One Man's Take on the U.S. Women's Open Finals Fiasco

I hadn't intended to write anymore about last Wednesday's Reno bowling circus until after the delayed broadcast next Tuesday. But I've been reading so many comments from people who were there or who, like bowling Hall of Fame performer and writer Jeff Richgels, weren't there but have heard loads from those who were, that I'd be remiss if I didn't share one of the more perceptive comments with you. It comes from someone on Jeff Richgels' Facebook wall responding to those who say that this wasn't the first professional bowling tournament conducted outdoors and that it will, in any case, draw more viewers than a more ordinary finals telecast would. Here is what he wrote that I think puts the event into benignly balanced perspective:

My only issue with what occurred is that this was for a major title..the summer series was a fun event with no significant pba title on the line..it was a promotional event for the tour and manufactureres..the women only have a couple of events to showcase their abilities and make a case for sponsors to take a look at them...although the intentions were good and the outcome cant be blamed on human error, it was still go down as a disaster in the eyes of some viewers...we are trying to appeal to new viewers as a sport and those potential new viewers that will stumble onto the program will see these ladies bowling for a major title using the same balls the viewer can pick up on a house rack, and shooting the same scores and conditions you run into during cosmic bowing after birthday parties. This is not the fault of the ladies, equipment, or the organizers. This is to just an unfortunate turn of events.

Bowling Video: Liz Johnson Tears Em Up at 2012 USBC Open Championships in Baton Rouge

No woman or man could bowl much better than Liz Johnson did the last two games of the team event at the 2012 USBC Open Championships in Baton Rouge, LA. As bowling writer, USBC hall of famer, and four-time Eagle winner Jeff Richgels commented, "One of the world's top bowlers--male or female!" Her teammates aren't bad either. You can watch every shot below.

Jeff Richgel's Early Advice for the 2012 USBC Open

"The shot played tough, the carry was terrible, and I split on most shots that did not hit the pocket." ~ Pete Couture

"I think a team commitment to playing the lanes together becomes more crucial the flatter the pattern becomes." ~ Jeff Richgels

For those of you brave or foolish (or brave AND foolish) enough to bowl the USBC Open Championships this year in Baton Rouge, four-time Open champion and USBC Hall of Famer Jeff Richgels has two primary points of advice for you based on his conversations with USBC head lane man Eric Pierson and his observations of the following video.

First, expect more challenging conditions than you've encountered the past few years; and, second, it's imperative that if you want to bowl well as a team, you all need to be on the same page as to how you play the lanes. You can't start out with some guys playing straight up five and others swinging 15 and expect to carve out a forgiving shot that generates competitive scores.

Bowling great Pete Couture's team apparently went the rugged individualist route, and Couture ended up lamenting, "I think it's time to retire from bowling the USBC National tournament" after struggling to shoot 539 in the team event in which his team managed a disappointing 2964.

You can check out Richgel's informative blogpost here and watch the USBC's first official webcast of the tournament below.

Pete Weber Wins 69th PBA U.S. Open

"Dad, I know you were watching. I know you're proud, and I'm sorry I broke your record." ~ Pete Weber

Until Sunday, February 26, 2012, nobody owned more U.S. Open titles than the late, great Don Carter and Dick Weber. Then Dick Weber's Hall of Fame son Pete stepped onstage to defeat Ryan Shafer 223-191, Jason Belmonte 225-213, and Mike Fagan 215-214 in one of the best-bowled and most intense televised stepladder finals in TV bowling history en route to an unprecedented fifth U.S. Open, ninth major, and 36th tour title that had no less than bowling luminary and writer Jeff Richgels opining that PDW may well be the best bowler of all time.

And as much as raw statistics might still award that glittering honor to Walter Ray Williams Jr. or Earl Anthony, there's no avoiding the fact that, as Richgels writes, "Pete has been at the top of bowling through more eras than either Earl or Walter Ray, starting at the end of plastic through urethane to reactive resin...You simply can't deny that Pete has stayed on top through more changes in the game than any bowler in history. And look at how much his game has changed from when he was a teenager who arguably had the most powerful game in bowling to almost a finesse player who is little more than a tweener in the current era of two-handed ultra power players. What hasn't changed is his almost unreal competitiveness and will to win that has enabled him to rise to big occasions as much as any player in history."

