Men's Doubles Highlights at 2013 WTBA World Championships

2011 World Series of Bowling Highlights

Bowling Video--Chris Barnes' Practice Routine

Bowling Video--Chris Barnes on Oil Transition

Bowling Video--Chris Barnes' Pre-Shot Routine

Final Thoughts on 2012 U.S. Women's Open Fiasco, With Complete Video

                                                 (Photo from examiner.com)


Well, the telecast has aired, and now I can openly congratulate Kelly Kulick for winning her third U.S. Women's Open without spoiling the suspense for any of my readers. I can also offer some concluding comments about the whole messy business after having seen it, or at least most of it, with my own eyes.

I say "at least most of it," because one of my gripes, shared by many, is that ESPN2 cut out several frames of the competition in order to squeeze two hours worth of bowling action into 90 minutes. I seem to recall that last year's telecast was two hours and didn't edit out any frames, but perhaps I'm mistaken.

However, now that I've watched the telecast (and you can too below if you haven't seen it already or you want to see it again), what more is there to say that I haven't said already? Quite a lot, actually, but I'll try to keep it relatively brief.

First of all, I confess to being pleasantly surprised that things didn't turn out worse than they appeared to. I half expected to see a swirling dust storm all but blocking out our view of the action at times and sending papers and other debris flying past the bowlers and landing on the lanes and having to be removed between shots. And I more than half expected to see the ladies throwing balls that hooked off the lanes even though they were plastic, losing their footing on the dusty approaches, and looking really flustered at times. Instead, I saw consummate poise and professionalism from all the competitors as they as gracefully as humanly possible posted hapless shot after shot and made the best of a terrible situation and scored amazingly well under the circumstances. I have nothing but unbounded respect and admiration for how well Lynda, Shannon, Stefanie, Missy, and Kelly handled it all and how gracious the runners-up were afterward.

Second, I want to repeat what I've said before. I think Dave LaMont and Chris Barnes are the best announcing team in bowling today, and I'd love to see them doing ESPN's PBA telecasts together (Randy Pedersen could be there too) when Chris doesn't make the finals. They too made the best of a bad situation with that telecast.

Now, with due praise delivered, it's time to get to the criticism. I begin by asking, What were they thinking when they decided to hold the finals in a dusty wind tunnel? Don't tell me they had no way of knowing what the weather would be like when they planned things. Reno is a windy place all year round and any respectable meteorologist could have told them that if only they'd asked. Or perhaps they did ask but didn't care when they got the answer. Perhaps they were so busy falling all over themselves shouting, "They can bowl outside by the Reno Arch. How cool is THAT?!" that they didn't give the integrity of the bowlers and the competition a second thought.

I'm guessing they were thinking that bowling outside in that venue would inject a WOW factor that would put women's bowling on the map and draw more onlookers to the actual event as well as more viewers to the telecast. But is there any good reason or evidence to suggest that it would or did? How many extra viewers do they think the telecast actually drew because of where it took place, especially when the telecast was aired almost a week after the fact and everybody knew the outcome? Why do they keep showing these ballyhooed events a week or so late?. Yes, I've heard from someone who should know that showing these events live doesn't seem to affect the ratings any, but I'm not sure how they came to that definitive conclusion. I can't help but think that last year's finals in Cowboys Stadium with its one million dollar offer for a perfect game in the final match would have drawn more viewers had they been shown live.

I discussed this yesterday with someone very much in the bowling industry, and he said, as others have said, that they should have added the money they spent on constructing those outdoor lanes to the prize fund instead and held the finals in the ready-to-go National Bowling Stadium. That way, the finalists would have bowled on conditions at least similar to what they mastered to get them to the finals, they would still have been doing it in a great venue, and they could have used the special occasion to showcase the bowling stadium and talk about the extensive renovations planned for it that will make it an even more spectacular place for tournaments of every stripe in the years to come. Instead, they turned arguably the most prestigious women's bowling tournament on Earth into a freak show.

But, say some defenders of the format, they were all battling the same conditions, and, besides, the U.S. Open SHOULD be tough. Well, does this mean that we should move, say, the NHL Championship game to an outdoor parking lot filled with cracks and crevasses, outfit the players in antiquated field hockey gear and roller skates, and decide the championship THAT way? Or should we make the bowlers throw every shot between their legs to create that WOW factor and make it "tough" on them the way a U.S. Open should be?

