Category: The One Board

This installment of The One Board originally appeared in Bowlers Journal International, August, 2021

All sports deal with unbearable clichés. In bowling’s exclusive vernacular, there are several overt clichés led by trusting the process and taking it one shot at a time, but some of the best clichés are those that go unnoticed for a while. These phrases are like the chrysalis stage of a butterfly: a common expression in a cocoon isn’t quite yet a cliché. For one such expression, the cocoon stage is over as we’re finally calling attention to it: “It’ll be interesting to see.”

Listen for it. It’s everywhere.

It’ll be interesting to see how quickly we can get this saying to emerge as a cliché, then continue using it anyway.

These types of proclamations are generally spoken by bowlers, commentators, writers, fans and tournament staff prior to any round of bowling, whether it be qualifying, match play or the live-streamed or televised finals. We’re given a series of things that will be interesting to see—which are always the same, by the way—but then we actually start seeing what we’re told will be interesting with the accompaniment of dead silence. Is it not interesting after all? Or is it so enthralling that the commentators and spectators sit in stunned reticence, amazed at the early breakdown during frame one of game one of round one of day one that, yes, it truly is interesting to see?

It will be interesting to see how the pattern breaks down. It will be interesting to see how the players manage the traffic on the lanes. It will be interesting to see which players can consistently get to the breakpoint and control the pocket. It will be interesting to see which ball everyone throws. It will be interesting to see how the players adapt to this bowling center after bowling 2,000 miles away last week. It will be interesting to see what the scoring pace is like this week after the scoring pace, whatever it was, last week. It will be interesting to see how long we keep referring to a 2- 3-day stretch as a week.

Sure, these things are interesting to see. These are the reasons we watch bowling. They take place at every single bowling event ever. Essentially, listing these things prior to every round as being interesting to see is the same as saying, “You like bowling and therefore you will enjoy everything that happens.” Of course we will. To employ another cliché, it is needless to say these things will be interesting to see.

The only thing to talk about before anything is seen is that something will be interesting to see, even if nothing interesting is ever seen. Or, if something interesting is seen, no one points out “Hey, that was interesting to see” as we merely move on to what will be interesting to see next time, forgetting that a bird in the hand is worth two in the tenth.

This is all fine. No one is being harmed by either saying or hearing that something will be interesting to see. But when are we going to see something interesting? Yes, it’s interesting to see how the pattern breaks down, but it takes a few games for that to happen, sort of like being interested to see how water evaporates on the driveway after a slight rain, which may or may not affect the approaches. It is intriguing, but there’s no sudden explosion of fascination and celebration as would erupt for a 7-10 conversion. No one ever says it’ll be interesting to see if a 7-10 is converted today. That would be fantastical and outlandish.

And yet Anthony Neuer was featured on several national news outlets converting the 7-10 split. That was interesting to see.

This installment of The One Board originally appeared in Bowlers Journal International, July, 2021

One of the most essential of the many important things a bowler must conquer to find sustained success is lane topography. Whether they have access to topographical charts or have to figure it out by watching the ball roll down the lane (or both), bowlers have to be able to adapt to different topographical challenges from bowling center to bowling center, pair to pair and lane to lane.

The best players have an innate mastery of cartography, just as they intuitively understand every facet of complex fields like physics, meteorology and calculus. Even if players can’t necessarily explain to you why certain things are the way they are (although it’s fair to note there are those who can), they simply know it. This breeds confidence, which leads to better shots, which beget higher scores, which turn into more titles.

Partly because their knowledge is inborn but also because they don’t want to be offensive, a bowler will give you one of four very friendly answers if you ask about topography related to a specific tournament.

As a public service, here’s a handy guide translating what a bowler says about topography to what he or she really means about topography, bowling and life:

“The topography is pretty good here.”

The lanes aren’t perfectly flat, but they’re close. Any minor slants aren’t enough to negatively impact my ball too much and, most important, the lanes seem to favor my ball more than anyone else’s. I see no problems in my game and a lot of names behind mine on the leaderboard. I’m excited for round two.

“The lanes can be a little tricky.”

