“Excel for bowlers tutorial” added to “Author’s links” sidebar

Bowling lends itself to statistics, as you’re even judged as a bowler by your average, and I know many bowlers track their scores on spreadsheets. I’ve been keeping spreadsheet logs since I returned to bowling, even tracking my early practice sessions with them, but they haven’t been in too great detail so far.

Enter 2013, and BowlingTracker.com, which I’ve been keeping stat sheets on since I started bowling in leagues again, has encountered a spam problem on their forums, which has, in turn, caused the score tracking part of the site to be slower than usual. Because of that, I’ve been forced to find a way to make my Excel logs do more, and have generated a prototype log that does everything BowlingTracker.com does, and more. Wanting to give back and help my fellow bowlers, I decided to post a tutorial thread of sorts on BowlingCommunity.com that shows you how to use Excel to do many things with your bowling scores. I have linked the thread on my blog in the “Author’s links” sidebar section, and it should be noted that I have shared my prototype log in the thread so users could see how I have things set up. FYI, if you don’t want to use any sort of standalone desktop spreadsheet application, many of the concepts I go into in the thread will also work in Google Docs spreadsheets.

You may certainly post in the thread if you have questions. 😀

Note: If you’re viewing this as a single post, just click the header to go to the front page, and the sidebar will load.

May 11 practice

I’m usually not a morning person, admittedly, but I was feeling more chipper than usual this morning, and, combined with the fact that I wasn’t expecting my brother for shopping as well as Westgate Lanes offering the early-bird rate on Saturday mornings, I decided to get some practice in. If anything, I was expecting to get some games in with my clean Tropical Breeze before summer league starts next week.

As the session progressed, however, it became apparent that the lack of late movement I was experiencing in the Jimmy Fund fundraiser might have actually been “operator error.” I was standing 33 and looking around 11 a good part of the session, and the ball was making it back if my release was strong, and it definitely was most of the second game, which was a 233. All three games were at least 10 pins over my final winter league average for a 602 total, and I missed five spares in 30 frames: a 10, a 7, a 3-6-10, a pocket 7-10, and a washout (not necessarily in that order).

Saturday morning practice might become a regular thing. 😀

Rai Doblmeier dominates deaf tournament in NJ

Congrats to Rai Doblmeier of the Tuesday Scratch Sportsmen league, who, according to the Eastern Association of Deaf Bowlers, won scratch doubles and all-events, along with the scratch singles/doubles combo event and the Trimarchi Masters competition in their tournament held on May 4 & 5 at Brunswick Zone Carolier in North Brunswick, NJ. Rai averaged 236+ in his regular events, and Ray DiSanto informed me that it was around 250 counting his scores in the Trimarchi Masters.

I haven’t mentioned Rai’s deaf status before on this blog because I just considered him a good bowler, but I’ve been told he’s literally traveled the world competing in tournaments for the deaf, and this is the first big result from one of those that I’ve heard about. Note: The link is to the EADB’s main site; navigate the site for full results.

Turning a profit

I was disappointed that I didn’t bowl well enough last week to square up my average with last year, but something I learned about last night gave me great consolation. As the bracket results from the last week show (top 2 brackets), I defeated Barton Fink to win one bracket and came in second to Mike DiBenedetto in another, so I got back $7. As I usually put $5 in, I turned a $2 profit on the week, the first time that has happened. 😀

Live blog: 2013 Brunswick Mixed roll-off

I’ll be trying something new and doing this post as a live blog from my league’s roll-off on my smartphone. I’ll update what happened in each game.

There is another story I’ll be following tonight, though, and that’s the battle for the house record average. Jason Sherwood ended the Thursday Night Patriots regular season with a 236.79 average, which, if it stands, would be the new Westgate Lanes record. However, Sean Richard can overtake Jason for the record tonight in the Westgate Mixed league with an 824 series.

Game 1: “Dee’s Boys III” won the first game 1056-1028 (with handicap). Keith Kaestner paced his team with a 255.

Sean Richard threw a 235 first game, and so will have to be just about perfect the rest of the night.

Game 2: “The 5 G’s” won the second game 925-866 and lead by 31 pins. Dana Gomes had the high game with a 202.

Sean Richard only had a 206 possible in the 10th frame, so congrats to Jason Sherwood on the new house record average.

Game 3: “The 5 G’s” took the third game 1004-993 and won the match 2957-2915. Ed Godino III threw a 237 and led the champions with a 636 set.

Congrats! 😀

EDIT: As I did when Sean Richard set the old record average, I added the “Honor Scores” category to this post to recognize Jason’s new record.