Kelly Kulick averaged a blistering 240 + over qualifying and match play to achieve the top seed. Now maybe that was higher than the conditions of any U.S.Open worthy of the name should have allowed, but she should have been able to use the skills in the final match that brought her to it, and not have to resort to throwing plastic with no hand as straight as possible over 25 board and leaving 5-8-10's. The whole thing was a travesty.

As I said, and as you will see if you check out the videos below, the ladies were gracious afterward. And as I disclosed in a previous entry, some of them came to the defense of the BPAA, who sponsored and ran the tournament, because they were just grateful to get any chance to bowl for decent money anymore and were afraid that criticism could take even THAT away from them.

Well, what do you think? Do you think the BPAA will be scared away by all the criticism from sponsoring the event next year and nobody else will step up to the plate? Should we bowlers and bowling fans just keep our mouths shut, unless we have effusive praise for a bowling event and its sponsors, and just take it the way we get it and be happy that we get anything at all?

I think we can be pretty sure of one thing. If there is a U.S. Women's Open next year, and I pray that there is, the bowling ball manufacturers will probably make sure that they're held in a venue where the ladies can show off the latest, fanciest new balls on the market instead of ragged polyester equipment savaged by parking lot conditions. And hopefully the highest game of the stepladder finals will exceed 182.

You can watch the entire telecast in the first video below, followed by brief interviews with all the participants afterwards.

Chris Barnes Answers My Question About Bowling in the Windy Outdoors at the U.S. Women's Open

Last night during live streaming of the final round of match play of the 2012 U.S. Women's Open, Chris Barnes was sitting in the booth commentating on the action, and I was able to ask him via the chat function how he thought the strong Reno wind would affect the scoring. He replied with his customarily incisive analysis. If this guy isn't the most articulately knowledgeable bowling analyst around, in addition to still being one of the best bowlers around and one of the greatest ever, I don't know who is. Here is Chris' response to my question:

"The one time we bowled the Six Flags thing in Chicago, it was very windy, and the one thing that happens is that you get a LOT of dust on the lanes, and that dust makes the lanes change REALLY quick. You won't have nearly as much heat, so you won't have as much dissipation of the oil. But there'll be a lot more friction on the surface, and what you're going to see is probably a lot of balls hitting flat down lane, because they're rolling through the gravel on the way to the head pin."

I still say, as I wrote earlier today, that I think it was a bad idea to hold the finals outdoors in the wind, even if I'm sympathetic to the reason for doing it, but I'm eager to see if Chris' prediction comes true.

Diandra Asbaty Triumphs At 2012 USBC Queens Championship

"I'm still in shock and literally feel like I'm in a dream." ~ Diandra Asbaty

I'm not a fan of the double-elimination format employed by, among other elite bowling tournaments, the USBC Masters and USBC Queens championships. I don't like this format because it often prematurely eliminates some of the best bowlers in the tournament just because they lost their matches on a couple of pairs of lanes that favored their opponent's ball reaction at the time more than theirs or for some other reason that under-emphasized the bowler's overall level of performance throughout the tournament. I greatly favor round-robin match play as the best way to get the best or, at least, highest performing bowlers that week into the finals where they belong.

Having said that, I can't quarrel with the participants in yesterday's televised stepladder finals of the 2012 USBC Queens Championship or with the quality of their performances. Josie Earnest, who battled her way through, in the colorful words of a USBC publicist, the "Murderer's Row of staggering proportions" of Kim Terrell-Kearney, Kelly Kulick, Carolyn Dorin-Ballard, and Leanne Hulsenberg to make her first nationwide telecast, bowled an admirably solid first outing of 223. The great Liz Johnson came out firing with a 268, and then Diandra Asbaty overwhelmed her own "Murderer's Row" of Johnson, Stefanie Nation, and Carolyn Dorin-Ballard, shooting 233, 270, and 244 respectively, to win the coveted title and be crowned with the glittering tiara.

As much as I lamented Kelly Kulick's and Leanne Hulsenberg's eliminations, yesterday's finalists bowled well and deserved to make the finals. And, as usual, Dave Lamont and Chris Barnes did a top notch job of calling the action. I've said it before and I'll say again that I think Chris Barnes is the best color commentator in bowling today.

You can read more about the final results on the USBC website and view all of the televised matches below.