Richgels writes that he's still not sure who's the greatest bowler ever but that Pete Weber's phenomenal performance Sunday at the age of 49 has "changed the debate" for him. I guess I'd have to say that the same goes for me. Bad boy that PDW has been over the years and was again on Sunday, there's no denying his stupendous bowling accomplishments that rise to the level that one of his opponents Sunday, the immensely talented Jason Belmonte, characterized as "inhuman." I'd call them superhuman.

I'll have more to say about all of this and about this year's PBA U.S. Open and Sunday telecast over a series of upcoming blogposts, but I want to end this entry with videos of yesterday's wonderful matches for you to savor. It's been a long time since bowling has received the respect it deserves, and, regrettably, Sunday's finals probably won't change that a whole lot.

But it should.

For a concise summary of the entire 2012 PBA U.S. Open, be sure to check out this article on Jef's Bowling Blog, and for a more detailed summary of the televised finals, you can read Bill Vint's wrap up on the PBA website. Finally, you can watch the videos below to behold what words cannot fully convey of all three matches.

Bowling Quote for the Day--Nothing Slows Down Belmo

"Belmonte's move might surprise some who would theorize that the mega-revving two-hander would be unable to play on the fresh flat pattern that is put down for each match play block. But Belmonte, who was the qualifying leader at last year's U.S. Open but missed the TV finals, has solidified his game so much in the past year that nothing seems to slow him down." ~ Jeff Richgels

Jeff Richgels on Keeping the USBC Open Championships in Reno

"It is expensive for anyone who can't drive to get there, but once you are there, it is very inexpensive and convenient. The hotels are cheap or free (if you gamble enough), you can walk from the downtown hotels to the Stadium and there are free shuttles from the airport to the hotels so a rental car isn't necessary. And there are plenty of decent and inexpensive dining options in the downtown area."

--Jeff Richgels

I live less than 150 miles from the National Bowling Stadium in Reno, NV, but I've bowled there only a couple of times. And even though I've been bowling leagues and tournaments for 46 years and lived in Sacramento for 6 1/2 years, I've never bowled the USBC Open Championships. I explain some of my reasons for this in this recent blogpost.

This year I had a chance to bowl the Open for free. Some guy on a Wichita team had to drop out at the last moment but had already paid his fees. I could have bowled in his place for just the price of gas to get myself to the Stadium and for lodging to stay there overnight. I declined. In a nutshell, I didn't want to inflict my lousy bowling on a team and doubles partner.

I also haven't bowled well at the Stadium, even on easier conditions. I'm very impressed by the size and majesty of the place, but there are things about it I don't like, including the ball returns. Also, I don't want to bowl there in the colder months, because I don't want to drive over treacherous mountain passes in the snow. Had I agreed to bowl for the Wichita guys, I would have had to "chain up" and drive in the snow during a winter that lasted almost all the way through spring.

Still, I'm glad that the Open has taken place in nearby Reno the past couple of years. I may still go take a gander at it one of these weekends before it's over this year. And I hope it comes back sometime in the future. The great Jeff Richgels posted an article to his blog about upgrades Reno officials are looking to make to the Stadium to book future USBC Opens there. Here are some of Richgel's suggestions:

"As for the Stadium improvements, here's a small wish list: a ball service of some sort that gets balls from the front entrance and/or parking areas to the locker room area without having to lug them, more space in the settee area, ball returns pulled back off the approaches, and a wireless system that will enable on-demand webcasting. I could list another dozen things but that's a start."

I hope they're able to do all of this and more, especially the suggested improvements to the ball returns. It's high time the National Bowling Stadium, of all places, gets those ungainly ball returns off the approaches altogether and helps usher in the day that they disappear from all the approaches of all respectable bowling centers.

You can read all of Jeff Richgels' informative article here.

Jeff Richgels to Join USBC Hall of Fame

When Jeff Richgels was a boy, a bruising tackle in a pickup football game sent him crashing to the ground and bent his right wrist under him and broke it. He then proceeded to play more football and didn't see a doctor about it until days later when it was too late to fix it without re-breaking it and setting it properly. Richgels refused, and his wrist never healed properly. If not for that, who knows what he might have accomplished on the bowling lanes?

As it is, he's won four eagles in the USBC Championships over the years and is in contention this year to win another, been a Gold medalist for Team USA, won 29 PBA regional titles, is one of only three people known to have bowled all events at the USBC Championships without a single open frame, and will soon be inducted into the USBC Hall of Fame via a new Performance category. Not only that, but he will soon turn 50 and be joining the senior tour.

