, almost as usual, my team finds itself down a bowler. This is what happens in a couples league when the other half of your team breaks up. We kept him, and she went to another team. And we have a vacancy. The league as a whole is down about 4 teams this year too; from 16 to 12. That means we’re going to go through 3 full rotations this season, or almost 3 if they insist on doing a position round at the end of every rota. I hate position rounds; I think they’re a waste a time. Just do the Round Robin and be done with it.

We went 5-2 the first week, in a rather uncomfortable night. Because wouldn’t you just know it, we started off the season with him on our team, and her on our opponent’s team. Figures. And we’re in the middle, trying to make nice-nice with everybody. Whatever. Eye-roll. So we took the first game by a landslide, more than 100 pins ahead. And then we took the second game by a solid 55 pins or so. And then? And then we went to sleep or something. Or they were downing Red Bull and suddenly grew wings. Beats me, but they woke up and did some of the best bowling I’ve ever seen them do. She, who usually rolls in the 120s, starts whacking strike after strike after strike, and finishes with a 203. All last season, she only had 1, maybe 2 200+ games. Two others on that team rolled 40 or 50 over their averages too, and their anchor really delivered, throwing a scorching 247. We ... sucked. In the end not only did they win the third game, they ate up almost all our pin lead from the first two games. Thank goodness he on our side finished off with X, XX9, because when the final numbers were added up we held onto Total Wood by an anorexic 11 pins. And that gave us the extra point, so we avoided the 4-3 split score and held on for a 5-2 victory.

Going into the second week, the alley folks found a couple who were willing to join the league if they could bowl together. So M, who works the front desk and pretty much runs the place, asked him if he’d go to another team so they could replace him and our vacancy with this new couple. He wasn’t willing. Good. He’s part of our team, and we don’t want to lose him too.

So for Week 2 we played Team Bubbles. Bubbles is the nickname for one of their bowlers, a teeny tiny little woman with a giant personality. She’s a hoot. She isn’t the greatest bowler, but it’s fun to watch her plop the ball out on the lane and then stand there, hands on her hips, giving it the evil eye, demanding that the ball do what she wants it to. And spanking it when it misbehaves. Bad ball! Naughty ball! But alas, she had to work late, so she wasn’t there. Joe was there, back on that team after a year off. Joe - or “grampy” as my wife calls him because of his gray hair and beard (which makes me wonder if she calls me “Santa” behind my back! Although I don’t do the beard thing.) - Joe and I go way back. We’ve been bowling together or against each other on various leagues for the better part of a decade now. He was on our Greed League team last year, but he had to quit when he took a new job. So he was the sudden mid-season vacancy that sunk us. Well, Bob being absent 2/3 of the season didn’t help either, but that team dissolved, and now none of us are on Greed League any longer. Good riddance. But we had a good bunch of guys while it lasted. So Joe is back, and that inspired me to compete. Pity the lanes weren’t cooperating. OMG. The left lane was totally different. It was at least 4 boards off, ball reaction -wise, and the back end was muddy. The right lane was fine, typical house conditions. I wonder if the kid cleaning the lanes skipped our left one. Or maybe they rented it out before our league arrived, and about 20 games got rolled on it. That’s how it felt. Pushed flat and dirty. Not dried out, just ... ewww.

But back to me vs Joe. Looking at it mano a mano, I beat him in the first game. Not that I threw anything magical, but I beat my book average by 12. And he didn’t come close to his, and his book is 30 pins more than mine. Our team won by 65. For the first 7 frames it looked like we were losing. No matter how well we threw, and our him was rolling really well, we just couldn’t get ahead. And then somebody noticed that our vacancy bowler was hardly registering any score. On this league, a vacancy score is a 140, which means 14 pins per frame. Whoever entered the names and averages did it wrong, so our Vacancy had a 14 average instead of a 140. Ooops. Once we fixed that we were suddenly in the lead. I had some issues, leaving 3 opens and even tossing a gutter ball on a mark. Horry crap. That sux. I rallied, marked out the last half, and made my numbers. And our team did well enough to win it by a good margin.  I was down some in the second game. Joe didn’t bowl so great either, but he did better than me. So he got me in Game 2, but our team won that one handily, a big thanks to my wife, who was on the mark and made a really good score. In the third game the Bubble-less Team Bubbles seemed to lose their carbonation. They just went flat. All of them were well under average. We were all a bit over average. It wasn’t a very exciting match up, but we all had a good time socially, and we won Game 3 by a wide margin. So we won all three games, 7-0.

Going into the 3rd week we’re now 12-2, which should put us pretty close to first place. It’s a long, long season, so this doesn’t mean much. But we’re off to a good start.

I might have to buy a new pair of bowling shoes. The ones I have are stretched out and seem a whole size too big. Plus the heel cup is torn on the right one, which makes my starting step sloppy because my foot slides back instead of getting traction. My bowling bag isn’t doing too good either; the handle has come loose. But I think I can fix that with a couple of bolts and some washers.

Posted by Drew458     on 09/15/2014 at 12:20 PM   
Filed Under: • Bowling Blogging •  
• Comments (2) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

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