* Notice of correction: I originally reported that Dave Ryan was the announcer for this event when, in fact, it was Dave Lamont. Thank you Lani Chin for pointing this out. I've corrected the text accordingly.

Chris Barnes Has No Competition in the Cheetah Challenge

Chris Barnes showed up today at Fountain Valley Bowl at 5:30 PM EST with $5000 cash in his pocket, but nobody dared to take him on. That's right, PBA Xtra Frame was all set to live stream a contest in which Barnes and one or possibly more challengers each tossed $5000 into the pot and the highest scorer for three games would walk away with all the money. Yet, not even last year's Cheetah monster and champion Eugene McCune rose to the challenge.

If you recall, McCune not only won last year's Cheetah championship but obliterated the nine-game block scoring record by averaging an unbelievable 274 along the way in match play. I've posted a short video of part of that mind-boggling performance below.

Maybe all the players, fresh off a practice round, were resting physically and psyching up mentally for tomorrow's opening of the PBA Cheetah Open and didn't want to be distracted by a preliminary match with Barnes. Yet, I'm still surprised that no one went after him. Yes, $5000 is a lot of money for most of us, and underpaid bowlers are decidedly no exception. But surely there are well-to-do sponsors out there who would have been willing to take a gamble. After all, Chris Barnes, as great as he is, has not exactly shown himself to be unbeatable here of late on any lane condition. Yes, he had an excellent year last season despite the fact that he didn't win any championships, but HE DIDN'T WIN ANY CHAMPIONSHIPS and was completely out of the running in quite a number of tournaments.

Well, even though Chris didn't get to bowl against anybody, he did throw some impressive practice balls and talk with Xtra Frame announcer Mike J. Laneside and Fountain Valley Bowl resident bowling coach extraordinaire Mark Baker about his game, his equipment, and how to handle the Cheetah pattern, and it was quite illuminating. Chris Barnes has encyclopedic knowledge of bowling and bowling equipment and is very articulate in discussing it.

Any serious bowler who wants to get better and can afford $7.95 a month or $65 a year for Xtra Frame is crazy not to subscribe and start soaking up like a thirsty sponge the incredible information offered. And if you do subscribe and miss events like what I just described, you can always catch them in the archives and go over them as many times as you wish to learn everything you can and want to learn from them.

Not only that, but this season the PBA Tour will run several national tournaments that will be carried only on Xtra Frame. In the past, it has used Xtra Frame to cover qualifying and match play rounds, leaving the finals to ESPN or, in one instance, ABC to televise. But this year, only Xtra Frame will be carrying some of the finals as well. And the Cheetah Championship beginning tomorrow at Fountain Valley Bowl will be one of those tournaments that will be carried only by Xtra Frame from start to finish. Qualifying rounds begin tomorrow at noon EST, and the scoring promises to be high on the highest scoring of all the PBA "animal" patterns.

By the way, one of the things Mark Baker revealed on today's webcast was that he's just sent a book to his publisher entitled "The Game Changer." It is his first instructional book, and he says he's proud of it. Since he is widely considered to be one of the best, if not the best, bowling coaches in the world, I'm guessing that serious bowlers will want to grab a copy of his book as soon as it comes out. Baker surmises that it will be out around March 15.

Bowling Video--Chris Barnes Teaches Kathie Lee on NBC's Today

Should Jason Belmonte Have Won the ESPY for 2011 Bowler of the Year?

"Of all the award shows, the ESPYs have got to be the dumbest award show there is. First of all, award shows in general are sort of silly and ridiculous and we know they're just for creating publicity, but at least it makes some sort of sense within that framework to have an awards show for movies, or television, because there is no way with those to know which is the best. But when we're talking about sports -they actually play the game. We don't have to give an award to the best team. We know who the best team is - they've already won! That's the great thing about sports, there's a built-in objective mechanism by which we can ascertain who the winners are. But no, you have to win a second time in a tuxedo, and a spokesmodel has to hand you a trophy; that's what's important."

--Bill Maher

"I love John Walsh, and I have a fond feeling for ESPN. But I find the ESPY Awards objectionable. We already have awards. The World Series is an award. An MVP is an award. We don't need more awards. They make up this crap so they can fill time with it - the worst."

