Billy Hardwick's Son "Hates" Modern Bowling

After the recent Mark Roth Plastic Ball Championship, I wrote here that I would rather see bowlers required in all elite level tournaments to use bowling balls with polyester coverstocks and simple layouts so that the sport would downplay the importance of bowling ball technology and return to emphasizing a bowler's physical and mental skills. It seems that Chris Hardwick, the multi-talented son of bowling legend Billy Hardwick, agrees and would like to see bowlers at all levels subject to the same restrictions.

Hardwick, who writes articles for Wired magazine, penned a provocative article in Oct, 2008 that is fun and interesting reading. In Technology's Gutterball: New Gear Makes Bowling Too Easy, Chris, who was named after famed bowling announcer Chris Schenkel, writes about growing up on course to become the "Tiger Woods of bowling (but with a hilariously lower salary)" until Dungeons and Dragons and videogames altered his destiny. However, he says that he remains "a careful observer of the game" and that he 'hates' what he sees.

He hates the fact that modern reactive resin and other high tech bowling balls have made 300 games and high averages pretty much meaningless:

These new balls and surfaces mean more strikes, which means higher scores and more perfect games. By some counts, amateur bowlers can average 40 pins higher per game than a professional bowler did 40 years ago — and that's not because of some recently evolved mutation in the human bowling gene. Look, we all want to excel at bowling. How else would we attract potential sex partners? Not to go all Harrison Bergeron on you, but when everyone bowls perfect games, then no one bowls a perfect game. Sure, other sports have tech. A titanium shaft and weighted clubhead will let you hit 300-yard drives until your spine unhinges, but they'll still slice. With bowling, the equation is simpler. More tech equals more strikes.

Hardwick later, with tongue probably only halfway in cheek, writes this about the USBC's proposal to limit the porousness of bowling balls after April, 2009:

As a purist of the sport, I'm grateful for the change. We should have to earn our marks the way our daddies (or, at least, mine) did: with hard rubber balls on wood, a hot lamp over the scoring table burning our hands and faces, and watered-down American beer lubricating each frame until we go home smelling like an ashtray in a chemical plant. "Keep yer got-damn science off mah balls!" we'll cry, and life will be good and pure and true.

Call me the old fuddy-duddy that I am, but I agree with Hardwick, except for the hot lamps and cigarette smoke.

Chris' dad Billy in a 1969 Miller High Life beer commercial.

Yesterday's Telecast is an Instant ESPN Classic

If any of you didn't see yesterday's PBA telecast of the GEICO Mark Roth Plastic Ball Championship and either don't have PBA Xtra Frame or want to watch the show on something bigger and better than a computer monitor, tune into ESPN Classic tonight at 9 PM EDT, and be sure to watch all 2 hours of it lest you miss any of the exciting action.

Come to think of it, even if you did see it live yesterday, if you're like me, you'll revel in seeing it again.

The PBA's Best Week Ever (With Updates)

"This is my 15 minutes of fame. It’s back to work tomorrow morning. To be able to accomplish this on national TV in front of a hometown crowd is really kind of a fantasy."
--Brian Ziesig

I loved the Tournament of Champions in January. I still think Kelly Kulick's victory was the greatest moment in PBA history. But I can't remember a better week for the PBA than this week's GEICO Mark Roth Plastic Ball Championship.

First and foremost was Mark Roth summoning the strength to overcome the ravages of his severe stroke last May to appear at the tournament that honored him. After hearing of his nightmarish tribulations right up to a couple of months before today, to see photos on the PBA website last Wednesday and Thursday of him standing without assistance and looking amazingly good and then to see him sit in as guest commentator on PBA Xtra Frame for the Round of 16 Friday was fantastic. The capper was seeing him sitting in the front row today with his wife Denise on one side and his dear friend Johnny Petraglia on the other. It was wonderful.

