Author: internetbowlingpersonality

This installment of The One Board originally appeared in Bowlers Journal International, April, 2019

I watch a lot of bowling. Aside from the common-sense observations everyone sees, like an asymmetric ball with a pin-up layout and no weight hole coming off the back of the medium-length high-volume pattern with fried fronts differently from 8 than from 12 when the temperature was between 40 and 50 degrees last night with a 20% chance of rain and a forecasted thunderstorm 10 days from now 30 miles northwest of the venue, I also perceive less obvious developments. This month, we’ll explore three of them.

The most exciting score in bowling is 177.

There is very little suspense on every bowling shot, specifically at the professional level. That is, the expected outcomes of all shots are so much more likely than other outcomes, it’s hard to surprise anyone.

Stats show bowlers strike on their first shots most of the time. They make their single pins almost all the time and they rarely convert difficult splits. When fans see what they expect, there’s no surprise and thus, no overwhelming outburst of cheering.

Thus, the most exciting frame in bowling requires a bowler to roll a great shot that results in a 7-10 split, captivating fan interest even if dubiously. Next, the bowler must create more intrigue by picking up the 7-10 split, sending everyone into frenzied applause. Therefore, the most exciting score in bowling is 177 (10 7-10 conversions followed by a lily on the fill ball). One could also argue for a 179 with a stone 8 on the fill or possibly for a 178 with yet another 7-10 split, but in this scenario, a lily seems like the absolute best way to close that game.

Rolling 177s won’t help bowlers make any cuts, but if anyone puts together the game described above, it will be the most exciting and most famous game of bowling in history.

The least exciting score in bowling is 178.

The most boring result on a first shot is eight. No splits; just standard 6-10s. Also, an 8-count is innocuous, so you don’t risk adding any exhilaration by rolling so many eights in a row. Combine 10 straight 8-counts with 10 consecutive easy spares, then finish with another 6-10 leave on the fill, and you’re at 178. You just rolled the most boring game of all time, but at least you beat the guy who just rolled the most famous game of all time. He’ll be remembered, but you have the larger paycheck.

Practice is more entertaining than qualifying.

There are a lot of similarities between an event’s official practice session (held the day before competition begins) and its qualifying rounds. All the players are there, bowling is happening throughout the entire bowling center, shots are rolled and lessons are learned.

During practice, there’s no score, which should immediately be the biggest argument against this observation. However, with the music playing during practice, there’s an environment of fun for the fans. The players are more interactive with each other and with the fans, who are naturally encouraged to create a healthy murmur amongst themselves rather than be filled with the overwhelming dread that any movement whatsoever will kill the entire sport. The entire mood in the building, although practice is an important part of a player’s tournament, is much lighter.

The pace is quick. Nobody yields to anybody. Someone is always bowling and fans’ favorite players roll seemingly limitless shots. Everything is moving, everything is exciting, everything is fun.

In qualifying, there’s no music. There’s yielding in every direction. The mood is anxious. There are scores, which is nice from a sporting perspective, but fans are scared to look at the scoring monitors for fear of raising their gaze too rapidly while someone was going through his pre-shot routine six lanes away.

After two hours of practice, an enthralled spectator wanting more might say, “That’s it?” After two hours of qualifying, a bewildered spectator might say, “What game are they in? How many more?”

Three more, sir. Three more. And don’t forget to stick around for B squad.

This installment of The One Board originally appeared in Bowlers Journal International, March, 2019

Bowling vernacular continues to astound in its breadth, absurd reach and ability to hijack phrases—even those that could formerly be used in other walks of life—as its own. This month, we explore a few phrases bowling has annexed, rendering them completely meaningless except in a bowling context.

Appropriating Bartenders

In bartending, a wet/dry shake is used to create a luscious egg-white froth on top of a beverage. The skilled barman will combine all ingredients except the egg white into a shaker, add ice, and shake vigorously to chill the drink. That’s the wet shake. Next, he’ll get rid of the ice, add the egg white and do a dry shake (meaning without ice) to allow the egg white to turn into a beautiful foam. Cocktail aficionados understand there are some schools of bartending that do the dry shake first, but either way, it’s being shaken twice; the wet/dry shake.

