The Tenth Board

With my original Strikes showing signs of troublesome wear, I finally wore a pair of Strike 300s that I bought about a year ago for the first time. I was worried about the slide sole being a little slick, but I hit it up with my wire brush before bowling and it was like instantly breaking them in.

My Week 18 bowling, frame-by-frame (Linked to BowlSK sheet)

Not many strikes, all told, but this was a total effort. It seems a key on my spares is not rushing the line, something I failed to keep in mind when I missed my two makeable spares, but I was around 87% on those tonight. More importantly, a ball change down to my Hy-Road combined with keeping that swing plane lesson from the Norm Duke DVD in mind gave me enough strikes to have a 214 third game, but the important thing was that I made my spares that game, so that was my first clean game of the season.

Result: 185-159-214=558
Average (54 games): 174
Average for last 9 games: 190
Next week’s AVG+1 score: 571

We only needed one point from our opponents to assure ourselves 5th place, and we got it second game, which, as it turned out, we won by enough to create a tie for total. I believe “Outta Da Guttah” won three from “Bottoms Up!,” so we missed a tie for 4th place by just a half point. “The Incredibowls” won three from “The Mustangs,” so the defending league champions will be defending their title in the roll-off in May.

By the way, this is as high as my team has ever finished a half in this league.

Posting this late again…

Before league tonight, I had Ray punch up a new Tropical Breeze. I got the black/teal color combination, which is a polished solid cover. Solid coverstocks tend to be good control balls, which is what I felt I needed when the house shot burns up from play. I kept the cover polished (keeping the ball’s length) and the layout turned out to be 5 5/8″ X 4″, which puts the pin above bridge with the CG (Center of Gravity) position kicked out (more to the side of the ball), which gives me length with a tamer backend than the Fast. I bowled most of a game with it before putting the ball away for the start of my league session.

My Week 4 bowling, frame-by-frame (Linked to BowlSK sheet)

My two games with the Fast weren’t great, but the third game was an opportunity to use the Breeze, and, when I didn’t get strikes in that game, I got single pins, for the most part, with only a split filling the 10th frame ruining things. I like the new ball so far on the burnt shot, so I hope I get better at throwing it under that condition.

Result: 151-178-204=533
Average (12 games): 188
Average for last 9 games: 186
Next week’s AVG+1 score: 568

Team lost the first game largely due to the opposing anchor bowling a personal best game; we won the other two games, but couldn’t make up the first-game deficit, so the result was a 4-4 draw. Eileen, not wanting to miss the Bruins’ Game 7 win last night, pre-bowled, and I can say if she didn’t do well in her last two games, we might not have had any points on the night.

Note: My summer league will not be meeting next week because of the national wheelchair tournament. I will, however, be participating in the “Up and Down” no-tap event on Monday, and will post about that when the time comes.

The updated standings (available at BowlerExpress at press time) find “Trip N Shred” in a rematch with “Wyld Stallyns” next week by virtue of being in 11th and 12th positions, respectively. My team has a chance to move into a tie for 8th place, and cannot finish last because there are two teams with 36 points (my team has 42 points) at the bottom. At the top, Team 13 will win the league championship outright by avoiding being swept by “Lounge Lizards,” who can only hope for a tie for 1st.

Friday notes:

• I was watching some of my friends bowl tonight, one of them being Jay Sherwood, who now works in the pro shop. Jay told me that there was a ball damage problem on the pair my team was on in league this week that came to a head in the Thursday morning senior league. This prompted me to check my new Fast for lane damage, and there were, indeed, a couple of small chips that had been taken out of the ball, though none of them were in my track area. Still, I may want to get the damage repaired, and I might be able to have Ray do it for free if I mention that it happened on the problem pair.
• The list of leagues for the fall/winter season are also now out, and there’s a new one on the schedule…after asking around, I learned that the Friday night singles league that had been running at Boston Bowl would be moving to Westgate Lanes. John Hayes, Jr., whom I also saw tonight, told me he had been that league’s secretary and that it was a very good league. With that in mind, I look forward to following the “new” league online.

