Tournament Tidbits

I've made it very clear on this blog that I love PBA Xtra Frame. In fact, I've made it so clear that if more than a handful of people actually read this blog, I'd deserve to get paid for all the glowing things I've said about Xtra Frame. It's not perfect, mind you. I get annoyed and frustrated when the video and audio keep freezing up on me and I have to close the window and reopen it again and again. But that's a relatively small price to pay for how entertained I am and for what I learn from its coverage that you can't get anywhere else of PBA events.

Take today for instance. I just finished watching the first 8 game block of match play in the Don and Paul Carter Mixed Doubles Open, and I loved every minute of it. Not only was the bowling exciting, but I listened with rapt attention to announcer Mike Jakubowsky and bowling analyst Jeff Mark converse with guests Mark Sabotini, director of PBA lane maintenance; Cassidy Shaub, two-handed lefty exempt player; and PBA Hall-of-Famer and currrent Ebonite representative Del Ballard. Here are some of the highlights of what I heard this morning:

Belmonte-Feldman dominance- Jeff Mark predicted before match play began that the doubles team of Jason Belmonte and Michelle Feldman would annihilate the rest of the field in match play with their tremendous power games, and it looks like he couldn't have been more right. They're almost 300 pins ahead of the second place team after the first block, and i'm guessing that they're going to keep widening their lead in the second block. They are just destroying the pins and the other teams and opening up their margin of error with their overpowering balls. So, it looks like they'll be seeded first on Sunday's telecast, and I'll be delighted to see them up there. I love to watch them both.

Lane maintenance routine- I never gave much thought to what the lane maintenance people do on the PBA tour, but it was interesting to hear the top guy describe a typical tournament day. When he first arrives at a new bowling center, he unloads the oiling machines from the truck, takes them inside, and plugs them in to warm them up. They have to be at at least 70 degrees to work properly. He then programs them according to predetermined specifications, with a USBC representative there to independently confirm and certify that he's doing it properly, then he runs the lanes with the machine, watches the bowlers warm up and then bowl in competition, and then. after a block is completed, he uses some kind of measuring "tapes," in a manner I don't yet understand, to determine if the lanes were oiled properly.

Sabotini says that the PBA is currently using two kinds of oil. It uses lower viscosity Brunswick Connect lane oil on lower friction surfaces and the much thicker Brunswick Authority 22 lane oil or conditioner on higher friction surfaces. This week, the surface friction is low, so they're using the Connect oil distributed in a modified Scorpion pattern. Sabotini says that the lighter oils don't carry down nearly as much as the heavier ones.

Rookie year challenges- Cassidy Shaub says that he came on tour thinking he already knew a lot about bowling, but he got a rude awakening early on in facing the rapidly changing and extremely challenging conditions that PBA players face on tour. He says it's just "mind boggling" how much they know and, indeed, have to know about lane conditions, equipment, and making the adjustments necessary to be competitive. It's really tough on a young rookie like him to undergo such a steep learning curve and to endure the grind of travel and managing tight finances, but he's doing everything he can to improve, including receiving coaching to help him gain better control of his extremely high revving ball. Yet, when asked if he thinks his two-handed style overtaxes his body and is likely to take its toll over time, he replies that he doesn't think it's any more taxing than a powerful one-handed style.

Two...two...two tournaments in one- Jeff Mark says that a tournament like this week's is really two different tournaments in terms of the conditions the bowlers face and the strategies they must employ between qualifying as individuals bowling only with players of their own gender and bowling match play as a mixed gender team against other mixed gender teams. This presents a special challenge to the women who are now bowling on lanes that get broken down a lot faster by the high revving male players than they are in women's only tournaments. But the men are also faced with different conditions, created by the women bowlers, than they're accustomed to.

Walter Ray loves the women- Del Ballard says that Walter Ray Williams is a huge fan of women's bowling, and Jeff Mark reports that when he was a ball rep and worked with Walter Ray a few years ago, Walter would excitedly approach the pro women for autographs and they were stunned and delighted that this bowling superstar of superstars wanted THEIR autograph. Mark says that no matter how well or poorly he and his doubles partner Staphanie Nation (and they're dead last after the first block) fare in this tournament, no one is having more fun during the mixed doubles format than Walter Ray.

Ballard, who has won a big mixed doubles tournament or two, likes mixed doubles too although he isn't "overly fond" of the Baker format. He's also hopeful for women's bowling. He says he's always maintained that if the women want to get paid as much as the men, they need to be able to beat the men and that Kelly Kulick proved during her amazing performance at the TOC than it can be done. He also agrees with Jeff Mark that Shannon Pluhowsky has such a wonderful style and effortlessly powerful delivery that she could probably compete with the male lefties on the men's tour. Mark says she is one of the few bowlers of either gender that he would actually pay to watch bowl. That's how much he thinks of her game. Ballard says that the most physically talented female bowler he's ever seen is Tammy Boomershine. She made it to match play this week and is paired with heavy rolling British star Stuart Williams.

Two-handed ladies- Ballard recounts a recent experience of practicing on a Sunday morning and seeing two ladies in their fifties come in and start throwing the ball two-handed. When he went over to talk with them, they told him that they'd seen Jason Belmonte do it on TV and wanted to try it for themselves. He said they had a great time and that he did too watching them, talking with them, and giving them a few pointers. He said bowling, even competitive bowling, should be about having fun, which is one reason why he takes no issue with the USBC allowing people to drink beverages, including alcoholic ones, down on the lanes this year at the Nationals in Reno.

Quietest shoulder on tour- I'm not sure exactly what he means by this, but Ballard says, "Nobody on tour keeps their [bowling arm] shoulder quieter than Rhino Page," Ballard says he loves this about Page's style and wishes he could teach it to everyone.

IT may not be all that- I've wondered about Vise's new interchangeable thumb system called IT and have even considered getting it for my own equipment, but, despite the ringing endorsements of some of the PBA's finest, I've been wary of the possibility of it breaking or causing me other problems. Well, this morning, Jeff Mark and Del Ballard gave me further pause. They say that the deep pilot hole that must be drilled into the ball in order to use the IT system may inadvertently alter the shape and density of the ball's core, and that this, in turn, could significantly change the ball's "core dynamics" and roll from what it was designed to be.

Bowling is such a complicated sport at its higher levels. But Xtra Frame helps me understand it better.