The lanes are legitimately pretty good throughout the house. However, they clearly favor that guy’s ball more than mine, which is unfair. Still, if I can control the pocket by consistently getting to the breakpoint and somehow get my ball to go through the pins correctly, I still have a chance, so I don’t want to complain yet. I reserve the right to complain later, though, if that guy’s ball keeps hitting valleys while I’m constantly hiking up mountains. I’m also thinking about spreading a rumor that 27-28 are tough without doing any research to see if that’s true just to get into some other guys’ heads a little bit. We’ll see how tomorrow goes.

“The lanes are different pair to pair.”

This is not a fun place to bowl. I’m basically spelunking without a headlamp while these other guys have miles of visibility and just have to let go of the ball in order to strike. I have no chance to make the cut and if it weren’t for pure luck, the guys averaging 240 wouldn’t have a chance, either. It’s a mental grind no matter how much trust I have in the process. I can’t use the same ball on my next pair as I used on the previous pair and it doesn’t help that I have to follow all those high-rev-rate guys. Plus, I have to start on 27-28 tomorrow and I heard that pair is really difficult. I feel good physically though. I guess this just isn’t my week, but I’m looking forward to next week.

“Every lane is different.”

What a mess. This is the worst place I’ve ever been in my life. I knew from the first shot of practice that every lane in this house was completely different. Magellan died before his expedition fully circumnavigated the globe and it was probably because of topography like this in the Philippines. None of the lanes are flat and I have no chance at all. It’s like the lanes were built by and for the guys averaging 240. The other three bowlers on my cross are all in their first tournament and spraying shots all over the place. Plus, I lost my lucky thumb slug last night. I may withdraw from this tournament and get a couple extra days at home. In fact, I may withdraw from all the upcoming tournaments and call it a career. Then again, I did figure something out toward the end of the block. If only I had another 12 games, I think I could catch the leader.

This installment of The One Board originally appeared in Bowlers Journal International, June, 2021

“Ring the bell!” chants the crowd at Bayside Bowl in Portland, Maine.

The chant is happening because there’s a tie score, but the chant is loud and passionate because, after the bell is actually rung and the crowd explodes into further pandemonium, we’re going to witness the most exciting moment in sports: the rolloff.

When a match comes down to two players getting one shot each, with the higher score advancing in a sudden-death tiebreaking rolloff, and with everyone in the building knowing the score and instantly being able to react to what happens, there isn’t a more accessible way for a casual fan to get into bowling.

For new fans, a rolloff is slightly easier to grasp than watching 14 hours of qualifying for three straight days, followed by two more 12-hour days of match play with wins that come with additional pins and losses that don’t necessarily mean anything (but could), leading to five players bowling a series of one-on-one matches until someone is holding a trophy.

To bowlers and bowling fans, rolloffs are exciting even if not always fair. To be fair about fairness, a rolloff is fair if a bowler wins but unfair if a bowler loses, rendering rolloffs neutral since there is always a winner and a loser.

A rolloff can take many forms. To determine who makes the cut from one round to the next, or for seeding in a stepladder or bracket, a full-game rolloff is used. In a televised one-on-one match, a single-ball rolloff or, as we’ve seen so often in the PBA Playoffs, a ninth-and-10^th-frame rolloff comes into play.

Among many exciting and important rolloffs, here are three recent examples of particularly unique and exciting rolloffs:

Barnes vs. Szczerbinksi, Barnes vs. Szczerbinski, Barnes vs. Szczerbinski

In the 2016 DHC PBA Japan Invitational, Chris Barnes and John Szczerbinski battled for the third seed during position round. Barnes, who entered position round in fourth, defeated Szczerbinski by exactly the right amount. When 30 bonus pins were added, the two were tied for third, necessitating a full-game rolloff immediately following their full-game position round to determine who would earn the third seed for the stepladder.

Barnes won the rolloff. As the fourth seed, Szczerbinski opened the telecast by defeating Shota Kawazoe, earning a third match with Barnes. Again, Barnes won. In the end, after three Barnes/Szczerbinski duels, Amleto Monacelli won his 20^th PBA Tour title, putting him into a then-three-way tie for 12^th in all-time PBA Tour titles. No rolloff has yet been scheduled to break that tie.

