Last night was the night I’ve been waiting for since I decided to take bowling up seriously again: my first league night. There had been a development on the visit I wrote about in the “11th hour” post that I forgot to mention…that the snack bar is looking for help, and I wanted to catch Junior to ask him about what hours they were looking for (I’m hoping I can fill in part-time). However, that plan was scotched when I found out that they locked the gate I usually go out of when I catch the bus to the lanes. I had wanted to take the route that got me to the lanes earlier, but was delayed when I had to go out of the other gate, so I was pretty much forced to wait for the bus on the other route to the Westgate Mall, meaning I got to the lanes just after Junior left for the day.

Stopping in the pro shop, I finally met the first of my teammates, Ralph Marple. I learned that he had bowled on tour in his youth (he appeared well past 60 in age), but, like me, hadn’t bowled in years until he joined the Wednesday night Westgate Mixed League toward the end of the winter season. I brought up my background with him chatting in the shop, and also discussed possible lineup strategy (I’ll give the lineup we arrived at later in this post).

Brian Shea was the next teammate I was introduced to. He appeared to be in his 40s, but older than me, and we hashed through the lineup strategy we were discussing. Brian wanted to warm up, so I let him begin soon after his lane was turned on. Once he found a line, he was getting a number of strikes, so Ralph and I were kind of joshing him about it, with me saying not to leave those on the practice lane.

Ray introduced the three of us to our female teammate, Joy Falese, shortly before the league meeting was due to begin. With Joy mentioning that she had bowled second in her unsanctioned winter league in Florida, that solidified our initial lineup: Brian would lead off, Joy second, I would follow Joy, and Ralph would be our anchor bowler.

The league meeting was pretty standard. The league would last 13 weeks, with pay-out night being the 14th week, and we had 22 teams, meaning nobody would see every team during the league’s run. The format was different than what I had been hoping for…the league would play strictly for team points (meaning no individual match points), with 2 points being awarded to the winner of each game, with an additional 2 points going to the team with the better total each night. Handicap was also team-based, being 90% of 800 (for those non-bowlers reading this, that means each game’s handicap would be 90% of the difference between the team average and an 800 scratch score). One thing that was different than last season, apparently, was that pre-bowls would now be allowed for those who would not be able to bowl on any given week (because of travel plans and such).

After the meeting, we had to wait awhile for the lanes to be turned on, so I used the opportunity to take my medication early and call my sister on my cellphone to check in (I actually got her husband on the phone and reminded him I was starting league bowling that night). When I returned from that, we had a quick election of Ralph as our team’s captain, and, based on my suggestion, named the team the “Mad Bloggers,” a play on “Mad Bombers” based on the fact that I was on the team. When the scoring screens were turned on (a touch-screen system), I entered our agreed-upon lineup, as I was the only one with any extended experience using them. It took awhile, though, because I kept missing the “Next” button and returning it to “ready to score” status, so I kept having to go back and add (though I finally found the “Next” button before entering Ralph’s name).

When the lanes were finally turned on for practice, there was a problem: the lane we would start on didn’t turn on, and we had to wait several minutes for the problem to be fixed. As a result, both of the teams on that pair only got one practice frame on each lane before they blanked the scoring screen for the start of actual bowling, at which point I went over to my cousins’ pair to wish them luck for the summer.

I had the first mark of the summer for our team after a couple of open frames by Brian and Joy; I left the 5-9 after going “Brooklyn” and made the spare fairly easily. I’m not sure if it was the second or third frame, but Brian had the first strike for us. To sum up my own performance in my first league game in 15 years, I was only “treading water”, missing a couple of spares in the middle of the game, followed by a 4-6 split and a washout, before getting my first strike of the night in the ninth frame, which I followed up with another strike, filled with a single 9 pin which I made pretty easily for a 148. My teammates had decent games, so we were off to a good start.

I was clean through 4 frames in the middle game before missing the 2-4. I pulled my next shot severely, however, leaving an unusual 1-2-3-6-8-10, which I almost made by going “Brooklyn” on it, narrowly leaving the 10 on the deck. That was followed by the 2-4-10 split, which I completely missed after not getting the ball to hook enough. I was playing my practice line up until that point, but wasn’t really happy with the kind of shots I was getting, so I made a change to playing an outside line. I left the 6-10 in the 8th frame (which I made) playing the new line, and that was followed by a turkey with an 8 fill in the 12th frame to end with a 179, so I was hopeful that I could follow well on the heels of that. As for my teammates, Brian had a bad game (for him, but still in the 150s), but Joy had a game in the 180s and Ralph had the high game for us on the night, a 225.

My spare game really deserted me in the last game, however, missing 4 very makable spares early, including a single 7 pin in the 6th frame. I salvaged a 143 by being clean late, but the fair game horse had left the barn by then. If I remember correctly, Brian and Ralph both shot in the 200s, and Joy had another good game for her, so we were expecting to have won this game, as well as take total.

Even though I didn’t do as well as I would have liked to, it did feel good to be back, and, with good teammates around me, I’m hoping that we do well this summer. Before bowling started, I asked Donna Bickel, the league secretary, if the standings would be posted online on LeagueSecretary.com again, and she indicated that they would be. I’m planning something for when the first week’s standings get posted there, so keep looking here during the next week. As I had been doing with practice, I’ll recap my night’s scores at the end of the post (or the portion of the post about the night), and also give my average after that night.

Result: 148-179-143=470 Average (3 games): 156