Did I Blow It?

Last night we were in first place by 5.5 points bowling against my friend Mike who has thrown 8 three hundred games and three 800 series in just about 3 years. He has been one of the city's best bowlers for the past two years. I have been friends with Mikey ever since 6th grade. He and I have bowled tournaments and leagues together for so many years now. I am glad that he is a great bowler now. He was always pretty decent like me, but I was just a bit better than him and of course my funk slump came into play and even then he wasn't that much better than me until these past few years. He went to college for a while and really wasn't bowling much so that is why he never really got great.
With the way that Josh has been bowling I figured if we were to take first place for the quarter and earn a spot in the finals we would have to rely on the girls (Aunt Barbara and my wife Sheri to win the most of the points). Why did I not include myself in the list of earnable points for the night? Because I was in fact paired to bowl against Mike, and did you not read his resume above. Oh yeah I forgot to mention that he basically averages 220! There is a total of 30 points possible on the night and we simply needed to win 12.5 or something like that to hold off Mike's team.
The first game started out great we won 4 of the total 6 points available on that game. I won my point and Barbara won her point and we had the higher team score which was 2 points. I bowled a 227 against a struggling Mike who finished strong with a 202. The next game wasn't that great! Sheri was the only one to take a point out of 6 available. Mikey started the 2nd game with the first 9 strikes in a row against me so I didn't have a chance to beat him. At this point I am even rooting for him to shoot a 300. It wasn't meant to be and he tugged the 10th ball just a bit and shot a 277 against my 237. Yeah most nights when you shoot a 237 you are most likely to win that point. Not against Mike like I said! So out of 12 points available after game 2 we only had 5 of them.
The last game started out pretty good and everybody was winning on our team except Josh. I was only ahead of Mike by ten pins but I was throwing a pretty decent ball and just figured if I kept striking I would at least take 2 points out of the possible 5 against Mike. Sheri ended up tying her last game against her opponent and she won 3.5 points out of her possible 5. Barbara won her last game and took totals as well thus she won 4 out of her 5 points. Mikey shot a 246 his last game. I shot a 266 and beat Mike not only that game but series as well. He shot a 723 and I hit a 730! Pretty weird to shoot exactly the same series as the week before, but I was dang happy. I had beaten one of the city's best bowlers on one of 5 of the most important nights of a league! There are 4 positional rounds that earn a spot into the final (last night being one of them) and then you have finals! Without this win we wouldn't be in the finals unless we were to win the last quarter. It always loosens up a swing knowing that you have already stamped a place in the finals. Mikey's team had already won a quarter and thus they were already in the finals. Was what we bowled enough to win the 12.5 points that we needed? We lost the last games final score which I thought we absolutely needed. So we had Sheri's 3.5 points Barbara's 4 points and my 4 points which gave us 11.5 points! We did win that first game as a team and that gave us 2 points and gave us our victory 13.5 points! We took the 3rd quarter and earner ourselves a spot in the finals! Wahoo I didn't blow my good bowling either!
Another 730! I have now averaged just over 232 for the past 4 weeks and am feeling better and better. I beat one of the best bowlers around here last night when he shot a 723! I honestly think that is probably my first back to back 700 series since I started bowling! My average was up to 202 before last night and I imagine that it will probably move up another 2! I had two goals this year and they were to beat Josh (which I thought was going to be a lot easier that it was) and to get my average up to a 200. I am sure that I have the Josh goal in the bag, but there is still 10 more weeks of bowling to go. Anything can happen, but I am hoping to keep it going.
On January 20th Sheri had a chance to get her first 600 series. She has been bowling really good this year and I had hoped that she would get her first 600. She bowled a 220 her first game and fell slightly the second game hitting a 184. Thus she needed to get a 196 her last game. She knows that in order to get up in the high 190s to low 200s you will need to double up (that is getting two strikes in a row) and leaving no opens. Thus she needs to get a double and shoot all spares to get her 196. Well, it was the ninth frame and she hadn't doubled yet. She hadn't opened which was great, but she need to get them two strikes in a row yet. She asked for my advice. I knew she was throwing a good ball she just wasn't getting any breaks. I noticed one thing that might give her a bit more carry so I told her my advice. She stepped up in the 9 frame and missed! She got her spare and had one last shot to get a 600. She needed the first two strikes in the tenth frame to have a shot. She stepped up with the first ball in the tenth frame and smashed the pocket! Strike! The next ball was a bit light in the pocket but there was still some pins moving around and at last that final pin fell giving her that much needed double! She would however still need to get like 6 pins or something like that. I think she might have struck, but the fact was that she got her last 5 or 6 pins that she needed and hit a 604 series! I was so pound of her! With that 600 by Sheri and my 700 series last week we have all our team on the honor roll board! Pretty cool. We are probably the only team in that bowling establishment that have a mixed team (2 guys and 2 girls) on the honor roll board.
In order to get on the honor roll board you have to either shoot a 225 or higher as a woman or hit a 600 series. Barbara has not shot a 600, but she did get a 234 one week. Sheri obviously got her 604. Josh has been on the board for most of the year. As a man you have to shoot a 700 or have a score in one game higher than a 275. Josh did both of those things in the first 5 weeks of bowling. I finally hit my 730 and it is pretty cool having all of our team on the board! I am happy for us all, but hope that Josh doesn't get to down on himself for not bowling good. He did hit a 226 his first game and I thought he might be making a comeback from his last month of bowling, but his next two games sucked. I still think he is trying too hard and expects too much from himself. Keep up the desire to bowl good Josh and just have fun.

