I’m not sure when two of these were, but there were three honor scores this summer season in the Monday doubles league that I’ve only become aware of last night (Wed. night). In the last month, Keith Tantillo had a 300 game, and Brian “Hawk” Earle had an 11 in a row 299 game. I can, however, pin down an exact date for an additional honor score for “Hawk”: he had a 300 game of his own in the league this Monday night.
Congrats to both Keith and “Hawk.” 😀
I wanted to note first of all that, aside from the prize money we received as a team, Lou received extra for having the most improved average among the males in the league.
Mostly, however, I wanted to note this: My brother made a rare Wednesday night appearance (first time it’s happened while bowling was going on) last night, so I was able to finally introduce him to some of the people I bowl with, mostly my summer league teammates. I didn’t bowl the no-tap because I was thinking about karaoke later in the night, so I was around when my brother was there to be able to do that.
ESPN New York noted that Rex Ryan, the always-brash head coach of the Jets, took his team bowling and held an offense v. defense competition. The defense won by a single pin, the reward for which was a day off with no meetings.
Tim Major informed me today that my team, “Ebony And Ivory,” finished in 5th place in this year’s edition of the Wednesday Summer Mixed League. The league championship was won by “3 Old Farts Plus 1,” so congratulations to the four main members of that team: Sean Richard, Gino Pierdomenico, Kenny Holmgren, and Brian “Hawk” Earle. 😀
The PBA reported that George Tignor of Winchendon, MA finished 5th in this past weekend’s PBA East Region Colony Park Lanes Senior Open in York, PA, which was mentioned earlier in connection to a pro-am result. Brent Hunter of Glenville, PA won the event, which was contested on Regional Senior Pattern #1 (not the Viper, as had been reported to me earlier, though they may have used the Viper for the pro-am).
I’m posting to let everyone know that Sean Richard related to me that he finished second in the pro-am for the PBA East Region Colony Park Lanes Senior Open this weekend in York, PA. In PBA pro-ams, the amateur generally bowls 3 games of 9-pin no-tap with 6 different pros (changing every 5th frame), with only the amateur’s score counting for prizes. The pro-am was on the Viper oil pattern, which is the condition for the main tournament, so this was a big result for Sean. Congrats! 🙂
With my birthday approaching, I took the opportunity to bowl with my brother last night, even though I sort of dislike bowling on back-to-back days. My scores were around average, but my follow-through was the primary point of emphasis, and it even seemed to help with my spare game, because I didn’t miss anything easy until the third game, when I hooked past an 8 pin. Moreover, my 10 pin had been a problem recently, but I left several of them last night, and made every one of them until the very last frame, when I pulled the spare shot; it should be said that a problem caused me to have to call the desk to request to finish out, so I was kind of thrown off by that, as well. My brother, for the record, was about his inconsistent self.
My Week 12 bowling, frame-by-frame (Linked to BowlSK sheet)
This might have been my best overall bowling night ever. I pulled the shot on a couple of 4 pins for misses and had one bad split, but, generally, everything felt good. I made the right adjustments at the right times, made most of the easy stuff, and even threw in a couple of split conversions (OK, I caught a few breaks on “mixer” strikes, too. 😀 ). The result was only my second 700 series, and I wasn’t even aware of it until I saw the total on the scorer.
Result: 245-199-256=700
Final average (36 games): 185
Average for last 9 games: 188
I may be prouder of this 700 than my first one because it came on a position night, the only one of the summer, so it was a night that really counted. It was the biggest part of a sweep, but I should also mention Eileen was steady tonight, and Rob had an excellent night, as well. 😀
I should also mention that I had inspiration: John Hayes, Jr., a man whom I’ve only come to know in the last year, was the anchor bowler for our opponents tonight. I’ve known him so far as someone who will always support the association, so he has gained my respect. This was the first night he’s really seen me bowl, so I had a little extra motivation. Thank you for being there tonight, John. 😀
NEBA has reported that Alex Aguiar of the Tuesday Scratch Sportsmen League won his 9th NEBA title last weekend at AMF Silver Lanes in E. Hartford, CT. Keith Tantillo of the Coke Classic League also cashed in the event. In addition, Sean Richard won the non-casher high game prize and Ed Roberts the senior prize.
NEBA’s homepage (linked above) has a full recap of the event, with links to the match play results and YouTube video of the championship match.
Congrats guys! 😀
EDIT: If NEBA allows embedding on their videos, you can also watch the championship match below.
“Ebony And Ivory,” despite winning six points this week, slipped into 9th place, four points ahead of “Top Cheddah,” who will be our position round opponents next week. Conceivably, my team can move into a tie for 5th place with a sweep.
