onefrombills
01-28-2009, 12:04 AM
WOW!
What can you say when your expectations are not only met but surpassed by a sporting event on TV? When I e-mailed Tom Clark earlier this week to say that I thought this week’s show could potentially be the best of the season, I immediately experienced the same feeling of jinx that Randy and Rob feel when they mention that a player with the front five or six has a “potential 300 game.” (The R&R boys “jinxed” two this week, by my count…and believe it or not, those guys will get a few very angry e-mails from fans who actually think the commentators’ words have some kind of magical effect on the proceedings.)
This week had just about everything. History. Tradition. The T of C Silver Bowl trophy. Legendary players out the wazoo. Bo Burton with a microphone. All three PBA owners in the crowd (what a great vote of confidence this is!). No NFL games. The announcement of the greatest player in PBA history. Plenty of extra air time to talk about bowling, bowling and more bowling. The best bowlers of today bowling their best. Tiny micro-adjustments making a huge impact on the outcome. Compelling storylines. Oh, and one of the greatest and most dramatic title matches of all time. The only thing missing was PDW doing the crotch chop while Marshall Holman stomped a foul light to death while Mark Roth scowled at Earl Anthony who icily stroked three in the 10th to break every record in bowling history. Yeah, I just wrote that.
The opening match, despite the best efforts of a crying baby and a sweaty-domed Mike Scroggins, was another Wes Malott promotional vehicle, where he once again displayed the effortless power and precision that has put him atop the PBA Player of the Year rankings. Especially after seeing the clips of how he was playing the lanes in his win last week in Medford (slow-hooking fifth arrow) and coupled with the stats from the CATS (the very cool Computer Aided Tracking System technology provided by Kegel), Big Wes was very impressive as he threw hard and straight up second arrow in dominating the pins (and Scroggins) with a 276-203 win.
After a nice feature on the 50th Anniversary Champion’s dinner and Hall of Fame induction ceremony (how cool would that have been to attend?!...I would’ve gone myself were it not for my wife’s imminent delivery of our third child…curses on the timing!), Wes stepped in for a rematch against Rhino Page, to whom he sort of gave a title (Rhino’s second) just prior to Christmas.
As expected, Rhino was intense and tough in bowling a solid 245 game. Wes experienced a similar problem to what befell him in his recent title loss against Page, that is, a pair of lanes in transition. For those of you who want to know specifically what transition is, it means that the conditions on which you were once lined up, like, five seconds ago have changed and now require you to make an adjustment (which could be any one of several different possibilities) if you want to avoid being crushed by a guy who looks like he’d just as soon rip your head off and spit on it than look at you. Welcome to the PBA Tour. And now folks, here is a sneak preview approximating what was going on in the mind of Wes Malott during frames two through five of the semifinal match of today’s show:
(Singing) Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer had a very shiny nose, and if you ever saw it…What?! Flat ten?! OK. Spare it up big guy.
(Singing again) You would even say it glows. All of the other…What?! Ringing 10?!
(No longer singing) Well, well, well. So, if I stay here the rest of the game and throw it like this, I’m probably good for 210-220. Rhino, judging by his reaction, looks like he’s good for 250+. Better make a move. Let’s try moving left a board and getting around it a little to make it hook a little more sharply into the pins. 4-6-7-10. OK, that’s what I get for trying something. Well, I think that was the right idea, just need to move a little more left. 4-6-7-10 again? Guess I should’ve changed balls too.
(Back to singing) Turn out the lights the party’s over.
Wes finally made the right move, but by then it was too late and all he could muster was 200. He probably would have shot 270+ if he’d gotten to bowl another game…but, according to the cruel rules of the PBA he didn’t. To paraphrase what Andrew Cain wrote in his awesome and insightful column last week, “the Tour is a game of how fast you can make the adjustments…those of you who are too slow, you get to go home early.” Obviously, Wes is as fast on the draw as anyone these days, given his record of making the show on every pattern this year, but on TV the game moves even more quickly and his loss just goes to show how difficult it is to master for even the best.