--Bill Wolff, former ESPN producer

I apologize for not posting for awhile, but now I'm back and have a lot of news and views to cover. Let me begin with this year's ESPY's. As you may or may not know, the ESPY awards are sports network ESPN's "Excellence in Sports Performance Yearly" awards that go to athletes in a wide variety of sports. The candidates in each sport or category are chosen by the ESPY Select Nominating Committee and then voted on through online fan balloting. The winners are honored on an ESPN television program.

You may be surprised that even though bowling seems to garner little respect in the sports world or among the public at large, there IS an ESPY award for "Best Bowler." I didn't agree with last year's choice of Walter Ray Williams Jr. over Kelly Kulick, but Walter Ray did have a good enough year that his selection wasn't the travesty this year's was.

This year, Jason Belmonte was selected "Bowler of the Year" and received his award on last night's ESPY broadcast. Now Jason has been known to read this blog on occasion, and I want to make it perfectly clear to him and to everyone else that I'm not slamming Belmo when I say that he didn't deserve to win the award. As I think I've made very clear on this blog, I stand in awe of Belmo's talent and skill and think he's one of the best bowlers on the planet and destined to get better and better still. However, I don't see any way in proverbial hell that he was this season's "best bowler."

If we look at the PBA Tour stats, at least three bowlers on tour had better seasons that Belmo did. Of course, there was PBA Player of the Year Mika Koivuniemi. But there were also Chris Barnes, who led the Tour in overall points, and Bill O'Neill, who surpassed Belmo in every statistical category. So, why did Belmo get the award?

I have to think it's because people voted without looking at the stats or caring what they revealed. I have to conclude that, at least so far as bowling is concerned, the ESPY award for "Best Bowler" was the result of a popularity contest or, perhaps, a coordinated voting campaign and not the result of an informed and reasoned pick of the highest performing bowler of the year.

I'm guessing that Jason knows this as well as anyone and is not as happy about his award as he'd like to be. I'm sure he'd like to know, in his heart of hearts, that he deserved it. But the one good thing about it is that it seems to show that the Bottlegate episodes have not significantly lessened his popularity with the bowling public. Nor should they.

Do you believe that Belmo deserved to win this year's ESPY award, and, if not, who do you think DID deserve it?

Southwest Region Wichita Open Draws Top Bowlers

"I could have had another weekend of golfing, but I felt like bowling was more important than golf."

--Pete Weber

If you're a garden variety PBA regional player with visions of winning this weekend's Southwest Region Wichita Open at Thunderbird Bowl, I hope you brought your A game and have some help from "upstairs." Because you're going to need both in spades to beat exempt players Chris Barnes, Pete Weber, Sean Rash, Lonnie Waliczek, and Nathan Bohr along with the rest of the kind of talented field you can rightly expect to encounter in Wichita if you're going to cash that winner's check at the end.

If I were a regional player looking to earn some money in this tournament, I don't know if I'd be thrilled to bowl against these guys and to measure my game against theirs, or cursing them for picking on us little guys.

Well, actually, I think it would be the former, at least at the outset. But if I didn't bowl well and they did, it might end up being the latter. I know one thing. Even though I wouldn't bowl this tournament, there's only one place I'd even think of being today if I lived in or anywhere near Wichita.

You can read more about the tournament and its stellar participants here.

Deputy Commissioner Tom Clark Discusses the Present and Future of the PBA, Part 1

Many have criticized the PBA mercilessly over the past few years for everything from its comparatively meager prize funds and diminishing tour stops to ESPN announcer Rob Stone's sacrilegious "hambones" to recent telecasts featuring blaring rock bands, cheerleaders, smack-talking Dicks, and bleating vuvuzelas.

Critics complain that the PBA is demeaning professional bowling and selling out its base supporters who deeply love and respect the sport by resorting to crude marketing gimmicks to grab hold of younger, uninitiated fans with gnat-like attention spans, iPhones, Facebook, and a zillion-and-one increasingly gaudy, glitzy, and energetic entertainment alternatives vying for their attention and their dollars.

These complaints are especially prevalent in the PBA Forums of the PBA website. So, it's not surprising that Tom Clark, the Deputy Commissioner and Chief Operating Officer of the PBA, recently chose that very forum to meet his harshest critics head on. Challenging questions and thoughtful suggestions were submitted to him, and he responded with trademark forthrightness and wit.

Over the next few days, this blog will present and consider some of the highlights of Mr. Clark's responses and invite your comments.