The terminology is rendered meaningless though, as all we can think of when anticipating our Pisco sours is the fact that a tiny error left or right and we’re facing a horrible mess in the pin deck. Wet/dry is gone from bartending—and vacuums, by the way—and is exclusive to bowling.

Usurping Aviation Enthusiasts

Pilots, aspiring pilots and plane watchers frequently use the word “approach” as if it still belongs to them. Unfortunately, it doesn’t. Making a final approach into Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport doesn’t bring to mind any meaning except that the pilot must be rolling the fill ball, making it his final approach of the day.

How air-traffic controllers and pilots are able to navigate the intricate air-travel system around the world is mind-boggling on its own, but think of how much added stress these people face with images of all those fill balls going down the runways.

Seizing From Other Sports

Remember when a line change in hockey meant something? The players on the ice made their way to the bench while being replaced by an equal number of players (one hopes) from the bench. Now, it must all be done by intuition, as stubborn coaches hanging on to shouting “line change” are only confusing their players, whose minds associate the phrase with making a big move on the lane to completely alter the shape of a bowler’s shot. The same confounding thoughts permeate hockey players’ minds if the coach has the gall to mention zones.

People used to talk about the pin position on a golf course. Whether it was in the front, middle or back of the green would alter a player’s approach (like pilots, golfers have also lost this word). Now, a pin position can only refer to the layout on a bowling ball or the spot of a pin on the deck. Does golf have any phrases left? Pin position, approach, par, hook, flag, ball—all conceded to bowling.

Invading Brooklyn

An entire borough of New York City lost its identity when bowling decided to name the wrong side of the pocket after the land colonized by the Dutch in 1646. Incidentally, the Dutch have also been tarnished by bowling and its decree that alternating strikes and spares is called a Dutch 200. What does bowling have against the Dutch?

Owning Qualifying

There are other sports with qualifying rounds. There are loans that require applicants to qualify. Sweepstakes winners have to meet qualifications to be eligible to claim their prizes. Thanks to bowling, “qualifying” is stricken with an inherent dread that makes people hope their loans are rejected and their sweepstakes entries remain uncalled.

Qualifying, from the inception to the end of time (and that’s just B squad), along with all these other terms, will forever be exclusive to bowling.

This installment of The One Board originally appeared in Bowlers Journal International, February, 2019

January gave bowling fans more than anyone could reasonably request: four PBA Tour championships were won (five if you count both doubles partners, which I don’t), the telecasts on Fox and FS1 are getting unheard-of ratings and positive reviews, and of course the excitement of the silly season in which several players move from throwing the best equipment in the world to a new company with which they can throw the best equipment in the world.

Through all the excitement and qualifying, it’s hard to believe January actually happened, but it most certainly did.

So, with that all behind us, and already having received more than we could reasonably ask, we can focus on Big February, during which the PBA will give us four live telecasts, two of which are majors, with a chance to see someone win a million dollars if he can bowl a perfect game in the championship match.

These are the types of things we need to appreciate while they’re happening, as such wondrous times may never happen again. It’s hard to relish the moments, though, because something about bowling stops time while continuing to pass time. The moment is gone before we realize we’re in the moment, which is probably even harder for the bowlers working so hard to stay in the moment, trust the process and take it one shot at a time.

The shortest month of the year will feel even shorter the instant the first ball is rolled at the Tournament of Champions. Rather than measure the passage of time in minutes or hours, we begin measuring it in games bowled, made even more confusing by resetting the count at the beginning of each squad. By the end of the day, we’re flabbergasted; the day happened, yes, but we don’t remember any of it, all while remembering all of it. We know the leaderboard and where the bowlers were playing, but we have no idea if it’s Tuesday or Wednesday. In fact, it might be Thursday.