Next was the tournament itself. I loved watching some of the finest bowlers on earth take their two allotted plastic balls and use their own prodigious skills to adjust their releases, alignments, and ball speeds to make them work. This week it wasn't about whose ball rep put the ball in their hands that "read the lanes" best. As Xtra Frame's "Bowling Doctor" Jeff Mark explained, "If they have something, it's because they created it and not because it was given to them or someone designed it." What a refreshing change of pace.

Then there was 63-year-old Hall of Famer Johnny Petraglia Sr. bowling his son in the first game of match play and using his "maple moxy" to almost make it to the next round. He bowled beautifully, looking a lot like the Johnny Petraglia of his prime.

Then there was the much and unfairly mocked and maligned Chris Barnes rebounding from a disastrous first block of qualifying to almost make it to the Round of 16 and then beat young New York native and rising star Anthony Pepe Saturday night for the $10,000 winner-take-all pot before a wildly enthusiastic crowd in the nation's hotbed of "action" bowling in the final "Chris Barnes Challenge" of the season. Pepe, a 21-year-old leftie who seems to be able to play anywhere on the lane with a solid physical game, began the match by stringing 8 powerful strikes in a row and looked like he might crush Barnes. But Barnes stayed close, and when the lanes began to change, he adapted better than Anthony and ended up winning the three game total pins match 681-649. Afterwards, he said, “Anthony is a great player and I think he’s among the next generation of young bowlers who has the potential to do great things in the sport.”

Then there was seeing different styles score well on a condition that I expected to decisively favor the power bowlers. The match play rounds of 32 and 16 were populated by righties and lefties, and by strokers who threw almost straight to crankers who hooked those plastic balls to a surprising degree on the long oil of the modified Shark pattern. And in the middle of it all was the incomparable Walter Ray Williams Jr. putting on his customary display of remarkable consistency in round after round. And the inimitable Wayne Garber hung in the top five most of the week as well, accompanying Walter into the televised finals.

Then there was "The Thunder From Down Under," Jason Belmonte, staging another awe-inspiring display of bowling power and prowess by shooting 800 series like they were nothing and rolling three 300 games and two 299 games WITH PLASTIC equipment enroute to being the top seeded player in today's televised final.

Finally, there was the televised final round today. Walter Ray's 280 against Garber. Belmo and Brian Ziesig (see video below of their match) both striking out in the 10th frame of the final game to shoot 247 and send the match into sudden death overtime. Belmonte absolutely stuffing the pocket on his sudden death ball to leave a ringing 10, and Ziesig calmly stepping up and delivering a perfect shot to the pocket to strike and win his first PBA Tour title his first time on national television.

What an amazing and wonderful, wonderful week of bowling it was, especially for us PBA Xtra Frame subscribers. And if you don't believe me, sign up for the service, dip into the archives, and watch it all. You'll be glad you did.

Final tidbits.

1. Rob Stone gave us "hambone" for four strikes in a row. Now Randy Pedersen has given us "octomom" for eight in a row. I kind of like it.

2. Guess how Jason Belmonte is getting to next week's tournament in Baltimore. He's hitching a ride on the Walter Ray Williams Jr. RV Express.

3. Walter Ray spent some of his warm-time this morning throwing the ball two-handed, just in case. Maybe Jason can give him some coaching along the way to Baltimore.

UPDATE

I mistakenly posted above that Jason Belmonte left a solid 10 pin on a perfect pocket hit on his last ball when in fact he left a solid 7 pin on a slightly high hit. I also mistakenly wrote that Chris Barnes "almost" made it into the Round of 16 when, in fact, he did make it into that round and ended up finishing in 13th place. I want to thank an anonymous commenter for correcting me, and I also want to apologize for getting my facts wrong the first time around.

Xtra Frame's Roth and Belmo Show

"I never heard of a hambone."
--Mark Roth

"What do they say about Walter Ray? He can't do it without resin? Guess what. He's on the show with plastic."
--Jeff Mark

If you still don't have PBA Xtra Frame, let me tell you a little of what you missed today.