The Rolloff to Force a Rolloff

Last month, Jesper Svensson won game one over Sam Cooley in the PBA Playoffs. Cooley had to win game two in order to force a deciding ninth-and-10^th-frame rolloff. Needing a strike on his final shot to win game two by a single pin, Cooley instead got nine, tying Svensson.

The winner of game two would have to be decided by a one-ball rolloff. Svensson and Cooley both got nine on their first shots, requiring another round. Svensson again got nine, but Cooley struck, winning the rolloff to force a ninth-and-10^th-frame rolloff to decide the match. Cooley won that, too.

As this issue went to print, Cooley was in the semifinals (after another rolloff win over Tom Daugherty). If Cooley wins (won) the PBA Playoffs for $100,000, it would be the most lucrative instance of winning a rolloff to get to a rolloff in PBA history.

The Rolloff for the Alternate Spot

It’s hard to recall a more consequential rolloff than the one that took place at the 2020 PBA Indianapolis Open. At the end of qualifying, Walter Ray Williams Jr. and David Haynes were tied for 17^th. Since only 16 players made match play, it seems like 17^th wouldn’t matter, but that’s not true. Match play needs an alternate in case of injury. Both players wanted to be that alternate, and with Virgil as their guide, they bowled a full game prior to the first round of match play to determine who would be the alternate.

In the most fitting of outcomes, Williams, the all-time record holder in just about everything, added a new PBA Tour record to his résumé: the only man ever to win a rolloff to secure the alternate spot. He did not get into the action.

This installment of The One Board originally appeared in Bowlers Journal International, May, 2021

Last month, we saw two of the highest profile short-duration events on the USBC calendar. “Short duration,” of course, means “excruciating long-term mental pain.” Also, “USBC calendar,” in this case, means “USBC and/or BPAA event through qualifying and match play under USBC rules and then a stepladder finals portion contested under PBA rules that also counts as a PBA major title if the winner is a PBA member at the time of competition.”

The USBC Masters and U.S. Open both took place at the National Bowling Stadium in Reno, adding to the rich histories of the NBS and the events themselves. Including practice and a PTQ for the U.S. Open, each short-duration event lasted a full week and involved 16+ hours of daily qualifying before reducing to a mere 10+ hours of daily match play. Meanwhile, Major League Baseball worries about their three-hour pace of play.

If you’re new to bowling, you may be wondering how the duration of such a spectacle could possibly be considered short. During a day of qualifying, residents of the Eastern time zone could, completely hypothetically and not implying this very specific example happened, wake up at their usual time, put in a full day of work, play 18 holes of golf starting at 4:44 p.m., go out for dinner after the round, then still get home in time to watch every shot of C squad.

For further context, you could get on a plane in Detroit as the first ball of A squad was rolled, fly to Tokyo and be settled in your hotel room in time to watch the last two games of C squad. If you’re Eliud Kipchoge, the world record holder in the marathon at two hours, one minute and 39 seconds, you could run eight marathons in the amount of time it takes us to finish one of the five days of bowling competition. This leads to the long-held cliché among the marathon community: “It’s a bowling event; not a sprint.”

Unlike losing with 750 while the guy on the next pair wins with 540, let’s be fair: “short duration” is being compared to the Open Championships, which last for months. In that sense, a mere week of bowling certainly is short. However, in the Open Championships, each entrant bowls nine total games over the course of two days. In U.S. Open match play, each player bowls 16 games in a single day at the end of a week in which they already bowled 40 games. Which one, if either, is truly short?

All this ruminating is not to suggest the USBC Masters or U.S. Open are mislabeled as short-duration events. Within the bowling lexicon, they are correctly labeled. However, bowling has required so much time for so long that the tournaments we consider to be of a short duration still require us to use the long-term parking lot at the airport.

