• The highlight of Saturday’s show was definitely the second women’s “Clash”, where Jenny Brown, the female National Junior Amateur Champion, went strike for strike with one of the legends of women’s bowling, Liz Johnson, until Brown left the 3-10 “baby” split and Johnson got a ninth consecutive strike to advance. Good show by both bowlers. 😀
• A couple of Mike Rose Jr. items: 1) I thought he had a bit of an advantage in the event, having seen the oil pattern on similar lanes in Albuquerque at the USBC Open, where he took the Regular All-Events lead the previous weekend, but struggled in his “Clash”; 2) Speaking of Rose’s performance in the USBC Open, I thought either Bill Macatee or Nelson Burton Jr. would mention that on the show, but neither did, missing an opportunity to talk up bowling’s largest event.
• I don’t know if CBS would only give the USBC two one-hour shows, but if that was the case, the decision to run the men’s and women’s semifinals simultaneously made sense for time purposes.
• Of course, the final match between Sean Rash and Lynda Barnes, the eventual winner, was high drama, with Barnes forcing Rash into a double-and-nine-to-win situation. I had thought Rash was up to it, but he caught a bit of a bad break leaving the 10 on his first ball in the 10th. I just wish Rash could’ve at least made it come down to the final shot.

The main Brockton Public Library is on my usual walking route, but today, I made it a point to actually go into the library to take out John Jowdy’s book, Bowling Execution, which has been highly recommended, as part of my continuing bowling re-education.  I searched for the book online before heading out so I would have the call number for the book with me when I got there, saving some time.  I spent more time than I expected at the library, though, after learning my information was out of their system, as I had not used any of the library’s services in some time (indeed, this was the first book I had taken out of the library in ages).  I was able to use the same card, it was just that my personal information had to be re-entered into the system.  The book is due back into the library in two weeks.

Thought I’d share this…

A TV station report out of Iowa said that 78-year-old Dale Davis of Alta, IA, who is legally blind, rolled a perfect 300 game in one of his leagues at Century Lanes. It was not only his first 300 game, but also the first ever bowled at the center.

I remembered to have a scoresheet printed up after the match this time, so this recap will be a bit more detailed than the one I gave for the match between Sean Richard and Mark Roth back in December. 😀

In the first game, Rose stayed clean, but wasn’t putting together strikes like he could, getting doubles in the third and fourth frames, and again in the sixth and seventh before closing out the game with three strikes in the tenth for a 223. Aguiar opened the game with a turkey before chopping the 3 pin off of the 3-6-10 leave. He recovered, however, putting together a hambone in the fifth through eighth frames en route to a 236.

Rose started the second game with a five-bagger, and Aguiar was keeping contact with him until he left the 2-8-10 in the eighth frame. Aguiar did close the game out with a hambone for a 227, however, while Rose finished up with a 245 for the second game win.

After going strike-spare to start the third game, Rose racked up a four-bagger and it appeared that he would get through thirty frames clean. However, similar to Aguiar in the second game, Rose left the 2-8-10 split in the eighth frame, which ruined the bid. The third game was close in the tenth frame, at which point Rose struck out while Aguiar could only manage nine-spare-nine, giving Rose the final game 225-216. Three game totals: 693 for Mike Rose Jr., 679 for Alex Aguiar.

I got a couple of photos with both bowlers after the match…first, me with Mike Rose Jr. (I’m in the t-shirt…look familiar? 😀 )

And with Alex Aguiar…photo came out a bit dark, but fortunately, I could increase the brightness in my favorite photo editor. 🙂

Thanks to both Mike and Alex for putting on another good exhibition match at Westgate Lanes. 😀

Tommorow’s plan: As the meeting of the Mass Imperial Syndicate (my FanForce chapter, which is a Star Wars fan group) has been postponed until next Sunday, this frees me up to hit the lanes tomorrow to catch some of the action in the NEBA tournament. If I stay until the end, I should have results from that then, otherwise, I’ll wait until they’re posted on NEBA’s site.

I called Ray at the pro shop today (he was actually at the Boston location) and we arranged a one-hour coaching session for 3 PM on April 10.  Since anything Ray brings up will be worked on in practice, anything I blog from these coaching sessions will appear in the “Practice” category.  Also, Ray will be able to tape me bowling, then have the tape captured to his computer, so I hope to have video of my bowling posted here in the future.

I did the usual bi-weekly food shopping with my brother today, but this time, I ran into Joyce Bernard in the aisles.  As my brother was in a bit of a rush, however, there was only time to introduce her to him and briefly explain the bowling connection to him.