At the top, “Rockland Golf Course” must sweep “3 Old Farts Plus 1” to force a roll-off for the league title.
Good luck to all of my summer league mates this coming week. 😀
The LAist noted that Dodgers first baseman James Loney will host the annual Dodgers Dream Foundation Bowling Extravaganza tonight at the Lucky Strike Lanes at LA Live.
My Week 11 bowling, frame-by-frame (Linked to BowlSK sheet)
The notes on the BowlSK sheet should be self-explanatory, though it bears mentioning that a move outside suggested by Lou kept me in it third game; I just didn’t make enough spares. It should also be said that there’s a discrepancy between what I have on BowlSK and my scores on the recap (below); I don’t know if the scorer was in error, but I had thought the scorer was correct, so I don’t know which end the error is on (though I’m also sure the frames on BowlSK are correct about what happened).
Result: 220-165-141=526
Average (33 games): 181
Average for last 9 games: 170
Next week’s AVG+1 score: 573
Eileen pre-bowled because she went out of town with some friends from a different part of the country, and her first and third games were the difference makers in the team taking the lion’s share of the points tonight.
Congratulations to Harry Thibeault, who posted a perfect 300 game Thursday night in the Adult/Junior league on the way to a fine 762 series. 😀
After “Ebony And Ivory” took only two points from “2nd To None,” my team finds itself in 8th place, 14 points behind “3 Old Farts Plus 1” with two weeks left. “3 Old Farts Plus 1” lead “2nd To None” by two points and Team 3 by four points. My team has “Special Mix” Wednesday night. For the teams at or near the top, “3 Old Farts Plus 1” bowl “Top Cheddah” this week, “2nd To None” will be opposed by “Wild Samoans,” and Team 3 faces “Hocus Pocus.”
I found “Steve’s Bowling Blog” by way of my friend(s) at “The Thumbhole Chronicles,” where they had the blog linked. This blog seems to have a daily video and quote, as well as the occasional opinion piece. I thought it would make a good addition to the blogroll, so the sidebar link has been added in that category. Welcome! 😀
My Week 10 bowling, frame-by-frame (Linked to BowlSK sheet)
It was just embarrassing bowling the third game: too many splits to count, it seemed, and even when I threw a decent shot to finish, I left a pocket 8-10. As a result, I was in the 460s tonight, which I don’t remember happening often.
Result: 161-180-127=468
Average (30 games): 181
Average for last 9 games: 172
Next week’s AVG+1 score: 553
It was fortunate that Lou and Rob covered me in the third game tonight (233 and 248 respectively), so we salvaged those two points on the night.
The Oklahoman notes that Los Angeles Clippers forward Blake Griffin, who brought excitement to the slam dunk contest last All-Star weekend by dunking over a car in the final round, will hold a bowling event in connection with his first ever basketball camp on Friday at AMF Moore Lanes in Moore, OK. The event will benefit the Wilson Holloway scholarship fund (named after a friend and high school teammate who died from Hodgkin’s lymphoma in February) and Stand Up To Cancer.
More “summer projects”…
First, for those of you whom I’m friends with on Facebook, I’ve connected this blog to Facebook so that, now, my posts also show on my Facebook wall and in my friends’ news feeds. I did this mostly to eliminate the need to post a separate note on Facebook about my league nights, but I may leave it connected full time for the time being.
Second, I visited the blog’s sharing options, and there’s now a Facebook Share button on posts. As I know some of you are also in the “Twitterverse” (I’m not; I’ve thought about it as an adjunct to the blog for posting about honor scores via text message as they happen, but I can’t be at every league, and I don’t know if I can have more than one cellphone number able to tweet to the account.), there’s a Tweet button on posts, as well.
Have fun with the new “features,” folks. 😀
“Ebony And Ivory” did not lose position despite losing six points to “Lounge Lizards,” but we fell to ten points behind Team 3, who lead “2nd To None” and “3 Old Farts Plus 1” by two points with three weeks left. My team will have something to say about the top of the standings this coming week: we are scheduled to bowl against “2nd To None.”
The RSS feeds from BowlingDigital.com were a start; however, wanting stories on the official sites as much as possible, I endeavored to find, and succeeded in finding, the official RSS feeds from Bowl.com (for the USBC) and the PBA’s website, and have changed those widgets to point to those feeds. Also, where those feeds have stories more important to bowling in the US, I increased the number of stories the feeds show and link to to 10.
As my blog host lets me know what stories are being clicked on, this will give me feedback to which feeds are actually proving of interest. In other words, I’ll be watching. 😉
EDIT: I’ve now also reordered the widgets mostly to push the RSS feed ones closer to the top of the page, where they’ll be more eye-catching.