Whereas basketball fans will leave NBA games before the game ends, either to beat the traffic or because two hours of watching other people compete was enough, bowling fans look at a four-hour qualifying round and say, “That wasn’t so bad.” Then, immediately after saying it wasn’t so bad, another not-so-bad four-hour round starts.

We spend so much effort comparing bowling to itself that we’ve lost all context within real life. Yes, a four-hour qualifying round is short because normally qualifying takes five or more hours. Yes, a week-long event is short because another event lasts months. We don’t even have a specific cutoff for short oil versus long oil. We simply know it’s either short or long by comparing it to other patterns that are either longer or shorter.

Despite every other sport trying to speed up their games, why should bowling feel pressure to do the same? What’s wrong with comparing ourselves to ourselves? In what other sport can you spend a long time competing in a short-duration event while getting a long-term-stay rate at the hotel with a complimentary short-order breakfast prior to a long day on a short oil pattern with a long history of frustrating short-sighted players without a long view of the short event? After all, it’s a marathon; not a sprint.

This installment of The One Board originally appeared in Bowlers Journal International, April, 2021

Of the many disparate dichotomies unique to the bowling industry, perhaps the question of when it’s okay to tell anyone what happened is the most compelling. Specifically, we’re talking about televised stepladder finals that bring ire from all directions. These are live sporting events, airing as they happen on national television, with someone having the gall to announce the winner after the winner wins.

We want bowling to be treated with the same reverence and respect as football and yet we demand bowling results be kept secret until an undetermined time because we may not have seen them yet. If we’re to claim bowling should get as much time on the highlight shows as basketball, how can we also mandate not to be given any information on the bowling?

Sports anchor: “And the Hornets beat the Kings, 127-126. In bowling, the Tournament of Champions happened. Check back with us in a month or so after you’ve had time to watch the DVR.”

The spoiling of sporting events is a classic sitcom plot. Someone, usually the dolt father, has to miss the big game, often because his overbearing wife makes him go to the ballet. The father tapes the game. His kids or the babysitter (often the wacky neighbor or tool-show sidekick) watch the game live. When the father gets home, his only goal in life is not to hear any information about the game. No radio reports, no TV highlights, no accounts from the babysitter. Then, after apologizing to his wife for behaving like an oaf and resolving their conflict, just as the father sits down to watch the game, someone comes out and spoils the result. The father is disappointed but he deserves it due to his loutish behavior.

Most people can relate to such a thing, and it’s similar to what bowling fans feel in a sense. In a more real sense, it’s not the same thing at all. Someone trying to avoid the results of a sporting event knows to avoid the radio, TV, internet and human interaction because those results are going to be out there somewhere. In bowling, we expect bowling itself to hide the results from the world until we’re ready for them. But then we also complain if bowling tapes a show in advance for later airing, because we believe sporting events should air live.

Essentially: “I’ll only watch if it’s live, but if it’s live, I’m going to record it to watch later.”

In fact, FOX is spoiling the event as they’re airing it. Not only are they showing Dick Allen strike in the 10^th yet again, but they’re telling us the score. FOX needs to figure out a way to air the event without telling us what happened until the precise moment we want to know what happened and before we’re upset about not yet knowing what happened.

“That’s disappointing, I was going to watch game seven of the World Series of Baseball but I accidentally saw the score on my Twitter feed,” one might say. One might then follow it with, “The PBA is awful because they announced the results of the World Series of Bowling on their own website that I voluntarily accessed.”

Apparently, there is no right time to share bowling results with the world. Share them as they happen and you are a spoiling scumbag. Share them a week later and it’s old news. Share them in the middle of the week and you look lazy.

This is ludicrous. It’s a professional sport.

If we want bowling to be treated like other sports, we need to put the onus on ourselves. If we have to miss a telecast or the first six hours of a qualifying round, it’s up to us to avoid the results until we can watch our DVR or stare at the archives online. Chastising the media for covering our sport will lead to less media coverage, which will lead to less money, which will lead to more taped shows, which will lead to more demand for live shows so we can tape them. And our ball hasn’t stored enough energy for all that.