Some Season Highlights

Yesterday, I quoted Mr. Clark's overview of the challenges the PBA and its players face in today's market and of the misperceptions he thinks a lot of the PBA's most vociferous critics have of the organization's struggles. These words followed a litany of what Mr Clark considers to have been some of the highlights of the 2010-2011 season. Some of the highlights he listed were:

~ The first PBA telecast on ABC-TV in 14 years and Nelson Burton Jr's participation in that telecast.

~ The TOC boasting the largest prize fund "in bowling history."

~ Extended live television coverage of some of the majors.

~ Chris Barnes accomplishing an extremely rare Triple Crown victory with a dramatic strike in the 10th frame of the WSOB.

~ An unsung competitor from Korea winning a title by beating his Korean opponent in the final match of the PBA Scorpion Championship.

~ Bill O'Neill's masterful domination of "a WSOB qualifying marathon across five patterns and 60 games in one of the most demanding tests of bowling ever."

~ Widespread media coverage of Mika Koivuniemi's 299-100 victory over Tom Daugherty in the TOC.

~ Unprecedented live match play round coverage of a major.

~ The first "all-two handed match in PBA TV history."

~ Mark Roth throwing the ceremonial first ball of the Mark Roth Plastic Ball Championship.

~ Former Miss USA Kimberly Pressler "working the sidelines" of a televised event.

~ Jason Couch and Parker Bohn reviving the past by meeting in the final match of a plastic ball tournament.

~ Mika Koivuniemi making the finals of all four televised majors.

~ Howard Stern talking on his radio show about the PBA for a month.

~ The Chris Paul PBA Celebrity Invitational making the PBA "look cool played by the coolest people on the planet."

~ Tom Hess' "emotional win at the Masters."

~ Norm Duke's "stone 8-pin" followed by Mika Koivuniemi's 10-pin miss to hand Duke the U.S. Open title.

Clark Criticizes Misreporting

Mr. Clark believes that the highlights he lists demonstrate that the 2010-2011 PBA season was a "super year." But he laments that the critics flooding the PBA message boards and other forums with unreasonable complaints and misinformation obscure this.

For instance, he tells of how he once joked on Facebook that the three "cheerleaders" working the crowd during the final telecast of the season were paid $7,000 (they were actually paid $50) each out of the "PBA player buffet budget," and a bowling webcast host who should have known better reported Mr. Clark's "facetious comments" as fact. This same host reported numerous other falsehoods as fact over the course of the season. Clark says:

"I share that story with you because it is just one small example of the type of incorrect information that somehow becomes accepted as “truth” or fact because of the lack of a filter on the burgeoning new social media on the internet. Unprofessional, unqualified, uninformed, often bitter, often frustrated, agenda-driven people suddenly have a voice, often an anonymous one like on this board, and too many spread lies, rumor and paint inaccurate portrayals that somehow shape public opinion and somehow in today’s world that is OK. It’s really sad, it’s unfortunate that it happens on serious issues that shape our lives and even here on this relatively trivial message board almost every single day."

Mr. Clark also writes about how commenters on Facebook's PBA page were criticizing the PBA for allegedly paying only 16 of 250 spots in the WSOB when, in fact, it had a "better than 1:3 payout ratio," and about how other commenters insisted that the "exempt tour model was keeping people from their dreams (when the reality is most events were open last year, none were completely closed, and some of the most compelling stories of the year came from players who were not exempt at the start of the season)."

Mr. Clark concludes the opening part of his response with the following:

"I understand the frustration people in and around bowling have. But they shouldn’t have to make things up or wildly exaggerate to make a point...Thankfully, for every negative person there are many positive voices being heard because of the new media, and greater opportunities for people to share them so I suppose it all works out in the end...I personally appreciate the passion most of you here have for this sport. But pro bowling needs your help, not your venom. Please redirect that passion by demanding the media give coverage and respect to our sport, by thanking sponsors with your letters and financial support, by making sure your local center promotes the pro game, by supporting the professionals you admire on the lanes. Don’t get me wrong, criticism is great. Complaining and pointing out what you don’t like or think is wrong is great. As long as it is based on reality. Merely proclaiming bowling is dead or rooting for the PBA’s demise, and dishing negative facts without any confirmation or characterizing things as “atrocious” and the like while not doing anything positive is just really lame and really you should just go away. But wow, I’ve beaten that point to death."