You can read the whole story here, follow his outstanding bowling blog, The 11th Frame, here, and below is an excellent video profile of this outstanding bowler.

Matt McNiel's Lightning Almost Strikes Twice At USBC Open Championships

Matt McNiel made bowling history last year at the Reno National Bowling Stadium when he rolled 740 in the team event, 780 in doubles, and 806 in singles to win the all-events title at the USBC Open Championships with an astounding nine-game total of 2,326.

Not only did McNiel win the coveted all-events "eagle," but he also broke the "unbreakable" all-events record of 2,321 that Ron Vokes set at the Open in Las Vegas just a year before. It was an amazing performance.

So, when the 25-year-old left-hander returned to Reno last weekend to compete in this year's Open, all eyes were upon the defending champion to see how he would do this time around. And McNiel didn't disappoint. In the team event Sunday evening, he began with a 258, followed it with a 263, and finished with a 224 to shoot 745 and lead his team to eighth place in the team standings.

After reading about this in Jeff Richgels' column yesterday, I decided to tune in Monday evening to watch Bowl.com's live streaming of McNiel's doubles and singles outings. And, again, disappointment was in short supply. McNiel led off his doubles effort with a 245, then blasted a 300, and began with a five-bagger before going a little high in the sixth frame to leave an 8 pin and finish out with a 277 for an awesome 822 series. That 822 made McNiel only the second person in history to shoot two 800 series in the USBC Open Championships.

At this point, with a 6-game total of 1567, McNiel needed to shoot 760 in singles to break his all-events record, and he needed a 691 to take the lead in all-events this year. And if he'd been able to stay on the pair on which he began the evening, he might well have been able to do the latter or even the former. But having to move to a different pair presented problems with carry that McNiel was unable to fully solve, as he shot games of 236-215-223 for a 674 series and all-events total of 2241.

By normal standards, this was still an outstanding effort. Yet, "normal" is hardly a word one would use to describe the extraordinary accomplishments of Matt McNiel over his previous fifteen games at the Open.

Matt McNiel is an outstanding amateur bowler with a smooth yet hard throwing lefty style somewhat reminiscent to my eye of Ryan Ciminelli's. But you can judge for yourself by checking out his performance last night in the embedded videos below. The first video is of his entire performance, and the second video is of the tenth frame of his second game of doubles where he shot 300.

As a side note, McNiel shot 299 and 800 last year at the Open but didn't receive USBC sport condition honor awards for them because he didn't have a USBC sport league membership at the time. And he still hadn't upgraded his membership when he shot his first 300 on a sport condition last Thursday night. So when he got to Reno this year, he asked one of the USBC folks if he could upgrade his membership there, they let him do it, and it's a good thing he did.

You can read Jeff Richgel's excellent profiles of McNiel last year here, and this year here, and Bowl.com's recap of McNiel's entire outing this year here.

Live Broadcast by Ustream.TV

Bowling Quote of the Day--Jeff Richgels on Dick "Ritchie" Allen

"As a new dad, he might want you to call him Dick Allen now, but he'll always be Ritchie to me...And it was wonderful to see on Sunday that he continues to be the same basic guy I met long ago, whatever name he goes by...If you didn't see Allen's win in the Dick Weber PBA Playoffs on ESPN on Sunday, I'm not sure I can adequately explain in words what I mean. But if you saw the show, I know you understand. And I love it. Pro bowling — all sports! — needs more athletes who aren't afraid to openly be who they really are and say what they really think."

--Jeff Richgels

Bowling Quote--Hooray for Mike J

"I absolutely love Mike Jakubowski doing the announcing with Randy Pederson. Jakubowski, who handles the PBA Xtra Frame Webcasts, meshes fantastically with Pedersen and is, in my opinion, far superior to Rob Stone, Pedersen's regular ESPN partner who is busy covering the World Cup. I'm not a Stone hater and I think he's better than predecessor Dave Ryan, but Jakubowski clearly knows bowling a lot better than Stone and he and Pedersen just sounded far better together than Stone and Pedersen ever have."

--Jeff Richgels

NEWS FLASH--There WILL be a Women's U.S. Open Next Year

Here's a great news flash hot off the presses or, rather, off redoubtable Jeff Richgels' The 11th Frame bowling blog: There WILL be a U.S. Women's Open in 2011. Since the USBC won't be sponsoring it, it will be sponsored by Ebonite and held in the Dallas area in June. For more details, click here to read Richgels' article.