Soon enough, we’ve left Fairlawn and are still watching bowling, although now we’re in Columbus and the guy who won in Fairlawn isn’t doing so well. It’s weird because he was just dominating the entire field. What happened? It’s a week later, but only feels like two seconds. We’re aging rapidly without ever realizing it, expanding our brains with bowling stats but still failing to recognize the difference between morning and night because our minds can’t get away from wondering whether transition will hit B squad at the same time it hit A squad.

Time zones are irrelevant. Bowling renders them all the same. If traveling from the east to the west, we might get one morning in which it’s easier to wake up early, but the instant the first ball rolls cleanly through the heads, all time-related advantages are gone.

How does bowling have the power to make time pass quicker while also making it seem to pass slower? Why does a qualifying block appear as if it will never end, only to make us say, “That was fast” when the final shot of the round is rolled? If a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it, what ball are you throwing? These are unanswerable, rhetorical questions that should never be asked.

Bowling has power over time. It paradoxically takes way too long to move way too quickly. We simply have to take a moment, which is either a half second or three eons or both, and appreciate it.

This installment of The One Board originally appeared in Bowlers Journal International, January, 2019

Bowling enters 2019 with more optimism than any time in recent memory. In The One Board’s third annual year-start countup, we anticipate 19 reasons—some obvious, some subtle, some obviously subtly obvious—2019 is going to be a tremendous year, principally due to bowling.

1. The PBA begins its run on Fox.
2. The PBA on Fox means the return of Rob Stone, which means the bowling community has an opportunity once again divide itself over whether or not four strikes in a row is called a hambone or a four-bagger. Amazingly, the bowling community refuses to argue about it and everyone agrees to simply enjoy the excitement of the hambones all year.
3. Players who have demanded a “real tour” for years will spend the first three months of 2019 complaining about being on the road so much…
4. …Except the guy who bowls 300 in the title match of one of the February events, wins $1,000,000, welches on all the chop deals and retires to Nice. Or Montana.
5. EJ Tackett wins two of the majors in February, guaranteeing Player of the Year honors with 10 months to play.
6. Roster turnover in the PBA League is larger than ever.
7. The PBA Playoffs prove to be the greatest thing to happen to bowling since 1958.
8. A new, demented phishing scam targets bowlers. An email coming from someone named “The Process” asks for bowling balls to be sent as deposits, which will then be returned 300-fold. Bowlers, incapable of not trusting The Process, oblige. The culprit is caught weeks later by a suspicious UPS driver who has never seen so many bowling balls delivered to a single house in such a short period of time, even more impressive because that driver used to work the Stu Williams route in Phoenix.
9. Jason Belmonte wins his 10^th major title, tying the all-time record and guaranteeing his fourth Player of the Year award.
10. For the 61^st consecutive year, an immeasurable number of people will be referred to as great guys.
11. FloSports creates a crossover promotion between FloBowling and FloTrack. Fans have to guess how many marathons can be completed before the end of A-squad qualifying. The winner of the contest is excused from watching B squad.
12. The elite-field PWBA events continue to be as compelling as an event with qualifying rounds can be. Last year’s top three in points—Shannon O’Keefe, Danielle McEwan and Stefanie Johnson—each win one of the first three events, guaranteeing themselves the Player of the Year award.
13. In an all-Liz final at the fourth event, Kuhlkin beats Johnson by one pin at the USBC Queens, guaranteeing herself the Player of the Year award. Johnson is okay, as she’s already guaranteed the award due to résumé.
14. Governments around the world change the length of a week to two days, which is an easy transition for bowling, where we’ve been saying “all week” in reference to two-day events for years.
15. For the first time in history, a bowler—let’s say Josh Blanchard—rolls 299 during qualifying and thanks the person with the video camera for capturing the excitement.
16. The PBA50’s Matrix of Fairness evolves yet again, this time awarding the title to the leader of qualifying, but still requiring bowlers to play cashers round, match play and the stepladder finals to determine how much money everyone gets. If the qualifying leader bails before any of that bonus bowling, he’s stripped of his title, which is then awarded to the winner of a special five-frame, three-person match between the leading casher, a randomly drawn bowler who missed the cut, and the first fan aged 60 or older to report to the front desk. If two fans reach the front desk at the same time, and pending age verification, they must compete in a one-game rolloff on a neutral pair they’ve both either watched or not watched all day.
17. Jakob Butturff guarantees himself Player of the Year by leading the U.S. Open field by nine thousand pins.
18. Need more games.
19. Andrew Anderson and Jordan Richard win PBA and PWBA Player of the Year, respectively, guaranteeing that guarantees mean nothing.