I agree with Mr. Clark that people should check their facts before criticizing the PBA for things it hasn't even done and that they should keep in mind the tremendous challenges the PBA faces in making its product appealing to sufficient numbers of fans and sponsors and do everything they can to support the PBA in its herculean efforts to live long and prosper. On the other hand, I hope that the powers-that-be in the PBA don't defensively dismiss legitimate criticisms and suggestions that the PBA's most ardent fans serve up in the PBA Forums and social media. If we all work together, perhaps the PBA can survive and even thrive.

What's Next?

In my next post, I'll start addressing Mr. Clark's responses to the questions and suggestions that were put to him, beginning with Why the vuvuzelas?

If you wish, you can jump ahead of me and read the whole discussion here after, if need be, registering.

Men's Team USA Takes Two Golds and One Bronze in the Final Two Days of the PABCON Championships

"We had a good run this week, and it's hard to be too disappointed. This format is a total crapshoot and for us to get a couple medals is OK. We're always disappointed when we don't win, but we brought home the gold in the important events."

--Bill O'Neill

Congratulations to Men's Team USA for winning the gold medal in the five-person team event and to Bill O'Neill (photo above) for taking the gold in all events and co-winning, with Chris Barnes, the bronze medal in the Masters event of the now concluded PABCON Championships in Guadalajara, Mexico.

Team USA ended up winning four out of six golds, 1 silver, and 1 bronze medal. Meanwhile, Canada's Dan MacLelland, who shined on the PBA Tour last season, took the gold in the Masters event.

After the five-person team competition that Team USA narrowly won over Puerto Rico, Chris Barnes had this to say:

"There's no doubt that the talent in the American Zone has gotten stronger and that showed today. It's always a good feeling when you get in a close situation and win. The bottom line is when it came down to the last game, we bowled well enough to pull it out while everyone was scrambling."

If Barnes is right, the era of Team USA's dominance in international bowling competitions, like its dominance in many other areas, may be swiftly drawing to a close. But it was fun while it lasted.

You can click here for the round-by-round results of the Masters competition.

Men's Team USA Now Competing in PABCON Men's Championship in Guadalajara, Mexico

While the regular PBA Tour may be on hiatus, some of its biggest stars are busy this week bowling for Men's Team USA in the PABCON Men's Championship in Guadalajara, Mexico.

Team USA is one of sixteen national teams competing in the five-player Team, Trios, Doubles, Singles, All-Events, and Masters events at the Pan American Bowling Confederation's Men's Championships. It probably comes as no surprise that Men's Team USA has won 25 out of a possible 30 gold medals since 1997, and should do well again this year with Walter Ray Williams Jr., Chris Barnes, Bill O'Neill, Patrick Allen, Michael Fagan, and Wes Malott making up the team.

Everybody practiceed last night on all the oil patterns, and the action officially begins today. Stay tuned to this blog for the results as they unfold.

Below is a video of Men's Team USA practicing on the PABCON lanes.

Chris Barnes' Outstanding Bowling Commentary

Chris Barnes is one of the greatest bowlers in history. He's also showing himself to be an outstanding bowling commentator. Wednesday night, he was the commentator on ESPN2's telecast of the USBC Queens Championship, and he was excellent, just as he was in last year's Queens and Women's U.S. Open telecasts and as he always is when he sits in on PBA Xtra Frame and USBC webcasts.

The man clearly knows the ins and outs of bowling, has an exceptionally keen eye for what's happening on the lanes, and he has a virtually flawless way of articulating what he knows and sees so that we, the fans, can know and see it too.

When I watch a bowling match, I don't need someone to tell me that so-and-so left the 10 pin or got a strike or spare. I can see that with my own eyes. I want to know WHY the 10 pin stood after what appeared to be a perfect pocket hit, or why so-and-so's ball is carrying strikes while her opponent's ball isn't.

Chris Barnes gives you that information. He talks about how minor variations in release, ball speed, and entry angle can spell the difference between a strike and a pocket 7-10. He can insightfully analyze a bowler's style and strategy in fine detail, and he can tell you what went wrong on an errant shot and what adjustments in equipment, release, alignment, ball speed, or body mechanics the bowler needs to make to get to the pocket and carry. And he manages to do it in a way that keeps me interested and informed without overloading me with information that is too abstruse to understand.