The Great USBC Open Beverage Debate

When I found out that bowlers would be allowed to drink alcoholic beverages this year at the USBC Open for the first time ever, I wasn't keen on the idea, and I blogged about it here. I argued that spilled beverages could cause sticky approaches and that drunken bowlers could "undermine the integrity" or dignity of this hallowed tournament.

Well, this month's Bowlers Journal International weighs in on the issue with a point-counterpoint article titled "The Great Adult Beverage Debate: Two perspectives on the USBC's decision to allow drinking--and we don't mean water--at the Open Championships." On the pro side is Jeff Richgels, a four-time ABC/USBC Champion and bowling journalist. On the other side is Ed Baur, a former ABC executive.

PRO

Richgels argues that the USBC is struggling financially and needs to do all it can to keep bowlers coming to the tournament. One way it can do this is to realize that a lot of participants in the Open aren't deadly serious competitive bowlers but look at the Open as part of their vacation for having fun with their friends. A few drinks down on the lanes can facilitate this, and there's nothing gravely wrong with it provided that officials make sure things don't get out of hand and are prepared to reinstate the alcohol ban if a significant problem arises. Sure, a tournament in which the beer is flowing doesn't make for the most august and dignified tournament around, but it doesn't need to be. Says Richgels:

"The USBC Open Championships is the national tournament for league bowlers; the U.S. Open is the true national championship--the event that opinion leaders and media types will look at if they ever look at bowling.

Some bowling folks get way too worked up worrying about bowling's image.

That energy would be far better spent working to capitalize on bowling's many strengths and embracing what the sport is."

CON

Baur argues that the USBC isn't allowing alcoholic beverages in order to "enhance the 'customer experience.' It's about money, and the USBC appears willing to tarnish its brightest star to acquire funds that would delay the next inevitable dues increase." However, no sport "that takes itself seriously" should degrade its "national championship" by allowing participants to consume alcohol during competition. "This isn't beer pong," Baur exclaims. Bowling has enough of an "image problem" as it is with the public. Let's not do anything to make matters worse. Moreover, when people start drinking, they're going to have to take "bathroom breaks" that cause disruptive delays, and it's going to place an undue burden on staff members to enforce proper conduct.

A THIRD OPINION

Bob Johnson is the editor of Bowlers Journal International and has a column titled "Strikes Me" at the end of each issue. He disagrees with Richgels that only the U.S. Open should be considered our national tournament, because this would regrettably mean that "bowling is perceived primarily as an individual sport as opposed to a team sport." But Johnson also takes issue with Baur's contention that bowling has a longstanding "image problem" with the American public. "I don't think the problem is as much with the public as it is with the media. Bowling's image doesn't stop tens of millions of people from going bowling each year. But the rantings of various media types do feed the negative stereotype of the 'typical bowler.'" he writes.

CONCLUSION

I've never bowled the USBC Open, so maybe it isn't my place to express an opinion on the matter. Maybe I should wait until I bowl next month as planned, assuming I carry out my plan. So, I'll only say right now that I lean toward the opinion, as I did in my previous entry, that the Open is an important enough tournament that it should present itself in a flattering light to the media and public at large and hold its participants to a high standard of conduct that excludes drinking alcohol and prevents the various problems that "adult drinking" could cause. However, since the cat is already out of the bag, let's see where it goes and what, if any, mischief it causes before we try to stuff it back in.

How do you feel about this issue? Are some of us making a proverbial mountain out of a molehill?

Bowling Video of the Day--2010 USBC Open Team Competition

I've been asked to bowl on a team at the USBC Open in Reno this year. I've never bowled nationals before, but I have bowled in the Reno bowling stadium. However, I've never bowled there on as tough a pattern as the Open puts out.

Frankly, I don't think I'm ready for it. I think I'd be wasting my money and taking a big risk of letting down my teammates. I think I'm going to pass this year, although I haven't made a final decision yet.

But for those of you who are definitely competing this year or even thinking you might, below are videos of some very good teams, including the current team all-events leader (top video), competing in this year's USBC Open.

Also, here's a link to Jeff Richgels' excellent The 11 Frame bowling blog where this four-time USBC Open champion writes about his experience last weekend at the Open and provides some expert tips for team and individual success there. If you're going to nationals, you'd be foolish to ignore what this guy has to say.