My 2012-13 season, by the numbers

Per my end of winter season custom, I dedicate a post here to breaking down my league performance with the help of the BowlSK reports. First, the first-ball numbers (numbers before the pipe | character reflect last year’s performance):

Strike percentage: 36.4% | 37.2%
Pocket shots: 64.0% | 66.5%
Carry percentage: 53.7% (392/730) | 54% (410/759)
Double rate: 37.2% (149/400) | 37.6% (152/404)
Average first-ball count: 8.7 | 8.6
Average first-ball non-strike count: 7.9 | 7.8

There was slight improvement in my shotmaking, but I probably left more pins when I missed the pocket, as my average first ball counts were down slightly.

Now, breaking down my spare game:

Overall spare percentage: 55.9% (384/687) | 55.7% (383/687)
Single-pin spare percentage: 68.7% (184/268) | 66.1% (162/245)
Multi-pin spare percentage: 60.9% (179/294) | 62.6% (209/334)
Makeable (non-split) percentage: 64.6% (363/562) | 64.1% (371/579)
Split conversion percentage: 16.8% (21/125) | 11.1% (12/108)
Washout conversion percentage: 16.7% (5/30) | 25% (10/40)
Percentage on single 10 pin: 53.3% (49/92) | 62.1% (59/95)
Percentage on single 7 pin: 56.3% (27/48) | 63.6% (35/55)

My overall spare rate did go down slightly, but my multi-pin rate was up. My single pin rate was down two full percentage points, however, both of my corner pin rates were up, and I did improve on making my corner pins later in the season. I probably need to just concentrate more on the easier single pins; indeed, I was under 69% on my other single pins.

Alex Aguiar, Brian LeClair take doubles lead at USBC Open

The USBC reported that Alex Aguiar, bowling with Brian LeClair of Albany, NY, took the Regular Doubles lead last night at the USBC Open Championships, currently in progress at the National Bowling Stadium in Reno, NV. Alex posted a 780 series in the event, while LeClair added 642 for a total of 1,422. Alex had a shot at the first 800 series of the tournament when he stepped up for his final frame of doubles, but a 9 pin on the first ball ended the run. With a 676 in team and 664 in singles, Aguiar is also now in 10th place in Regular All-Events with a total of 2,120, a career best.

A couple of months of bowling yet to go, but great bowling, Double A! 😀

Having fun for a cause

I like to think I can actually support the charitable things that go on at Westgate Lanes, to wit, I made my debut in the monthly Jimmy Fund fundraiser last night. The organizer of these things is Kelly Rich, and she lit up when I went to her table, which was set up to the left of the desk, and told her I’d actually be bowling.

We had a group of about twelve, which included a classmate of mine who was visiting from the Los Angeles area. Being probably the most avid bowler in the group, I got a chance to show what I could do in the first game (of two) by stringing together a four-bagger in the middle of the game. My 178 was the high of the first game, good for a scratch ticket prize, which turned out to be a $2 winner.

The second game was another story, however, as, late in the first game, my Tropical Breeze got stuck in the back and needed cleaning up in the pro shop when it returned. I used my Fast while I was waiting for the other ball to be cleaned, and probably should have stayed with it, as I was finding the Tropical Breeze wasn’t moving as much after the cleaning, and I left at least a couple of washouts in the process. The ball probably just needs a few games on it to get the reaction back, but I still threw a 141 with it, which was the high on my lane and good for another scratch ticket (which I found out “bricked” when I scratched it at home). My first game score was beaten by someone on the adjacent lane in the second game, the screen name of whom I couldn’t remember.

The final activity was a roll-off involving one ball by everyone, with the most pins winning the last scratch ticket. I was out after a couple of people, including my classmate, threw a 9 count with me only managing 8. The tiebreaker went a few rounds until my classmate threw a strike. After photos, I thanked Kelly for doing a good job as host and told her I might do it again. As a parting note for this post, about $200 was raised this month, with a total of over $1,000 having been raised since these started.

Melissa Peterson rolls first 300; Sandi Litchfield throws 279

It was “Ladies’ Night” in the Westgate Mixed league tonight. First off, in the second game, Sandi Litchfield left a 10 pin standing (making the spare) with the rest strikes for a 279 game. However, the night belonged to Melissa Peterson, who, in the third game, rolled her first perfect game. This was a game I could have had video of, but I noticed the game too late to get set up with my phone.

Congrats to both Melissa and Sandi! 😀

May 1 league night recap (with final second half standings)

My Week 35 bowling, frame-by-frame (Linked to BowlSK sheet)

The skinny on tonight was the missed single pins, as I would probably have squared my average with last year had I made a couple of those. I did feel I was making most of the right adjustments tonight, however, so I’m making progress with my overall game.