I had hoped to have had it done so when I visited the pro shop on Tuesday, but I had to wait for Ray to do it tonight. Before league started, I had a Storm Fast drilled up. Normally, I’d link the manufacturer’s page about the ball, but since the Fast is being discontinued in favor of the 2Fast (to be released next month), Storm’s site took the page off. I’ll refer the reader to the BallReviews.com page on the ball if they want an idea of what the ball looks like (I couldn’t also find an image of the ball’s core).

This ball replaces the High Voltage in my bag, and with this ball, I told Ray I wanted length with decent back-end, as I thought my Hy-Road was burning up on the “new” house shot, especially when the shot became toast. We didn’t have time to measure the ball out after drilling it, but Ray told me he thought the drilling would end up 5″ X 4 3/4″, with the pin on the ball drilled out for the ring finger. I had had nothing but stacked drillings up until now, so I was nervous about trying something new. Because Ray was running late due to traffic, I warmed up and threw my first frame for score with the Hy-Road before putting the Fast into play for the very first time. The normal league night stuff follows:

My Week 10 bowling, frame-by-frame (Link to series on BowlSK)

As the reader can see on the BowlSK page, I threw a strike, and one that actually counted for something, on my very first shot with the Fast. I knew I’d spend most of the night moving until I could find an optimum line, but I ended up standing 33 and looking 12, much like I’ve been throwing my Hy-Road. The difference? The Fast holds its energy longer, so I have something left for the back-end. The bad second game I’ll chalk up to missing spares, but with a final game in the 230s (my high to date in this league) and a set over 580 (also my best this summer), I have to consider the night a resounding success.

Result: 190-158-234=582
Average (30 games): 174
Average for last 9 games: 179
Next week’s AVG+1 score: 539

As for the team, John supported my 190 with a 188 of his own to help us take the first game, but the third game was notable on a personal level because the 234 came opposite a 256 from Sean Richard, our opponents’ anchor, and, had I not had the good game opposite a quality opponent, we would not have won the third game’s points, let alone by enough to also take the points for total.

My Week 6 bowling, frame-by-frame (Link to series on BowlSK)

Things actually seemed to start to come back together tonight, and, while I still seem to be plagued by the “one bad game” problem, I recovered late in tonight’s bad game to get close to average, and, more importantly, secure the points for my team. I even seem to have gotten my swing shot mojo back a bit late in the night, and this can only be a good sign.

I also seem to have solved a problem I’ve been having with my Robbie’s Revs wrist device of having the strap securement pop out of the slot (it’s hard for me to describe exactly what’s been happening without knowing the proper names for the parts) when I noticed I may have been wearing the device too high on my hand. Bringing the hinge more in line with my wrist seems to have been the ticket.

Result: 195-165-191=551
Average (18 games): 170
Average for last 9 games: 174
Next week’s AVG+1 score: 514

I couldn’t have been happier that my team took all the points on the anniversary of my return to bowling, and, while everyone contributed in their own way, Eileen deserves special mention because she had a personal best game (176) and series (446) tonight, even getting a hambone in her 176 first game.

As my Brunswick Command wrist device had given out during the tournament on Sunday, I had to stop in the pro shop before bowling to pick up a sturdier wrist device. Ray suggested a Robby’s Revs I and showed me how it could be adjusted. There wasn’t really time to practice with it before league, so I had to adjust it on the fly during warm-ups.

My Week 15 bowling, frame-by-frame (BowlSK)

I did figure out the wrist device enough by the time it counted to have a couple of games in the 200s. The third game was the letdown, however, the double I had in the 10th frame of that game was clutch, as it gave my team the game points, which turned out to be our only points of the night. I felt kind of bad that I was just about the only one on my team who “showed up,” but it should be said that “The Insiders” were also hot, with the killer coming fairly late in the second game, when all of their team members put up turkeys. “Shihoots” won their match, so we finished next-to-last.

Result: 204-202-152=558
Final average (45 games): 181 Last 9 games average: 182

At this point, I’ll congratulate “Country Bumpkins” (Mary Ann Peters, Andrew Dawson, Bill Hamelin, and Carl Nordstrom), as they won their match against “Phoenix Kings” to take the league title.