I look forward to any bowling telecast or webcast that features Chris Barnes' commentary, and I hope there will be many more of them. Fortunately, he'll be joining yesterday's Queens play-by-play announcer Dave LaMont next month to cover the finals of the USBC Intercollegiate Championships. The tournament actually concluded last Sunday, April 24, but ESPN2 will be airing it on May 15 at 6 p.m. EDT.

I'll be watching.

What do you think of Chris Barnes' bowling commentary, and who are your favorite bowling commentators of all time?

Below is video of Chris Barnes' commentary for the entire telecast of the 2010 USBC Queens Championship.

PBA Tour 2010-2011 Season's Most Memorable Moments

I just saw the PBA post to its Facebook wall the following question: "What was your favorite moment from the 2010-2011 Lumber Liquidators PBA Tour?"I pondered this question for a moment and came to realize that not only did I not have a "favorite moment" from this season, but I could scarcely think of any that I'd consider particularly memorable.

By contrast, last season was chock full of indelibly memorable moments. Chief among them were Tom Smallwood coming almost literally off the GM unemployment line to win the PBA World Championship; Walter Ray Williams Jr. shooting 290 against Chris Barnes to claim the Masters title and, eventually, his seventh Player of the Year award at the age of fifty; Chris Barnes losing the hotly anticipated first Chris Barnes Challenge to a collegiate bowler; Bill O'Neill establishing himself as the game's next superstar with his stunning dominance during the televised finals of the U.S. Open; Mark Roth rising almost literally from the dead to appear at the inaugural Mark Roth Plastic Ball Championship and even sit in the X'tra Frame booth with "Bowling Doctor" Jeff Mark and bowling announcer extraordinaire "Mike J. Laneside" for an extended session of his colorful storytelling about bowling's Golden Age and his insightful commentary about the action down on the lanes; "amateur" Brian Ziesig's sudden death victory over Jason Belmonte in the Mark Roth Plastic Ball Tournament after Belmo stuck the "atomic stone 7 pin" from hell on his one and only sudden death shot; and Pete Weber's impressive victories over Brad Angelo and Mark Scroggins to win the final tournament of the season, the Marathon Open, after a long hiatus from claiming any national titles.

And then there was my favorite moment of all, a moment that brought tears to my eyes and which ranks, in my humble estimation, as the most memorable and electrifying moment in the history of the PBA--Kelly Kulick's stunning performance in the finals of the Tournament of Champions to become the first woman ever to win not only this hallowed title but *any* PBA national Tour title.

Contrast all of this to the "most memorable" moments of this year: Mika's big miss and subsequent dejected sprawl at the U.S. Open, "Bottlegate,"Cinderella and the bleating vuvuzelas, and the Dick's wrong-footed strike against Barnes.

Well, actually, I'm being a little harsh. There were some fine moments on Tour this year, including Chris Barnes joining the rarefied ranks of Triple Crown winners, South Korea's "Dr. Gu" winning the PBA Scorpion Championship, Scott Norton stringing his first eight in his TV debut to win his first national title, Osku Palermaa winning his first PBA title, Tom Hess's emotional Masters win, Tom Daugherty's comical 100 game, Mika's 299 and title in the $1 million TOC and superb showings in all the majors, and Norm Duke's U.S. Open title.

Still, I wouldn't say that this was the year that was. I don't blame the PBA for this. It's just that the stars can't be in alignment to produce magic every season the way they were in the 2009-2010 season, and any season that has to follow such a magical one is bound to be under-appreciated.

Still, the PBA has my best wishes and hopes for next season.

Which were your most memorable and favorite moments of the 2010-2011 season?

Below is a short PBA video of 2010-2011 season highlights.

Video of Televised Dick Weber PBA Playoffs Finals

Here are the three televised games of the semifinal and final matches of the 2011 Dick Weber PBA Playoffs that took place Sunday, April 17 in Indianapolis, IN. The first match featured Chris Barnes, Randy Weiss, and Dick Allen. The players with the two highest scores advanced to the final match consisting of two games.

Dick Allen Lives Up to His New First Name in Season Ending Dick Weber PBA Playoff Finals

"Sometimes the villain dresses in white."