Happy 2019, bowling fans.

This installment of The One Board originally appeared in Bowlers Journal International, December, 2018

Recently, while bowling in a late-night, non-sanctioned, alcohol-free misfit league, a group of four nicely dressed individuals—two women, two men, all probably in their late 20s—walked into the bowling center. My teammates and I observed them, then wondered, “Who walks into a bowling alley at 10:30 p.m. on a Tuesday?”

It’s a fair question, but we’ll get back to that.

The foursome, I would further speculate, were out for a nice dinner on what appeared to be a double date in which they were all happy to partake. They seemed to all be friends and possibly enjoyed each other’s company. In all likelihood, they were having such a good time at dinner, they didn’t want it to end, and one of them said, “Let’s go bowling.”

Then, presumably after laughing for a moment, they actually did go bowling.

Sure, they were terrible and yes, the one drunk guy clad in ill-fitting khakis mocked the league bowlers and yes, the other guy and his ladyfriend spent the entire evening making out in the settee area, but they paid their money, traded their 18-inch heels for bowling shoes and became customers.

They also complained about alcohol not being served in the center, which is completely acceptable as the mere fact they complained about something means they are well suited to become lifelong bowlers.

Getting back to the initial speculation: who walks into a bowling alley at 10:30 p.m. on a Tuesday? The worst part about that question is it’s a legitimate question. It’s strange enough to see random humans want to bowl on Tuesday night that their presence is considered odd.

What else would they be doing? Watching 47 consecutive episodes of some great show on Netflix that I’d certainly love if only I’d give it a chance by watching the first three seasons? Texting their friends, presumably about some great show I’d certainly love if only I’d give it a chance? Sleeping?

None of those alternate activities are nearly as wonderful as late-night bowling. We shouldn’t be wondering why they walked in. Rather, we should simultaneously be glad they walked in and full of resentment because they’re still making out. Still, we should be happy they chose to do so in a bowling center rather than at home, where the slightest peck on the cheek can cause an important whispered line from some great show I’m sure I’d love if I’d give it a chance to go unheard, requiring a complete re-watch of the episode.

Why aren’t there more people who, even if they went out for a different reason, come up with the legitimately brilliant idea to go bowling? Since anybody reading this sentence is passionate enough about bowling to subscribe to a niche publication, obviously we’re not the problem. However, we can be the solution.

I don’t know which of the four people from my tale uttered the crucial “Let’s go bowling” words, but that person is a hero. The other three were smart enough to agree. All we need to do now is be that hero. Suggest bowling as the evening’s main activity or as a nightcap and watch everyone agree. You will have come up with the best idea of the evening, and as long as you don’t make a big deal about not having all your equipment with you and thus won’t perform as well as normal, everyone will have fun.

This is all assuming you’re not in the middle of some great show I’m sure I’d love if I’d just give it a chance. After the series finale, though, step out of the house and onto the approaches.

This installment of The One Board originally appeared in Bowlers Journal International, November, 2018

When I last wrote about pace of play, in the August 2017 issue of Bowlers Journal International, I suggested we bring the pace-of-play discussion to bowling, as it has been prevalent in every other sport for years.

Now, more than a year later, that discussion is still standing on the approach, yielding to another discussion three pairs down, then dabbing its rosin bag, then wiping its shoe, stepping up to the dots, standing statuesquely for a minute or two, finally taking one-and-a-half steps, then turning around, setting the ball on the ball return and restarting the entire process all over again.