My Week 9 bowling, frame-by-frame (Linked to BowlSK sheet)
I was under average again tonight, but with two games over it, I am hoping I’m turning a corner. Despite problems making my 10 again, it was a better spare night than many I’ve had, and I could blame the low scores on five splits (although I converted one of them).
Result: 157-189-193=539
Average (27 games): 184
Average for last 9 games: 180
Next week’s AVG+1 score: 565
Eileen gave us a chance tonight with all three games over average, but with the lower-average bowlers on the opposing team doing well tonight, we could only manage the two points for the second game.
The Ft. Worth Star-Telegram notes that Texas Rangers third baseman Michael Young will kick-start his new Michael Young Family Foundation with the “Celebrity BaseBOWL Tournament” at 300 Dallas in Addison, TX on Sept. 11 following the Rangers’ day game vs. the Oakland As.
I’ve been keeping a local focus on this blog for quite some time, but I’ve also been looking for a way to keep my readers up to speed on news from the larger bowling world. I looked at what the widgets feature on my blog’s host had to offer, and saw that RSS feeds could be added, which would appear in the sidebar, so I decided to take four feeds (USBC, PBA, American Zone, and World) from BowlingDigital.com, and set it so that the five most recent items in those feeds would appear. My first try caused my other sidebar features (pages and such) to disappear, but I saw I could add them back as widgets, so that has been done. Another thing I could do with the original sidebar features as widgets was of a space-saving nature…I could get all of the months’ archives to appear in a drop-down list.
This was an unplanned “summer project,” but I hope the new sidebar proves useful to all of you. 😀
EDIT: Not wanting to miss bowling stories out of the United States that aren’t provided by the USBC and PBA feeds, I’ve added the widget for the BowlingDigital.com “Top Stories” feed.
The People’s Tournament reported Sean Richard (Westgate Lanes, 203 avg.) as the winner of the event held on July 10 at Westgate Lanes. Sean defeated Eric Sanders (South Windsor Ten Pin {CT}, 176 avg.) by a score of 210-199 (with handicaps) in the championship match. Also for Westgate Lanes, Rob Dickens (165 avg.) and April Raines (169 avg.) were in the final eight.
Additionally, Tom Hedding executed a rare conversion of the 7-10 split during qualifying. Congrats to Sean, Rob, and TomTom on doing so well in this tournament. 😀
“Ebony And Ivory” slipped to 7th place after Wednesday night’s net loss to “Rockland Golf Course,” but we stayed within shouting distance, as Team 3 retook the league lead and we stand six points behind them. Team 3 has a two-point lead on a tie for second between “2nd To None” and “3 Old Farts Plus 1.” This coming week has been circled on my schedule as well: “Lounge Lizards,” my cousins’ team, will be our opponents.
With a birthday in the family today, my brother and I got my shopping out of the way last night and went bowling afterward. It was not a usual outing, because the lanes were hooking more than normal, and I was having problems getting even my new Tropical Breeze to hold pocket. I eventually had to loft it to have a chance, and I usually wasn’t lofting it enough. Still, I wasn’t leaving many tough spares (just one split), and made most of the easy ones, so I had two games (my last two) around my average with the other one being on the low end of the reasonable range, which I told my brother I was glad to take on lanes that weren’t optimally scoring for me. My brother had one game over what I think is his average.
I decided today that I also wanted to mention that a childhood friend (someone who grew up in the same neighborhood as I did) was on hand to watch me in the third game last night. I was disappointed that I couldn’t really show off like I could, but I was happy that I could punch out in the 10th frame for him. He may return to watch my whole night next week.
My Week 8 bowling, frame-by-frame (Linked to BowlSK sheet)
Usually, it takes me a game to get going, but, more recently, my first games have been good, and then I tanked it at the end. Take tonight…I could’ve lofted it more to start the third game, but I thought just moving along with the ball change was going to be enough. Oh well.
Result: 233-170-140=543
Average (24 games): 185
Average for last 9 games: 185
Next week’s AVG+1 score: 576
I felt like I let my team down in the third game, because we had a chance if I bowled anything like my first game. As it was, we only won the first game points.
As the NFL lockout appears headed to a conclusion, USA Today noted that New England Patriots cornerback Leigh Bodden held a bowling scholarship fundraiser at a bowling center in downtown Washington, DC, his hometown. Seven deserving students received $1,000 stipends at the event.
The recent item about Alex Aguiar’s tournament win prompted a search, the result of which is that the link to the site of the Mini-Eliminator tournament (along with a couple of other tournaments) has been placed in the sidebar under “Tournaments” (since it is not a local tournament).
The Tenth Board 
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