It was the best of times it was the worst of times, my summer league in a nutshell

[zdawg]

Last week going into the position round we were in 2nd place by one lousy stinking point, the team we faced was also the first half of the season winners in addition to being ahead of us by one point. In short, we SMOKED them in game 1 and set the record for the highest team series for the whole season, and after giving up a closely contested second game finished strong in the third and came away with 3 of the 4 points and a rematch for this week for the CHAMPIONSHIP....Or so I thought

Turns out the biggest ahole (more on this guy later) in our league had his team in third place (only behind us by one point) had easily won the first two games/points of the night when their lanes stopped working in the second frame of the third game. Obviously they needed that fourth point to force a bowloff against us to see who got to play in the championship. In order for them to finish out that game was apparently going to take quite a bit of time because open bowling had already started and they need to fix the pinsetters...and blah blah blah I got tired of hearing him talk as I was not a happy camper.

The team that was losing just wanted to go home at this point and asked to forfeit, so our captain was asked if she was ok with them getting the fourth point without having to earn it (even though we had already played our full 3 games) and she agreed - I wasn't happy with this and I still feel this was the wrong decision as they came into the game having only bowled 2 games which they just finished, while we had sat around getting cold for close to an hour.

Needless to say two of our bowlers, including our best guy/anchor who finished with a 210 average just couldn't get back on track (he finished with a 160 if I recall correctly) so we lost by less than 10 pins and were relegated to third place. Furthermore, the ahole I mentioned earlier was hooting and SCREAMING AT THE TOP OF HIS LUNGS everytime he hit a strike, running up and down the lanes, and carrying on every single frame. Before our anchor even threw his last ball he was standing behind us cheering as loud as possible about how he is playing for the championship next week (guess his team had nothing to do with it).

He basically made Pete Weber look extremely conservative in comparison. I've gotten into plenty fights in other sports I played growing up, in football its almost expected, in mma the whole point is to fight, but this is the only time I've ever wanted to knock somebody out in a bowling alley (fortunately I chose to leave abruptly instead).

So last night we were playing only for individual awards/money, I opened with a spare and then hit 8 strikes in a row (for the first time), going into the 10th I felt pretty good about achieving my best score EVER and on a league night as an added bonus. Well, as I got into my slide my foot stuck/jammed came to an abrupt halt about half a foot or so before the foul line (I normally end up right before/at the line). As the ball went forward so did my momentum and entire body weight, and in a last ditch effort I threw my right leg out to try to keep from belly flopping on the lane. Unfortunately I was too far forward and before my foot even hit the lane/oil I knew what was about to happen so I tucked my chin to keep from bouncing my head off the floor and managed to land perfectly (thanks Judo classes!) and get back up without injury (except my pride especially when several people came over to ask if I was "ok").

After that my confidence shifted quite a bit, as I became very leery of getting too close to the foul line so I started to fall back into a bad habit I used to have of leaning back and planting my slide foot, which has the effect of forcing me to pull/muscle the ball since my momentum is no longer forward and muscling is the only way to get any speed on the ball. Fortunately I was able to battle through and salvage somewhat, and finished with a 600+ series, but more importantly it was good enough to win the 2nd best series of the night in the men's division (first place beat me by less than 10 pins which I probably would've had if I hadn't fallen)....and the ahole? He only got fourth place and I along with several other folks booed him - sorry I stayed as classy as I could but I wanted him to remember me during the fall league. I'm pretty easy going until somebody really pisses me off and he accomplished just that

All in all the summer league was quite the roller coaster ride, and ended as well as it could have given the circumstances, and coincidentally it also concludes my first year as a bowler, very much looking forward to doing some damage in the fall leagues (to the pins not the ahole)

CLIFF NOTES: My summer team narrowly got beaten out of our championship shot by the biggest ahole to ever set foot in a bowling alley, Zdawg won the second best series of the night despite opening up the 10th frame by stepping in the lane and trying to execute a backflip

[MiggityMatt]

Well, now you know...there's always one ahole/DB.

I agree, I would've asked them to finish and earn the last game. At least he didn't get the Championship. Not sure why he was so excited about winning a summer league. A win is a win but it sounds like he was really pumping himself up over nothing.

I know exactly what you mean about sticking/falling on the approach. You're head screwed for the rest of the night. Congrats on a new consecutive strikes PR. GL in the fall league. I hope you whoop his arse, on the score sheet.

[zdawg]

Well, now you know...there's always one ahole/DB.

I agree, I would've asked them to finish and earn the last game. At least he didn't get the Championship. Not sure why he was so excited about winning a summer league. A win is a win but it sounds like he was really pumping himself up over nothing.

I know exactly what you mean about sticking/falling on the approach. You're head screwed for the rest of the night. Congrats on a new consecutive strikes PR. GL in the fall league. I hope you whoop his arse, on the score sheet.

Yes there is always an ahole

[Aslan]

I'm kinda worried about that in my Thursday league. Should we actually finish 2nd and play for 1st in the position round in a few weeks…the 1st place team has one guy that gets quite drunk just about every night. He's very loud, very physical, very energetic. One of those guys that will run up and hug you even though you don't really know him "like that". And our team is older and more reserved and I just don't see them "liking" that.

But, fortunately/unfortunately…we'll be lucky to still be in 2nd place by then given our performances the last couple weeks.

[Blomer]

There was a guy last Fall who is in his early50's and very much a big fan of the WWE. After he threw his ball, he would walk back before the pins hitting the pins and do one of his many wrestling celebrations that the wrestlers apparently do. It's great when he didn't strike, which was often. Specially as he was a Greenbay Packers fan and I am a Chicago Bears fan. Lol

[chrono00]

There was a guy last Fall who is in his early50's and very much a big fan of the WWE. After he threw his ball, he would walk back before the pins hitting the pins and do one of his many wrestling celebrations that the wrestlers apparently do. It's great when he didn't strike, which was often. Specially as he was a Greenbay Packers fan and I am a Chicago Bears fan. Lol

My friends and i are all lifetime wrestling fans, so we always incorpate wrestling into bowling somehow.

2 years ago, if i got a turkey and or any strikes after id hop off the approach with a YES YES YES.
last year our team name was the unwashed masses (tribute to Damien sandow)
We alway do a backhand hand slaps with a ric flair WOOO After spares. (Our mindset is that the woo represents the ric flair chest slap, and much like a spare, while its good and a crowd pleaser, it wont put the opponent down for the coun)
And sbout a month ago we started renaming strike strings as finishers.
Double- top rope elbow, turkey-superkick 4-pedigree 5- scissor kick (booker t 5 time!)
The week we started this i had 5 in a row, missed the sixth so we never agreed on one for that.

[bubba809]

I think if I saw some guys doing backhanded hand slaps, I would have to perform a sister Abigail.