Is PBA Xtra Frame's Jason Thomas Psychic?

In case you don't have enough reasons already to subscribe to the PBA's webcasting service, Xtra Frame, here's another one. This week the PBA is in Indianapolis for the fabled Tournament of Champions, and Xtra Frame has been covering it from the opening frames of qualifying yesterday. This morning at 10 AM Eastern, Osku Palermaa, who was in either second or first place going in to today's final 8-game block of qualifying, stepped up in the first frame of his first game and left a pocket 7-10 split. Not an auspicious start, to say the least. But not to worry.

"I'm gonna to go out on a limb and say he's going to make this, Jeff," said "The Bowling Guy," Jason Thomas, to his co-announcer, About.com's Bowling Guide Jeff Goodger. "He's gonna give us something to scream about right out of the gate this morning." "Good," replied Goodger. "I trust the bowling guy's instincts."

Well, I was surprised at such a bold prediction. It didn't sound like a joke. It sounded serious. And it's no small thing to seriously predict the conversion of a split that most of us have never converted ourselves and rarely if ever seen anyone else convert. I've been bowling pretty regularly for almost 50 years, most of it at the scratch level, and have left hundreds of 7-10 splits over that time. I've never converted the 7-10 even once. And I could probably count on one hand the number of times I've seen it converted in front of me. I've seen it converted a few more times on TV and the Internet, but not THAT many more. 7-10 conversions are pretty rare no matter who's shooting at them. They don't call the 7-10 split "impossible" for nothing.

So, my first thought was, "I know it's Osku, but no way's he's going to make it." Then, immediately after that, I thought, "But Jason made that prediction so confidently that I'll bet Osku does make it. So, this coverage must not be live, and Jason has already seen Osku pick it up and then managed to make it sound like he made his prediction before Osku converted the split." But then I thought, "That's impossible. Jason may be smart, but he couldn't pull THAT off! Osku's going to miss that split, and Jason and Jeff are going to be proven wrong, and that's too bad."

Well, now that I've set the stage for you, check out the video below to see what happened, and then subscribe to PBA Xtra Frame and catch the next PBA miracle live, not to mention all the other great action you can get live, if at all, ONLY on Xtra Frame.

A 7-10 Split of a Movie?

"Another insipid bowling movie portraying us as a bunch of uneducated, uncouth beer-drinking, clueless dolts. Just what the industry needs... NOT! They couldn't even find a few no-talent actors who could at lease LOOK like they know how to bowl. Kingpin revisited. UGH!!!!" ~ Jackie Wyckoff

Bowling Video of the Day--Brian Voss and the 7-10 Split

You may recall Brian Voss' 7-10 conversion in the position round of the Don and Paula Carter Mixed Doubles tournament earlier this year. But this isn't the first time he's converted the 7-10 at a crucial time. Below is a very similar conversion he made in a position round match of the 2004 U.S. Open against Walter Ray Williams to make the TV finals. No wonder he said after his successful conversion this year that he had gone up on the approach convinced he was going to convert the split.

Brian Voss Converts 7-10 Split

I've never converted the 7-10 split, and I could probably count on one hand the number of times I've seen others convert it, beginning with Mark Roth's famous effort on TV years ago. On another occasion, I was bowling in league against a team where a guy left the 7-10. One of his teammates told him that if he picked it up, he'd buy him a new bowling ball. You can guess what happened after that. It was the first time he ever converted it after forty years or so of bowling. Would you believe that the other guy made good on his offer? Now that's a man of his word. You gotta respect that. That's the only time I've seen the 7-10 made in person.

But I saw the next best thing last night on Xtra Frame last night. It was the position round of the final block of match play. Brian Voss left a 7-10 on what appeared to be a good pocket hit late in the game. He and his doubles partner Diandra Asbaty needed every mark they could get to make it to the televised finals, and, you guessed it, Voss converted the 7-10 and will be on TV Sunday. You can watch his conversion below.

By the way, if you're into very technical ball talk, don't miss replaying most of this block. The guest was Hank Boomershine, a top product development guy for Storm. He's incredibly knowledgeable about bowling ball design and dynamics, and he answered a plethora of probing questions about this stuff last night. It was a veritable clinic.

Here are the top five teams for Sunday's stepladder finals:

1, Jason Belmonte, Australia/Michelle Feldman, Auburn, N.Y., 11-5, 7,289.

2, Wes Malott, Pflugerville, Texas/Shannon O’Keefe, Arlington, Texas, 12-4, 6,903.

3, Rhino Page, Dade City, Fla./Shannon Pluhowsky, Kettering, Ohio, 9-7, 6,888.

4, Tom Smallwood, Saginaw, Mich./Jodi Woessner, Oregon, Ohio, 10-6, 6,883.

5, Brian Voss, Alpharetta, Ga./Diandra Asbaty, Chicago, 9-7, 6,839.