That set up a riveting final match between two roommates, Rhino Page and Patrick Allen, who, somehow in a world where Wes Malott makes the show every week, is the hottest player on Tour. Before the match started, the winner of the greatest player in PBA history was announced in person by Bo Burton and to no one’s surprise (and to the great pleasure of Kelly Willison, an individual with whom I debated the topic over a couple of e-mails), it was Earl Anthony. Rob, Randy and Bo did a great job with the announcement and also in encouraging the debate to rage on, which it inevitably will and is a great thing for the sport of bowling.
From a pure strategy standpoint, this match was a bowling fan’s dream. Randy and Rob astutely pointed out prior to the match that PA would have a very different strategy for playing the lanes in the title match, depending on whether his opponent were Wes or Rhino. They set up the fact (and had it validated by CATS data during the match) that Allen was going to play slightly inside of (right of, that is) Rhino if indeed he were the opponent. This may seem a little counterintuitive to those of us who recognize that PA’s rev rate is lower than Page’s (which usually requires you to play a more direct line), but the reason for the strategy (assuming it works) is quite sound. You see, by playing inside of Rhino, PA decreases the risk that his line will burn up over the course of the match (or to use the term we used to describe Malott’s need to adjust, transition) and require you to burn precious frames (and score) in getting re-lined up. PA assumed that since Rhino already threw a game playing out, that he was likely to face some kind of transition during the title match.
As it turned out, Rhino’s line held up pretty well for the entire match. After starting out with a couple of loose shots in the 1st and 2nd (which he seemed to do after every break in the action…to me it looked like he forgot to hit the ball, causing it to sail wide), Rhino got back on his game and began stringing strikes. PA, who as expected given the tear that he’s been on for the past five weeks, looked extremely sharp to the point where even the shots he didn’t like (1st, 2nd, 3rd, what a perfectionist!) still gave him a chance to strike (and did). After stringing the front six, PA finally ran out of luck and left a ringing 7 pin in the 7th. He then threw a poor shot in the 8th (he missed it at the bottom similar to Page’s shots in the 1st and 2nd) but came out with a nine-spare. Rhino then extended his string to seven, putting him in control of his destiny and forcing PA to keep striking to give himself a chance.
Two good ones in the 9th and 10th set up a critical shot in the 11th that would force Page to get the first strike in 10th to win. On that shot, PA thought it was good off his hand but it crept a little high and looked like it would leave a 6-pin. But the 3-pin gave the old Obama fist-bump to the butt of the 6-pin and nudged it over, leading to a massive hand-slap from Allen and a bit of a sigh from Rhino. A nine-count on the fill ball set the stage for Rhino, who now needed a strike and nine-spare to win his first major.
Rhino packed the first one and set himself up for the biggest shot of his career. But just prior to stepping up for the coup-de grace, he amazingly made reference to the shot clock starting too early (huh? Like a $500 fine really matters when you need a hit for $50K?!). I also noticed that his shots in the 6th and 8th had started to hook a bit more (they both went very high flush) and I knew an adjustment was probably in order. At that point in the match, a little extra ball speed is the safest play and it looked like that’s what he did on his blistering first strike in the 10th. Whatever was going through his mind (probably not Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, I’m guessing), he needed to throw one more good pitch like the hard, tight shot he threw in the 10th. The shot in the 11th was hard but not tight and it sailed wide, missing the headpin and cutting through the rack for a very unusual four-count washout. Game over. Slick Mop wins. And for the second time in three weeks (remember Walter Ray’s 8-10 in Reno to give PA that title?), Patrick Allen looked like he was having an astral projection experience, not believing what had just happened.
But what a great show it was! I felt bad for Rhino, the new David Cook of the PBA Tour (my mom said, “Wow! He’s good looking!” so at least he’s got that going for him, which is nice), but shooting 263 for the title is nothing to be ashamed of. To me, the whole experience gives me hope that the PBA is still capable of great things and that, at its best, its just as good as anything out there in the world of sports. Hopefully, the rest of the season can live up to the standards set by this week’s show.
What did you think? Please e-mail me with your thoughts on this week’s show at jason@jasonthomasbowling.com. Also check out my other weekly blog as well as the latest episode of The Bowling Show. See you next week!