This installment of The One Board originally appeared in Bowlers Journal International, March, 2021

Every so often, something happens that makes an otherwise disinterested general public take notice of a particular niche. This niche is usually known in some sense to all and is beloved and fully understood by a dedicated minority, but seems kind of weird, complicated and even standoffish to regular humans.

Bowling has infiltrated mainstream society on several occasions, but while such an instance may increase broad interest and inspire someone to ask you who you think you are and then assert he is, it rarely translates into an influx of new fans debating which shoe sole they should be using when the humidity is higher than 60%.

In recent days, the niche claiming mainstream fame has been the stock market. In particular, GameStop (GME).

GameStop, whose name itself is an anathema to bowling as we all know there is never a reason to stop a game, rose from around $18 to nearly $500 per share in January alone, despite nothing in the company’s earnings or operations as a brick-and-mortar store in an anti-brick-and-mortar world suggesting it was worth anywhere near that much (or even worth $18; it was barely $2.50 in April of 2020).

Why?

A group of people on the internet challenged hedge fund managers who were shorting GME stock.

If you’re like most, such a premise is fascinating, but in order to fully understand it, you need to know what a hedge fund is, what shorting a stock is and how a group of people on the internet can use this information to create a short squeeze on hedge fund managers and temporarily make GameStop into a Fortune 500 company.

Even this is an oversimplified description and doesn’t get into the countermeasures employed by the hedge funds or the trading restrictions put in place by several companies. Still, beginning with the basics allows us to intrigue people enough that we can then get into the details with some level of knowledge.

In this way, the GME craze directly correlates with bowling. The premise—rolling a ball and trying to knock down as many pins as possible—is fascinating, which is why 67 million people bowl at least once every year (well, maybe not last year) in the United States alone. But to truly understand the game at its highest level can be an overwhelming, mind-boggling pursuit for a beginner.

If a stock-market expert tried to explain what’s going on with GME by first launching into the minutiae of hedge funds, shorts, short squeezes and other intricately detailed non-intuitive topics without explaining what those things actually are, novices would be overwhelmed before they had a chance to truly care about what’s going on.

Likewise, if we start with detailed explanations on oil breakdown (even though a beginner may not know there is oil at all), cover stocks (even though a beginner just wants to know where he can get a ball with a rose in it), rev rates (what?), axis tilts (you lost me), traffic (on the way to the bowling alley?), topography (I’m no cartographer) and match-play matrices (my head hurts), we’ll invariably be greeted with glazed-over eyes and blank faces.

If we can learn one thing from the GME hoopla (aside from the obvious fact that even the Matrix of Fairness can’t prevent the big guys from winning), it’s that we need to be smarter about how we introduce people to bowling. We must teach that there is oil before we can dissect how the oil breaks down. Here’s a simple mnemonic device to help: oil before breakdown, except after C squad.

The whole enterprise of day trading is fascinating and yet, if one wants to take a genuine interest in it, one is confronted by an inordinately inaccessible pile of convoluted jargon relayed through an incomprehensible lexicon that no normal human being could possibly understand without first learning the basics.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to shed the asym and find a shinier cover with a stronger layout that, when crisp, will breeze through the heads and get to the spot without a skid-flippy reaction after a four-and-two move two frames after a zone change following a blower 7 on the uphill left lane, knowing I need the first two hits to even have a chance at seeing cashers round.

This installment of The One Board originally appeared in Bowlers Journal International, February, 2021

According to olympic.org, there are at least 49 sports with a larger global appeal than bowling: breakdancing, surfing, skateboarding and sport climbing now among them. Bowling must be 50^th.

The recent announcement of these sports being added to the Olympics was undoubtedly great news for fans of those sports. For bowlers and bowling fans, it was merely four new items to add to the Sports to Resent List.

Calling out other sports for taking a spot bowling “should” have isn’t the right way to behave. It’s like the kid who didn’t make the basketball team in high school not content with simply being upset with himself or the coach, but also choosing to chastise another kid who made the team but “shouldn’t have.” No. That kid deserved to be on the bench and breaking deserves to be in the Olympics.