--Dick Allen

Yesterday's televised finals of the Dick Weber PBA Playoffs marked the end of the 2010-2011 PBA Tour season. I'm always sorry to see the season come to a close. But this year I'm especially sorry that it ended with the obnoxious blaring of vuvuzelas and a victory by a guy who lived up to his four-letter first name over the guy I wanted to win.

Even though I don't like his bowling style, I respect Dick Allen's bowling skill. I even respect the fact that when Randy Pedersen asked him after the match how he felt about Chris Barnes' two consecutive pocket 7-10's late in the second game, he told the truth. He said he loved it because it gave him the chance he needed to sow up the match.

What I didn't respect were his comments several weeks ago in the tournament when he crowed about ending Walter Ray's chances of extending his record string of consecutive years of winning at least one title, and his whole demeanor yesterday, including his taunting stare at Chris Barnes at one point in the match as though it were Wrestlemania instead of professional bowling, and his deliberately throwing his fill ball in the tenth frame off the wrong foot and striking after winning the first game, and then saying, "I like salt, especially in a wound."

To me, Dick Allen habitually acts like an obnoxious jerk. I don't know if he does it on purpose just to stir up himself and everyone else, or if it's just the way he is. But one thing's for sure. Whenever he bowls, I'll be rooting for the other guy (or gal).

I did chuckle at something Randy Pedersen said during the telecast. He said that Allen liked to brag about beating Chris Barnes ten years ago in a PBA regional, and that Barnes had responded by saying, "For Ritchie, that was the greatest moment of his life. For me, it was just a warm up for the next tournament." Well, I guess Allen now has a new "greatest moment" to brag about.

Random Thoughts

I wasn't thrilled with the whole format of this tournament. First of all, arbitrarily placing the bowlers in regions and then allowing only the winners of each region to progress to the final few weeks of televised play kept some of the best players out of the proceedings and made Sunday's finals a pretty lackluster affair. I've always liked to see formats which allow the proverbial cream to rise to the top, and it seems to me that round robin match play amongst the top qualifiers followed by a stepladder finals is the best way of getting the finest bowlers into the finals while still meeting the time constraints of television. On the other hand, without the format of this tournament, guys like Randy Weiss might well never have had the chance to make it to the finals and there's something to be said for giving guys like him a chance they don't ordinarily receive, and Allen and Barnes bowled well enough that they might very well have made it anyway.

A good thing about making the title match two games instead of just one is that it affords the best player that day a better chance of winning the title than if the match is decided by only one game. In one game, someone can get a good or bad break or two and win or lose more because of that than anything else, whereas two games makes it more likely that the person who actually performs better will win. But that's only if the match is decided by total pins. That's not how yesterday's title would have been decided if Allen and Barnes had won a game apiece, which they very easily could have. The match and title would then have been awarded to the guy who got the highest count on one ball in a sudden death rolloff, where, once again, a good or bad break rather than quality of performance might well have determined the outcome. So, I say if you're going to have the top two bowl a two-game match for the title, let total pins decide the winner.

One Thoughtful Commentator

A habitually thoughtful commentator had this to say in Pba.com's PBA Forum about Sunday's telecast:

"I think bowling should always be the most memorable part of a show, with individual bowling personalities behind that. But with this most recent broadcast, I almost don't remember the matches because there were so many distractions that took away from that. Here is what most comes to mind when I think of this last show from most memorable to least:

Vuvuzelas

The over-kill of shots of the purposely placed 'hotties'

Poor camera work

Allen's personality

The recap of the season

And oh yeah, there was bowling and the matches themselves

Bowling should always be the most memorable part of the show and any gimmicks come after that. It's one thing for bowlers to have personality on the show-I think that's a good thing, but the sport and the bowling itself needs to maintain decorum and a professional feel. We are already struggling with the perception people have of bowling, and this show didn't help that in my opinion."

You can read Bill Vint's Pba.com story on the telecast here. And if you missed yesterday's televised finals, I'll post videos of them in a future entry as soon as they become available online.

Bowling Quote of the Day--Dick Allen Knows

“I know my game. I know my equipment. If I make 36 quality shots Sunday, there’s a good chance I’ll be holding the trophy. I’m not going to worry about the guy from Columbia, or the guy who throws Columbia. You know the old clichés: it’ll just be me against the pins.”

--Dick "Ritchie" Allen, commenting on this coming Sunday's competition with Chris Barnes and Randy Weiss for the Dick Weber PBA Playoffs title