What can you say when your expectations are not only met but surpassed by a sporting event on TV? When I e-mailed Tom Clark earlier this week to say that I thought this week’s show could potentially be the best of the season, I immediately experienced the same feeling of jinx that Randy and Rob feel when they mention that a player with the front five or six has a “potential 300 game.” (The R&R boys “jinxed” two this week, by my count…and believe it or not, those guys will get a few very angry e-mails from fans who actually think the commentators’ words have some kind of magical effect on the proceedings.)
This week had just about everything. History. Tradition. The T of C Silver Bowl trophy. Legendary players out the wazoo. Bo Burton with a microphone. All three PBA owners in the crowd (what a great vote of confidence this is!). No NFL games. The announcement of the greatest player in PBA history. Plenty of extra air time to talk about bowling, bowling and more bowling. The best bowlers of today bowling their best. Tiny micro-adjustments making a huge impact on the outcome. Compelling storylines. Oh, and one of the greatest and most dramatic title matches of all time. The only thing missing was PDW doing the crotch chop while Marshall Holman stomped a foul light to death while Mark Roth scowled at Earl Anthony who icily stroked three in the 10th to break every record in bowling history. Yeah, I just wrote that.
The opening match, despite the best efforts of a crying baby and a sweaty-domed Mike Scroggins, was another Wes Malott promotional vehicle, where he once again displayed the effortless power and precision that has put him atop the PBA Player of the Year rankings. Especially after seeing the clips of how he was playing the lanes in his win last week in Medford (slow-hooking fifth arrow) and coupled with the stats from the CATS (the very cool Computer Aided Tracking System technology provided by Kegel), Big Wes was very impressive as he threw hard and straight up second arrow in dominating the pins (and Scroggins) with a 276-203 win.
After a nice feature on the 50th Anniversary Champion’s dinner and Hall of Fame induction ceremony (how cool would that have been to attend?!...I would’ve gone myself were it not for my wife’s imminent delivery of our third child…curses on the timing!), Wes stepped in for a rematch against Rhino Page, to whom he sort of gave a title (Rhino’s second) just prior to Christmas.
As expected, Rhino was intense and tough in bowling a solid 245 game. Wes experienced a similar problem to what befell him in his recent title loss against Page, that is, a pair of lanes in transition. For those of you who want to know specifically what transition is, it means that the conditions on which you were once lined up, like, five seconds ago have changed and now require you to make an adjustment (which could be any one of several different possibilities) if you want to avoid being crushed by a guy who looks like he’d just as soon rip your head off and spit on it than look at you. Welcome to the PBA Tour. And now folks, here is a sneak preview approximating what was going on in the mind of Wes Malott during frames two through five of the semifinal match of today’s show:
(Singing) Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer had a very shiny nose, and if you ever saw it…What?! Flat ten?! OK. Spare it up big guy.
(Singing again) You would even say it glows. All of the other…What?! Ringing 10?!
(No longer singing) Well, well, well. So, if I stay here the rest of the game and throw it like this, I’m probably good for 210-220. Rhino, judging by his reaction, looks like he’s good for 250+. Better make a move. Let’s try moving left a board and getting around it a little to make it hook a little more sharply into the pins. 4-6-7-10. OK, that’s what I get for trying something. Well, I think that was the right idea, just need to move a little more left. 4-6-7-10 again? Guess I should’ve changed balls too.
(Back to singing) Turn out the lights the party’s over.
Wes finally made the right move, but by then it was too late and all he could muster was 200. He probably would have shot 270+ if he’d gotten to bowl another game…but, according to the cruel rules of the PBA he didn’t. To paraphrase what Andrew Cain wrote in his awesome and insightful column last week, “the Tour is a game of how fast you can make the adjustments…those of you who are too slow, you get to go home early.” Obviously, Wes is as fast on the draw as anyone these days, given his record of making the show on every pattern this year, but on TV the game moves even more quickly and his loss just goes to show how difficult it is to master for even the best.