Instead of resenting the good fortune of these other sports, we can find optimism. Each one of them thrives on attributes taken from bowling. Eventually, the subliminal messages will get through and bowling will have its endless qualifying rounds broadcast at 2 a.m. by a perplexed, longing-for-winter Pierre McGuire.

Breakdancing will be called by its original name, breaking, and should be embraced by bowlers who have often taken inspiration from breaking. Whether in triumph or misery, bowlers have been collapsing to the approach for years, even if they exhibit very little movement once they land.

Breaking, with such a wide appeal that many people think it’s called breakdancing, will require constant explanation as to what we’re actually watching—sort of like an event using the World Bowling scoring system—and will also lead to confusing news crawls. “Breaking: Breaking breaker breaks records in Paris, waves break in Tahiti.”

Yes, surfing will take place 15,000 kilometers away, near the beaches of Tahiti. It’s hard to surf in the Rive Seine. This multiple-venue thing is also stolen from bowling, which has employed the tactic many times, notably holding the 2013 U.S. Open in three different bowling centers in Columbus and, although not originally planned this way, as recently as the 2020 World Series of Bowling that began in Las Vegas and concluded in Centreville, Virginia. Nor can we forget the ongoing PBA Players Championship.

Surfing, like skateboarding and sport climbing, will actually debut in Tokyo this summer, while breaking will have to wait until 2024. In Japanese, bowling (ボウリング or, using romaji, bōringu) is pronounced—not joking—“boring.” And what says bōringu more than the Olympics?

Skateboarding is arguably most famous for Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater, a videogame franchise almost as popular as Bowling by Jason Belmonte. At the recreational level, sport climbing is an accessible, fun, indoor athletic endeavor in which novices can rent or borrow equipment while they play. What familiar sport does that sound like?

We can resent these other sports taking up spots in the Olympics if we want, but in reality, bowling’s doing pretty well. 39 PBA Tour national telecasts in 2020 alone is more than breaking, surfing, skateboarding and sport climbing combined. Each of the four will get a few televised hours over two weeks during the Olympics and then we’ll completely forget about them until the next time they usurp bowling’s rightful spot in the Olympics.

While it’s not right to criticize the sports that are in the Olympics instead of bowling, we must admit it would be nice to have bowling join the Olympic lineup. Finally, we’d get to see the best players from around the world compete with each other.

Oh, they already do that? On a near-weekly basis? Well, that’s good news.

This installment of The One Board originally appeared in Bowlers Journal International, January, 2021

In The One Board’s fifth annual year-start countup, we eschew the trope of the year-end countdown and instead guarantee* 21 bowling-related happenings for the year ahead. Excitement, zeal and optimism are in our near future.

*Based on number of entries

In The One Board’s fifth annual year-start countup, we look into the year ahead with optimism and zeal. As always, all 21 reasons to be excited for the upcoming year involve bowling.