Why do people complain about a three-hour baseball game, a four-hour football game or a six-hour final minute of a basketball game, but three five-hour blocks of bowling in a single day are treated as normal? What fan has 15 hours available to watch all that? And then watch it again the next day and the day after that?

In order to fix the problem, we first need to identify the problem. Having spoken with several current and former PBA players, a few common causes of unbelievably slow play come up:

Players Don’t Know the Cross

This is probably the most frequent explanation, particularly when inexperienced players are in the field. Bowlers who aren’t accustomed to yielding an entire pair in each direction sometimes get confused and don’t bowl when it’s their turn, which can then throw off the rotation several pairs left and right.

This kills a few seconds each time it happens, plus another few seconds when the guy on the adjacent pair takes time to yell at the offending bowler. For every 10 times this happens, we add about an extra minute to the block. A convenient concept to blame, but not the worst offender.

Players Know the Cross but Yield Anyway

Some players aren’t content with yielding one pair left and one pair right. Some will yield two or three pairs in either direction. Or, when tournament directors place dead pairs in between competition pairs in an effort to speed things up, players will still yield to the pairs beyond the dead pairs, rendering all efforts useless, and technically putting everyone into violation of the shot clock.

This offense is way more prevalent than players not knowing the cross, and also more egregious, as it’s intentional, whether conscious or not.

Players Chastise Players for Adhering to the Rules

On occasion, a player won’t yield do a dead pair and will bowl regardless of whether someone is bowling two pairs left or right. This is well within the rules, but somehow offends another player, who then takes time to yell at the non-offending offender, probably adding even more time to the block than if the original player would’ve played by the unwritten rules rather than the real rules, ultimately slowing the pace despite good intentions.

Thumb Grips

This idea has been finding hold of late, but I’m not convinced. The ability to remove a thumb grip from one ball and put it in another is tremendous for players, allowing them to keep the same feel on every ball they throw. Unfortunately, if a player doesn’t strike, he has to wait for his ball to come back so he can get the thumb grip, remove it and place it into his spare ball. The actual switching of the interchangeable grips doesn’t take long at all, but waiting for the ball can.

However, we can’t blame that wait period, because the ball almost always returns to the player before the bowlers left and right have yielded, stalled, reset and yielded again. Thus, as long as the player removes and replaces his grip immediately upon receiving the ball, the time it takes to do so is inconsequential. Thumb grips will only become the issue if we can eliminate all the other simultaneous delays that currently cover for the grips’ culpability.

So, what’s the overall cause? All these things and more. Thankfully, there’s an easy solution: more games.

This installment of The One Board originally appeared in Bowlers Journal International, October, 2018

As I’ve stated on record many times, bowling vernacular is one of the most fascinating, engrossing and enthralling subsets of speech in existence. Being able to combine sign language that isn’t sign language with English that isn’t English and somehow be understood by another bowler is astonishing.

Thus, I’m not suggesting we rid our language of absurd terms like “skid-flippy” or “bouncy,” as those are crucial to being able to talk over the heads of laymen, which is part of the fun of having a vernacular.

However, there are certain terms we use too often in bowling that need to go away. Here are three:

“Regular Tour”

When people say “regular tour,” they’re referring to the PBA Tour, but it is one of the worst possible ways to refer to the absolute pinnacle of the sport. There is nothing regular about the most exclusive, talent-laden, lucrative and entertaining bowling tour in the world.

Calling the highest level of the game “regular” condemns it to being normal, when it is as far from normal as possible. A normal bowler doesn’t average 220 on a flat pattern, or have companies paying him to wear their logos, or get to compete on national television for a five-figure payday on multiple occasions. A normal bowler doesn’t get a private bathroom. Fine, so that part’s the same.

Maybe we call it the regular tour to distinguish between the PBA50 Tour and the PBA Regional Tour, but that’s a redundant distinction, as the “50” and “Regional” designations already exist to differentiate those tours from the PBA Tour, which stands on its own as the best in all of bowling. It is anything but regular.