Result: 167-174-190=531
Final average (105 games): 173
Average for last 9 games: 187

The team came back from losing the first game by 90+ by winning the other two by enough to take total by 21 pins. This definitely put us in a tie for 11th, and possibly 10th if “Bowling Stones” lost all four. Shawn told me “The 5 G’s” won the first two and had a 300+ pin lead after those games, so they won the second half, in all probability. As I’ll have my phone with me next week and the mobile app for posting to this blog installed on it, I may be trying a live blog, a first, for the roll-off next week.

Finally, I have now not missed a night my league has met in five full years since returning to league bowling. 😀

Cross-training #212 (special)

I haven’t made a post to this category in a while because of issues with Google News search returning irrelevant results, but thought I should mention, as I did on Facebook yesterday, that former NFL wide receiver Terrell Owens, whose team in the PBA League Norm Duke was bowling for this past season, will be making his USBC Open Championships debut tonight at the National Bowling Stadium in Reno, of which BowlTV will provide bonus coverage before their regularly scheduled coverage of the minors appearance of Matt McNiel, defending Regular Doubles and All-Events champion. T.O. will be bowling with the Bowlers Journal International team, which will also include Mike Jakubowski, whom some of you know as the PA announcer on the PBA Tour telecasts, as well as the lead announcer on Xtra Frame.

Apr. 27 league standings update

After winning one point from “Angry Birds”, “Spare Parts” remained in 12th place and will bowl against “Kickin Ass” in the second half position round in the coming week. “Angry Birds” are 3.5 points behind us, so the furthest we drop in the event we get swept and a sweep by “Angry Birds” is 13th. We are two points behind “Kickin Ass” and “Bowling Stones”, but that tie is a point behind “Deadwood”, so we could conceivably only move into 10th place.

At the top, “The 5 G’s” and “Split Happens” are tied, with “Dee’s Boys III” a point behind and “The Doables” a point and a half behind, so the best chance for “Dee’s Boys III” is a sweep and a 2-2 split at the top, with a three-way tie being created if “Dee’s Boys III” only take three points and the top match splits. “The Doables” would need to sweep to have a chance. “Dee’s Boys III” were the first half winners, so I’d have to check with Shawn about what happens if they win the second half.

Mike Violette throws consecutive 800 series at North Bowl

I normally don’t post about what happens in leagues in the other bowling centers in the Brockton Bowling Association and save it for the association’s Facebook page, but, where this post is about a first in the association, I’m going to make an exception.

Mike Violette, on Monday night, threw games of 268, 258, and 277 for an 803 series in the Merchants league at North Bowl. Then, he decided that once wasn’t enough and threw games of 277, 289, and 247 for an 813 set last night in the Tuesday House league, also at North Bowl. I didn’t think it had happened before, but I had to check with Bob Young, and he was able to confirm that this, indeed, is the first instance of a bowler in the Brockton Bowling Association throwing an 800 series on back-to-back nights.

Congrats Mike! 😀

Apr. 24 league night recap

My Week 34 bowling, frame-by-frame (Linked to BowlSK sheet)

This wasn’t my best night, but I did piece together enough of a third game to give me a decent chance at squaring my average with last year’s average next week.

Result: 166-181-208=555
Average (102 games): 173
Average for last 9 games: 184
Next week’s AVG+1 score: 549

Team took one point, but three were out there had a bowler on the other team, averaging 137, not thrown his first deuce game of the season in the third game. As it was, I needed the first two strikes in the 10th third game for the point, but left a bucket on the third ball and we ended up losing by eight pins.

Last week, I made it through one bracket, and beat Shawn in that bracket third game for the $5.

Apr. 21 league standings update

After winning four points from “WTF!!!”, “Spare Parts” moved into a tie for 11th with “Bowling Stones”, 5 1/2 points ahead of “Angry Birds” and a point behind “Deadwood” for 10th. “Dee’s Boys III” are now the league leaders in the second half, two points ahead of “Split Happens” and three ahead of “The 5 G’s”, “The Incredibowls”, and “Heavy Metal” (my team is eight behind). My team faces “Angry Birds” Wednesday night in the last night before the second half position round. For the leaders, “Dee’s Boys III” will bowl against “The Doables”, “Split Happens” face “The Incredibowls”, and “The 5 G’s” will be opposed by “The Mustangs”.

Individually, I had the high scratch game in my division last week.

James Williams of Conn. throws 900 series in RI

This is one of those occasions where I expand the local scope of this blog to post about something big that happened in New England…

The USBC reported that James Williams of Pawcatuck, CT threw, if approved, the 22nd sanctioned 900 series in USBC history last night in the South County Classic league at Old Mountain Lanes in Wakefield, RI. In his 30th frame, a 4 pin fell late first, followed by a late 10, then an memorable light mixer to cement Williams’ place in bowling history. Williams has averaged better than 240 on several occasions and has 31 300 games and 20 800 series since the 2001-02 season, according to his Bowl.com member information.