Better Blog Before I Blow It

So as many of you know I have been struggling with bowling for about a decade. I was a decent bowler averaging around 215 and was confident that I was going to get even better. I woke up one day and was unable to roll the ball properly and my average dropped down to like a 175. I have averaged around 190 for the past 7 years, but that is just luck because there was no confidence in my release.
Josh my cousin bowls with us this year and he started out the year on fire. He was basically averaging anywhere from 198-207 all year. I was just basically sticking around that 190-193 area that I have been in limbo with for years. I knew that I needed to do something to get my game back. I decided the first step was to have my bowling balls re-drilled and see if that was the issue (it was about 90% of the issue). The way all my bowling balls were drilled kept me from holding and releasing the ball properly and consistently. I had two bowling balls redone and from then on it was up to me. Was I going to be able to learn how to bowl again? It was about the beginning of December that this was done. I informed Josh he had 5 weeks and I was going to surpass his average. I know that he wanted to kick my butt at my own game since the year started and he was so great out of the gate. Well it only took two weeks to overtake him. However, he decided to bowl great the next week and passed me again. This happened again. I would work my butt off and then he would have a great week and pass me again.
Three weeks ago he bowled pretty bad not even averaging a 170 on the night and I bowled good and passed him with a 199-198 that following week. Two weeks ago I bowled pretty good again and he didn't bowl bad just not as good as me, and I was at 200 and he was down to a 197. That was my biggest lead on him for the year. This last week was pretty cool. During the ten minutes of practice before league started I could find the pocket for anything. I was completely lost. I thought it might be a good sign because usually if you do nothing but strike in practice you are going to suck the rest of the night. I was a little worried, but my first ball of the night I was instantly sure that I was going to release the ball properly and score good. I was correct. My first game was a 234, second game 230 and my last game was a 266 for a 730! I had the last ten strikes in a row in that last game and Josh once again didn't even hit a 170 average on the night. I averaged just over 243 for the night and my average will jump more while Josh's falls. I have averaged 227 for the last three weeks and hope to maintain whatever overall average I have tonight throughout the year. Just figured that I had to blog before I do in fact bowl horrible. I know that there is going to be a night where I feel lost again and I won't score worth crap, but the last 3 months have given me hope that I can someday be the bowler I once was. These last three weeks I have actually felt better than when I was bowling great as a young man. I have just seen too many people scoring perfect games and 800 series without me! I dream to one day have an 800 ring and to have Josh (my cousin who hasn't bowled a league since he was in high school) bowl his first league in forever and come so close to it shooting an 800 with his 787 just kind of woke me up. I could have cared less in fact I wish he would have shot the 800 that night, but it for sure has awakened my passion for the game again. I am happy with the way I have been bowling. I have hated bowling for the past ten years and didn't ever think that I would be one of the city's elite ever again. I never imagined that I would want to bowl. Sure Sheri and I have bowled a league every year that we have been married, but it was basically just something to do and get out of the house in the winter months. I haven't enjoyed the game and was pretty close to quitting a couple of times. The past month I have actually thought about bowling a ton. I have thought about bowling tournaments, I have thought that I want to have a Steve Stricker like comeback. I have no aspirations of being on TV, but I do want to go to some bigger tournaments this next year if I am bowling like I am now and still have the confidence that I have right now.
I thanked Josh for giving up on trying to beat me this year as far as average is concerned. He didn't really like that remark and said that the year wasn't over. I hope that he does not only try to beat me, but I hope that he does in fact bowl great. I don't think that he will be able to pass me though. I have a ton of confidence that he is lacking. He expects a bit too much especially since like I said he hasn't really bowled since juniors. He gets down on himself way too much too. Once a person is able to stop beating their selves up over little mistakes in any sport and focus on the next shot or task at hand is the day that they start excelling exponentially.
I now have no doubt that Josh isn't going to be able to beat me this year and I will still be known as the best bowler in the family, but that is hopefully just the tip of the iceberg. I expressed to Josh a sincere thanks as for bowling with us this year and pushing me to get out of the pit. I have been a big let down to my fellow bowlers for years. This is the first year that I haven't been asked to bowl city or state tournament by someone! Nobody! Not even fellow bowlers who aren't that good that have idolized me back in the day and would love to have me on their team in the past didn't even ask me this year. It really doesn't hurt my feelings. I wouldn't not want to have asked me either if I were them. Heck I don't know why I was asked for the past 9 of these 10 years. I literally sucked but I hope to have those multiple invites again next year when I prove to everyone that I am back!