“Unfair”

Yes, everything is unfair. That’s a fact. But maybe if we stop acknowledging it, it’ll go away? Yeah, that guy got a better cross, and the lefties have the berries this week (unless you’re a lefty, in which case the lanes are walled for the righties), and one more game (or one fewer game) would’ve hurt the guy ahead of you and helped you, and you hit all the tough lanes while everyone else hit all the easy ones, and the other squad was stacked and yours was loaded with donks, and it rained before you bowled, and the temperature fluctuated wildly, and so on.

These are all indisputable facts. But, since they’re true for everyone, and because nothing in life is fair—for proof, consider magicians, who exploit this truth to the extent that they ask the audience if something is fair, only to use that distraction to be devilishly deceitful—let’s accept the odds are always against us, no matter what, and any semblance of success we can find deserves to be lauded forever. Or turned into a rabbit.

“One Shot at a Time”

The winner won because he “took it one shot at a time,” but when asked to elaborate on what specifically the bowler focused on in those several dozen one shots, he’ll tell you he stayed in the moment and trusted the process, further confusing the issue.

Yes, we understand it means the bowlers aren’t dwelling on what already happened and aren’t thinking ahead to what might happen, and this is probably good advice for young bowlers. But we’re not at a coaching clinic; we’re on the approach with the winner after a major championship and we want to hear what about those one shots, or those moments, or that process, made that player so much better than the rest of the field, most of whom were also taking it one shot at a time while staying in the moment and trusting the process.

The strategy itself is fine, and I’m not saying bowlers should give it up. However, we should henceforth assume everyone knows about the one-shot-at-a-time strategy, and skip past it into the compelling part. It’s much more enthralling to hear about even one of those shots than to hear that each one of them was, in fact, an individual shot.

I know I’m not The Process, but trust me.

This installment of The One Board originally appeared in Bowlers Journal International, September, 2018

Since the dawn of spheres, people have been debating about how best to put on a bowling tournament. Should the focus be on fairness to the competitors? Entertainment for the fans? Some kind of science-defying solution that is both fair and entertaining?

Yes, let’s try that last thing.

First, we need to exclude the good players so everyone else has a chance. Except no fans want to watch lesser players bowl, and we need fans to generate sponsorships, and advertisers don’t spend money on fairness. Maybe, instead, we need to exclude the lesser players, because they “play the lanes wrong” and get in the way of the good players. But, without the lesser players, whose bank accounts are the good players going to raid?

Of course, we can’t separate the two groups, because that would put a clear line between professionals and amateurs, which would ruin bowling’s storied tradition of the infinitely blurred line we all cherish so much.

Looks like we need to open the field to everyone, but make sure all players—from the greatest player who ever lived to the lowliest schlub—have an exactly equal chance to win.

That may not seem fair to the best players, but their ability—which is already unfairly higher than that of the lesser players—should balance out any issues.

To maintain integrity, we need to start with a lot of qualifying games. Let’s go with 10 eight-game blocks, totaling 80 qualifying games. If we’re truly being fair, it should be an infinite number of games, because there will always be someone a thousand pins out of the cut who is sure he could’ve made it if only given eight more games, but if we stop at 80, we’re going to almost always guarantee the best players will be at the top and still have a little bit of hand flesh remaining.

Now that we’ve separated the best players from the rest of the field, we need to make sure everyone makes the cut anyway, because it would be unfair if someone who bowled worse than someone else didn’t advance.

In order to give everyone a chance, we either need to give the players down in the field an opportunity to add pins artificially, or we need to strip the top players of the impressive pinfalls they earned during qualifying, rendering all 80 games utterly meaningless.

Unfortunately, if we make all the players drop their totals and start over in a shorter block, we’ve given a player who trailed by 35,000 pins a chance to defeat a guy who set the all-time 80-game pinfall record. Even an Epsilon-Plus can see that’s not fair. Instead, maybe we should add a match-play round and give players a reward (in the form of 30 pins, perhaps) for winning a match. This adds importance to head-to-head competition, turning the players into competitive athletes and instantly adding entertainment value. Unfortunately, this may reduce fairness as the match-play matrix might randomly determine a slightly more favorable schedule for one player over another.