Congrats! 😀

EDIT: Below is the cellphone video of the last three strikes.

Apr. 17 league night recap

My Week 33 bowling, frame-by-frame (Linked to BowlSK sheet)

I tried keeping in mind the points I learned in the Next Level Bowling clinic tonight, and, indeed, my physical game felt better than it has in some time. I narrowly missed 600 when I needed a mark in the last frame and left a 4-10, but I probably would have had it if I was better on my single pins (one more would have done it). I really only had to move for my carry.

Result: 233-172-192=597
Average (99 games): 173
Average for last 9 games: 181
Next week’s AVG+1 score: 582

Team won all three games comfortably, with four of us (including myself) over average on the night.

Dave Randall posts first 700 series

Although this post is of a high score nature, I’m not categorizing it under “Honor Scores” because its not actually one. The reason for the post, however, is because the high score is from family, because Dave Randall, my cousin, threw his first 700 series last Friday in the TNBA league with a 724. I’ll comment when I know what the three games are.

Congrats Dave! 😀

Mar. 2013 People’s Tournament results

The People’s Tournament reported Nicholas Roppo III (AMF Silver Lanes {CT}, 161 avg.) as the winner of the event held on Mar. 23 & 24 at Westgate Lanes, defeating Neal LeBaron (AMF Silver Lanes, 195 avg.) by a score (with handicap) of 240-228 in the final match. Westgate Lanes bowlers among the cashers were Sam Kamel (190 avg.), Reynard Epps (155 avg.), Al Rue (177 avg.), Keith Tantillo (200 avg.), Bill Kempton (185 avg.), Al Donato (195 avg.), Louis Lam (176 avg.), Alex Major (196 avg.), Brian Alleyne (175 avg.), and Dennis Johnson (183 avg.). While officially representing Town Line Ten Pin, David Chalifoux (206 avg.) from the Coke league also cashed.

The video of the title match is below.

Video follow-up to “Coke Classic League bowlers to appear on BowlTV”

To follow up on an earlier post, Cambridge 2, with Coke league bowlers David Chalifoux, Stephen Dale Jr., and Brian Gaskill, were in 42nd place in Regular Team at the 2013 USBC Open Championships at the time of this posting, and Cambridge 1 moved into 4th place Saturday night, with Bill Webb posting a 785 set to lead the team.

The archive of the webcast is embedded below.

Apr. 14 league standings update

After winning three of four points from “Kickin Ass”, “Spare Parts” remained in 12th place, a point and a half ahead of “Angry Birds” and two points behind “Deadwood”. We are eight points behind a tie between “The 5 G’s”, “Dee’s Boys III”, and “The Incredibowls”, with that group a point ahead of “Split Happens” and two ahead of “There’s 3 and 2”. This week’s opponents are “WTF”, and in the matches involving the leaders, “The 5 G’s” bowl “The Girly Man”, “Dee’s Boys III” face “Angry Birds”, and “The Incredibowls” have “Deadwood”.

Individually, Brian had the high game with handicap in his division last week.

My morning with Norm Duke (and a few friends)

I ended up getting general admission tickets for today’s Next Level Bowling clinic at Town Line Ten Pin in Malden featuring Norm Duke, and I had arrived late and missed the first part of the morning clinic squad. However, this wasn’t much of an issue because I didn’t sign up to bowl, so I was just content watching from the back and taking mental notes. Without spoiling stuff for future participants of Next Level’s clinics, I did ask Norm Duke about a point during the morning autograph and photo session and he said it would definitely help me with my biggest problem, my early turn.

I couldn’t stay for the more entertaining portions of the day’s festivities (the trick shot exhibition and challenge match), but I was happy they had a photo and autograph session following the first clinic squad. I had brought Norm’s DVD for him to sign, but, since they were selling them, I sprung for a bowling pin and had Norm sign that, followed before I left by PB3, who was there for the Brunswick seminar. I may post a photo or two of the pin in the future when I add more autographs (maybe sooner). Below is the photo I got with the Next Level Bowling pros (note that Mike Machuga was also there…we bowlers call him “Choogs”):

(L-R) Brian Ziesig, Jimmie Pritts Jr., Richie, Mike Machuga, Norm Duke
(L-R) Brian Ziesig, Jimmie Pritts Jr., Richie, Mike Machuga, Norm Duke

I will add that I knew several bowlers actually bowling in the clinic, and that, although I don’t think I’ve ever been in Town Line before today, the recent renovations were apparent to me, and I think bowlers in the state tournament in the coming weeks will like bowling there. 😀