According to this Q&A with the USBC’s Tom Clark, the upcoming “Clash of Champions” event will be contested on the 2008 USBC Open Championships oil pattern, which should be both challenging and fair.

Also, according to this article, the USBC Masters will be reunited with the Open Championships next year at the Cashman Center in Las Vegas, with the Masters, still a PBA major tournament, taking place on Feb. 8-15, the week before competition begins in the Open Championships. The Masters will not be contested this calendar year, but the tournament will still be a part of the 2008-09 Denny’s PBA Tour. It is hoped that running the tournament after the Super Bowl will increase the television audience for the most prestigious event in bowling.

My brother was down for my usual bi-weekly shopping trip, but when we got done with the food shopping and were on our way to lunch, he asked me if I wanted to go bowling after we were done with lunch. I took him up on it, figuring it was as good a chance as any to show how much I’ve improved since our last bowling outing last July.

We only took a single lane for two games each (he usually wants to head back into Boston early, so I don’t usually try to talk him into three games), so I wasn’t about to count this as a regular practice. Still, I wanted to do well, and I didn’t disappoint him. My first game was a 188 and could’ve easily been into the 200s if not for a spare miss and a few single 4-pin leaves (I made my single pins).

My second game was almost a beauty, as well; I alternated strikes and spares until the 7th and 8th frames, when I posted a double. After leaving the single 6-pin and picking it up in the 9th, I needed just a mark with fair count for 200. However, I left the 5-7 split with the first ball in the 10th. It was a split I have a decent chance of making if I shoot at it like I’m trying to cover a single 9-pin. However, my ball hooked just enough to hit the 5 full and I missed the conversion. These were the best games any family member has seen me roll, however, so I was very pleased. 😀

USBC to present “Bowling’s Clash of Champions” on CBS in May

I’m pretty excited about this. Not only is bowling returning to network television and will have some familiar faces, but bowlers who might not otherwise receive television exposure, such as 2007 USBC Open Championships Regular All-Events winner Mike Rose Jr., will be featured. According to the article about this on BowlingDigital.com, if you entered a major USBC championship event or a US Open in 2007, you were entered in this event and are represented by your event’s champion. Future bowling programming on network television may depend on how well this event draws, so if you bowl, show your support of the game by watching on May 10 & 11.

Been half-debating and half-procrastinating about making this post, but when my brother took me to the supermarket Friday night (we usually go on a Saturday morning, but my brother wanted it out of the way for this weekend w/ the Patriots game last night), we ran into Si there. I introduced Si and my brother to each other and got to chatting a bit about my bowling, mentioning to Si that I had talked to my brother about my practice with him in the car on the way to the supermarket. When my brother asked Si how I looked, Si said I looked “pretty good,” which I’ll take as a good sign, as Si knows his bowling, coming up one pin short of a 300 game once in his bowling career (though the honor score failed to be sanctioned after the required lane inspection). I also mentioned to Si when we were checking out that I had quit smoking, which he complimented me on.

Note: With a snowstorm expected to hit the area tomorrow, I may not be practicing. As a week from tomorrow is the Martin Luther King holiday, this may mean no practice for two weeks.

Posting to the blog earlier than I normally do on Monday.  This is because Si notified me this morning via email that Bill Fisher, the owner of another, successful, pro shop in Brockton, passed away last week in his sleep.  I had bowled in leagues with Bill, and he had always been nothing but congenial.  His pro shop had been around for a long time, and a number of bowlers bowling at Westgate Lanes had success with equipment he sold to them.  He will be sorely missed on the local bowling scene, and my sympathies go out to his family.

For better or for worse, here’s me in the t-shirt…

Thanks to Ed’s wife Maria for snapping the pic with her digital camera.

Between my nephews and my brother, I received $100 worth of gift cards for Westgate Lanes.  I estimate, given that I usually practice on half-price Mondays, that they should last me until about the time summer leagues start.  My sister and her husband also gave me a “Split Happens” t-shirt from the “What In The World” t-shirt catalog.  I will try to get a picture of myself in the t-shirt for future posting.

Speaking of Christmas, I saw my cousins David and Debbie at my aunt and uncle’s house for the annual Christmas Eve family get-together.  They plan on continuing bowling this summer, though they were not sure in which league.  I recommended the Tuesday night His & Hers league (which goes to 4-person teams in the summer), but they were leaning toward bowling on Wednesday nights.  As I’m not sure about the format for the Wednesday night summer league (it might be a mixed doubles league), that’s something I’ll have to ask Junior or Marcia about.  I promised Debbie that I would be in touch as the end of April and the beginning of May approach to get our summer bowling plans sorted out.