1. Bowling confidently returns, albeit with some lingering uncertainty. This is an upgrade from the certain lack of confidence throughout the back nine frames of 2020.
2. Bowling centers defy directives from governors and bureaucrats, citing simple semantics. The directives tell bowling alleys to close, but bowling centers are not bowling alleys. If one is too ignorant to know the lexicon, one is likely too ignorant to know whether or not it’s a safe environment.
3. After witnessing the success of Ryan Ciminelli immediately following his retirement last year, several more bowlers announce their retirements in an effort to reenergize their careers.
4. It doesn’t work. They can’t beat Ciminelli.
5. Someone figures out the magic formula for when to post bowling results to the internet. Since posting the results immediately after the event—like every other sport in existence—is considered a spoiler and waiting any longer is considered irrelevant, the inventor of the magic formula is immediately inducted into every possible bowling Hall of Fame.
6. The announcement of this genius’ Hall of Fame election is posted at the wrong time, spoiling the irrelevant news.
7. The title match of every PBA major has either EJ Tackett or Anthony Simonsen—or both—in it, improving on their three-for-four performance in 2020. They each win at least one.
8. In addition to national events, regional events and non-champions regional events, the PBA adds retired-only regional events, held every Thursday, to the schedule.
9. Walter Ray Williams Jr. retires every Wednesday, wins every Thursday, unretires every Friday and wins a standard regional every Saturday.
10. Williams wins all-types title number 200 in June.
11. The world finally embraces the enthralling splendor of the deadwood clear. Players choreograph deadwood clears in advance and eventually replace NFL touchdown celebrations on highlight shows.
12. In an effort to prevent better players from having a skills-based advantage in a professional sport, bowlers are excited to learn of the new PBA60 Retired Non-Champions Living North of the 35^th Parallel division. Williams abdicates all his titles, retires and moves to Minnesota. He wins his first event.
13. Beef and Barnzy, still going strong even with the return of actual bowling requiring more of their time, perfectly predict the PBA League draft picks during their 43^rd mock draft.
14. Cashers round is officially renamed cashiers round in order to make things easier on autocorrect. Everyone qualifying within the top third of the field, plus the next eight retired players, makes the cut.
15. The PWBA returns after a one-year sabbatical. Its expanded schedule gives fans in more locations than ever an up-close glimpse of Shannon O’Keefe hoisting a trophy.
16. Yes, fans.
17. Bowlers Journal announces its All-American team full of non-Americans, then has to explain (1) it’s like collegiate All-American teams and (2) what a collegiate All-American team is and (3) why professional bowlers are likened to amateur college students.
18. PBA League players adopt an optimistic attitude about only getting to bowl two frames per game, realizing it gives them eight extra frames during which to complain about not having eight extra frames to bowl.
19. The USBC brings back patches, pleasing several dozen lifelong bowlers. A few hundred thousand kids, upon receiving their first patches, ask, “What do I do with this?”
20. Jason Belmonte wins his seventh career PBA Player of the Year Award, either tying Williams’ record or moving seven ahead of him, depending on the day of the week.
21. Qualifying, in a grandiose show of its indestructability, outlasts a global pandemic. Then adds more games.

Happy 2021, bowling fans and bowlers. Wishing you happiness, prosperity and quadruple your entry fee for last cash in the new year.

This installment of The One Board originally appeared in Bowlers Journal International, December, 2020

Experts agree (except for those who don’t): the most important aspect of a bowling ball, especially at the highest levels of the game, is its surface. Whether the cover stock is reactive resin, urethane or plastic is obviously important, but more than that, it’s the precise surface of that surface that really matters.

A reactive-resin ball that comes out of the box with a 2,000-grit finish may be perfect for some bowlers in some conditions. In others, a bowler may want to use that same ball, but with a shinier finish (higher than 2,000 in this example) or a duller finish (lower than 2,000). In most cases, a ball with a shinier finish will hook later on the lane and a duller finish will hook sooner.

Intuitive so far.

To dull the cover, we want to add surface to the ball. In order to add surface, we must remove surface. Yes, in bowling, we refer to removing some of the surface from a bowling ball as adding surface to the bowling ball.

This process is why ball reps don’t own any clean jackets. Using sanding pads to scuff the bowling ball (the entire ball by rule, even though the track is the only part that touches the lane), the surface of the ball becomes duller. Although the shards and dust all over the ball rep and surrounding area make it clear surface has been removed, we now say the ball has more surface.

That’s great and still intuitive, but what do we achieve when we add surface by removing surface? We’re looking to find friction, specifically between the ball and the lane. The rougher the surface of the ball, the greater the potential for friction. Getting absurdly technical, but still intuitive, the higher a ball’s Ra value (no one knows what this stands for but it measures the height of the peaks and valleys on a ball’s surface; think the depth of treads on your car tires) and RS value (again, no one knows what this stands for or why RS is fully capitalized but Ra is half-capitalized, but it measures the distance between the peaks and valleys; think the distance between your tire treads), the rougher the surface of the ball and greater potential for friction.

Of course, physicists will tell us friction always exists when a bowling ball is in contact with a lane. From the shiniest ball on the most voluminous oil to the dullest ball on an outdoor lane in downtown Reno, there is always friction.