At the professional level, reduced fairness is necessary, as ongoing high-dollar bowling can’t exist without the coveted added money from advertisers. At the non-professional level in which little, if any, added money is involved, we can weight the format entirely toward fairness, as it doesn’t matter if the event is contested in front of an audience of zero or six billion.

Of course, this means the best bowlers are subject to the least fairness, but have a chance at the most money, whereas the rest of the bowlers get more fairness and less money, but at least they have a nice way to spend a weekend and don’t have to wear slacks.

And that, bowling fans, is the perfect bowling format.

“But,” interrupts a reader, “your alleged perfect bowling format is incomprehensible, incomplete and hasn’t even been fully explained due to multiple tangents and contingencies.”

That’s a fair point.

This installment of The One Board originally appeared in Bowlers Journal International, August, 2018

Early in the morning, as the dew still glistens atop the surrounding farm land, pins are already crashing inside the bowling center. Professional bowlers move from lane to lane within a designated range, trying every bowling ball in their armoire-sized roller bags, hurling shots in all directions without care for the actual pinfall, as scores won’t matter for another 40 minutes or so. This is pre-practice practice. Fans settle in behind their favorite bowlers, excited for the full day of bowling ahead of them.

Meanwhile, the competition pairs outside the designated range have been oiled but remain vacant, settling themselves for the competition to come. The calm before the Storm, Roto Grip, 900 Global, Motiv, Brunswick, DV8, Ebonite, Columbia 300, Hammer and Track.

Over a crackling PA system, we hear the golden tones of the tournament director: “Players, hold up on your practice; it’s time to start practice.”

The players carefully pack their rolling closets with bowling balls and wheel everything to the competition pairs.

Fans, who had already settled in, had their breakfast sandwiches delivered to their spots and taken one bite, meaning their hands are greasy enough for any movement to be inconvenient, wonder why their once-prime seats are now completely useless. Frantically, they pack up their programs, purses, coffees, sandwiches and napkins, then bolt to the previously vacant pairs, clamoring to get a great seat for the second time prior to 8 a.m. that day.

Pre-practice practice was nice for the players, allowing them to warm up, test a couple strategic options, and get ready to play, but now, it counts.

Well, no, it still doesn’t count, but it means a little more as they get an additional 15 minutes of practice on what will be their starting lanes. The practice shots they roll now can actually have an impact on the real shots they might eventually roll in the first game of competition.

With eight full games of qualifying ahead of them (followed by a quick break and then eight more games), it’s amazing to witness the endurance of these human beings who have voluntarily added an entire hour of bowling to their already-scheduled 10 hours for the day.

“Players, you have two minutes of practice remaining,” announces the tournament director, who adds, “except for those of you on 19 and 20, who will get an additional five minutes due to a breakdown.”

Of all the practice, perhaps the best practice is the our-lanes-broke-down-during-practice practice.

For the uninitiated, there’s no skipping procedure during pre-practice practice nor during real practice. Bowlers don’t have to yield to anything or anyone, don’t even require full racks and can all bowl at exactly the same time if they want. Once competition starts, though, the one-pair courtesy rule comes into play. Yield one pair left, one pair right, bowl.

Thus, the players on 19 and 20, who have been pre-practice practicing for a half hour, plus an additional 10 minutes of real practice, going as quickly as they want (or can) to get as many shots in as possible, suddenly have to yield to the competition while continuing to practice, convoluting the timing of both the competitors and the practicers.

Everyone is thrown off, especially Barry, the fan who, in a well-meaning gesture, inevitably spilled his ketchup-smothered hash browns all over his clean white shirt when he ran to the front counter to inform someone the scores weren’t working on 19 and 20.

After all this, we get to another staple at every bowling tournament: the fifth-frame conversation between the announcers, talking about how they’re surprised the scores are so low after the players got 15 minutes of practice on their pairs. And if that doesn’t make you want to stick around for game two (when the players score better every time for some reason), nothing will.