That set up a riveting final match between two roommates, Rhino Page and Patrick Allen, who, somehow in a world where Wes Malott makes the show every week, is the hottest player on Tour. Before the match started, the winner of the greatest player in PBA history was announced in person by Bo Burton and to no one’s surprise (and to the great pleasure of Kelly Willison, an individual with whom I debated the topic over a couple of e-mails), it was Earl Anthony. Rob, Randy and Bo did a great job with the announcement and also in encouraging the debate to rage on, which it inevitably will and is a great thing for the sport of bowling.
From a pure strategy standpoint, this match was a bowling fan’s dream. Randy and Rob astutely pointed out prior to the match that PA would have a very different strategy for playing the lanes in the title match, depending on whether his opponent were Wes or Rhino. They set up the fact (and had it validated by CATS data during the match) that Allen was going to play slightly inside of (right of, that is) Rhino if indeed he were the opponent. This may seem a little counterintuitive to those of us who recognize that PA’s rev rate is lower than Page’s (which usually requires you to play a more direct line), but the reason for the strategy (assuming it works) is quite sound. You see, by playing inside of Rhino, PA decreases the risk that his line will burn up over the course of the match (or to use the term we used to describe Malott’s need to adjust, transition) and require you to burn precious frames (and score) in getting re-lined up. PA assumed that since Rhino already threw a game playing out, that he was likely to face some kind of transition during the title match.
As it turned out, Rhino’s line held up pretty well for the entire match. After starting out with a couple of loose shots in the 1st and 2nd (which he seemed to do after every break in the action…to me it looked like he forgot to hit the ball, causing it to sail wide), Rhino got back on his game and began stringing strikes. PA, who as expected given the tear that he’s been on for the past five weeks, looked extremely sharp to the point where even the shots he didn’t like (1st, 2nd, 3rd, what a perfectionist!) still gave him a chance to strike (and did). After stringing the front six, PA finally ran out of luck and left a ringing 7 pin in the 7th. He then threw a poor shot in the 8th (he missed it at the bottom similar to Page’s shots in the 1st and 2nd) but came out with a nine-spare. Rhino then extended his string to seven, putting him in control of his destiny and forcing PA to keep striking to give himself a chance.
Two good ones in the 9th and 10th set up a critical shot in the 11th that would force Page to get the first strike in 10th to win. On that shot, PA thought it was good off his hand but it crept a little high and looked like it would leave a 6-pin. But the 3-pin gave the old Obama fist-bump to the butt of the 6-pin and nudged it over, leading to a massive hand-slap from Allen and a bit of a sigh from Rhino. A nine-count on the fill ball set the stage for Rhino, who now needed a strike and nine-spare to win his first major.
Rhino packed the first one and set himself up for the biggest shot of his career. But just prior to stepping up for the coup-de grace, he amazingly made reference to the shot clock starting too early (huh? Like a $500 fine really matters when you need a hit for $50K?!). I also noticed that his shots in the 6th and 8th had started to hook a bit more (they both went very high flush) and I knew an adjustment was probably in order. At that point in the match, a little extra ball speed is the safest play and it looked like that’s what he did on his blistering first strike in the 10th. Whatever was going through his mind (probably not Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, I’m guessing), he needed to throw one more good pitch like the hard, tight shot he threw in the 10th. The shot in the 11th was hard but not tight and it sailed wide, missing the headpin and cutting through the rack for a very unusual four-count washout. Game over. Slick Mop wins. And for the second time in three weeks (remember Walter Ray’s 8-10 in Reno to give PA that title?), Patrick Allen looked like he was having an astral projection experience, not believing what had just happened.
But what a great show it was! I felt bad for Rhino, the new David Cook of the PBA Tour (my mom said, “Wow! He’s good looking!” so at least he’s got that going for him, which is nice), but shooting 263 for the title is nothing to be ashamed of. To me, the whole experience gives me hope that the PBA is still capable of great things and that, at its best, its just as good as anything out there in the world of sports. Hopefully, the rest of the season can live up to the standards set by this week’s show.
What did you think? Please e-mail me with your thoughts on this week’s show at jason@jasonthomasbowling.com. Also check out my other weekly blog as well as the latest episode of The Bowling Show. See you next week!