To appease the large number of physicists who subscribe to this publication, we should clarify: when we say we’re looking for friction, what we actually mean is we’re looking for more friction. Generally, we’re talking about finding friction at the end of the oil pattern or in parts of the pattern with less oil volume or even some spots broken down in the front and middle parts of the lane.

Sometimes, we want to find friction to use the friction and sometimes we want to find friction to avoid the friction. The latter case can lead to lofting, when we’re hurling the ball over the friction we don’t want, thus allowing us to get to the friction we do want, all the while creating a totally different kind of friction with anti-loft community.

Understanding what surface means to your bowling ball can have a profound impact on your game. If you can create the potential for more friction by adding surface to the bowling ball by removing surface from the bowling ball, and if you can consistently get your ball to the ideal break point where the desirable friction resides by avoiding the other parts of the lane where the detrimental friction lives, and if you trust the process and take it one shot at a time, you should be fine.

This installment of The One Board originally appeared in Bowlers Journal International, November, 2020

It’s been a tumultuous year for bowling in every aspect, starting with the most fundamental: whether or not bowling centers are open at all. Without bowling centers, there’s no recreational, league, high school, collegiate or professional bowling. If people aren’t bowling, they’re not buying equipment, which to some is even harder to endure than not bowling. Plus, if we’re not paying sanction fees, we’re simultaneously deprived of being able to complain about the cost while also suggesting we pay an extra dollar to be passed directly to Jason Belmonte for some reason.

Still, it’s Thanksgiving month in the United States, Norfolk Island, Brazil, Liberia, the Netherlands and the Philippines, so it’s a good time to reflect on all we have rather than all we don’t. Residents of Canada, Grenada and St. Lucia have been ruminating on gratitude for a full month already, but that’s no reason for them to stop. Even if you’re from a country that doesn’t celebrate Thanksgiving, you can still be grateful, just as you retain eligibility for the Bowlers Journal All-American Team.

Despite any troubles the sport has had this year, there are still plenty of things to appreciate, especially as many leagues have resumed in some capacity and the PBA has been on TV so much lately, showing us bowling still exists and the best players are still absurdly good at it.

Regarding the PBA telecasts, we all should be thankful for the reminder that constant crowd noise does not hinder the bowlers’ ability to focus, as we saw during PBA League, World Series of Bowling XI and PBA Playoffs competition. Before the world shut down, we packed the bowling centers with as many fans as we could under the easy-to-follow caveat that they were to be inert as statues and silent as Marcel Marceau. Now, we don’t let anyone in the building but instead pump crowd noise onto the lanes. By combining the best parts of these two scenarios—once we’re able to do so—perhaps we’ll have fans in the building making real sports noise during sporting events. As long as the fans don’t stop once they start or start once they stop, they shouldn’t have to worry about being berated by the professional athletes they paid to see.

Pro bowlers are thankful for the fans who, although not allowed in attendance at the events, continue to engage with the pros on social media, whether by liking a photo, asking what ball the pro is throwing or staring at daily bowler-hosted talk shows, (im)patiently waiting for the day they can once again attend A-Squad qualifying.

Likewise, fans are thankful for the bowlers who continue to generate content and interact, at least partially satiating the fans’ desire to watch competitive bowling.

Hematologists are thankful for PBA League competition. In the absence of high-fives, the players spent two hours every night smashing their forearms against their teammates’ forearms, saturating their bodies with deep, painful bruising. The hematologists are grateful for the uptick in business as well as the chance to meet some of their favorite players.

Non-American players are thankful for the athlete waivers that got them into the United States for the recent professional competition. The waivers assure us the players are trustworthy and healthy by virtue of possessing a very specific skill. We remain skeptical of their non-athlete neighbors. This makes sense, because no matter the situation in the world, we should always be wary of someone who doesn’t know how to get his ball to the spot.

As always, youth bowlers are simply thankful for bowling. They don’t yet know that the guaranteed first-place check in an amateur tournament is not guaranteed, nor that changes in humidity will benefit every bowler in the field except themselves, nor that pre-practice practice might be the difference between winning and losing. They just like to bowl. Take them bowling.

Happy Thanksgiving, bowling fans and bowlers.