You missed seeing some great bowling. And the greatest of it all was Jason Belmonte ending the Round of 32 with a 299 game and 815 series for the last three games and then coming out of the blocks with a 300 (his third of the tournament) his first match of the Round of 32, sticking a solid 8 pin on the twelfth ball of his eighth game for a 299, and then rolling a 260 in the position round game to take the top spot for Sunday's five man stepladder final.

Belmo beat Mike Fagan for his first PBA title last year in this same house, but that was on a dual pattern where he piped a plastic ball in from the outside on the right lane's Cheetah pattern and threw reactive resin from deep inside on the left lane's Shark pattern. This time he'll be throwing the special Mark Roth plastic ball on the modified Shark pattern on both lanes, and, as awesomely as he's bowling now, he's definitely the one to beat.

Speaking a moment ago of Mark Roth, today brought a huge surprise. If you're reading this blog, you probably already knew this, but Mark Roth suffered a massive stroke last May that left him virtually speechless and almost completely paralyzed on his left side. After that, he fought to stay alive, has struggled with intensive rehabilitation, and, until recently, was going to the emergency room almost every day with one serious medical problem after another. But a few weeks before the GEICO Mark Roth Plastic Ball Championship this week in West Babylon, New York, he became a man possessed with the burning desire to walk into his own tournament.

When I heard a few days ago that he was actually planning to make it to the tournament, I thought he might stand for a brief moment and then sit in a wheelchair looking frail and feeble and hardly be able to talk. Then I saw some photos of him at the tournament Wednesday and Thursday that thrilled me with how good he looked.

Still, I could never have imagined what happened today. He sat in with "Bowling Doctor" Jeff Mark and announcer Mike J. "Laneside" on PBA Xtra Frame for the entire Round of 16 this afternoon and talked about everything from the bowlers today and their games to the brightest moments of his fabled career to his stroke and rehabilitation. And let me tell you, his body may still be weak, but his mind is strong.

He closely followed the action on the lanes and had an uncanny knack for calling whether and which pins would be left on the first ball almost as soon as it left the bowler's hand, and he had incredible recall of some of his past matches right down to whom he bowled, what games he shot, and which pins he left standing in this frame or that.

As much as I used to watch Mark Roth bowl on TV, and I've seen virtually every televised appearance he made, I got to know him far, far better today than I ever knew him before, and I was very gratified to hear him sound so good. It was also nice when his wife Denise sat in for awhile with him and talked about how grateful she and Mark were for all the help they've received during their arduous ordeal and how happy and uplifted Mark was to attend the tournament.

Let me tell you something else. Mark Roth is a man of strong opinions, and he doesn't hold back from expressing them. For instance, he doesn't approve of the two-handed game. "That's not the game I grew up with," he stated. He also doesn't like "hambones," he thinks the PBA should put the brakes on ball technology run amok and make competition more about the bowler's skill than about whether some ball rep puts the right ball in his hand, and he thinks Chris Barnes has a great physical game but needs to work on his mental game and stop "over-thinking" what he's doing on the lanes. He also said that Carmen Salvino was the guy who inspired him most to take up bowling and to hook the ball as much as he did, even though he had no sense at the time of his dominance on tour that he was changing the game as much as we can now see that he did. He also said that he never feared anyone when he bowled and that when you do fear your opponent, you've already lost.

Mark sat there for almost 2 1/2 hours smiling and looking happy, telling wonderful bowling tales, commenting on the matches taking place and the players bowling them, bluntly expressing opinions, and answering viewers' questions. It was a great time for everyone, myself included. And if you don't have Xtra Frame yet, I strongly suggest that you get it and watch today's Round of 16 on demand.

The five bowlers in Sunday's stepladder final will be, in ascending order, Michael Machuga, Wayne Garber, Walter Ray Williams Jr, hometown favorite Brian Ziesig, and, of course, the dazzling Jason Belmonte. What a fascinating mix of styles. What a promising field. And the incomparable Mark Roth will be there to oversee it all.

Does it get any better than that?