"I did get to see it today, I saw it, and you don't want to miss it."
--Jeff Mark
Today, I had meant to post a lot more about the increasingly infamous Bottlegate 2 incident where Sean Rash called Jason Belmonte a "bottle bitch" for crinkling his bottle while Rash was bowling. But I've been watching PBA Xtra Frame's live coverage of the PBA Senior U.S. Open, and I heard PBA publicist Jason Thomas and "Bowling Doctor" Jeff Mark explain that there's a lot more to the story than is revealed in the short clip of Rash's outburst that's been making the rounds.
Apparently, some pretty heated confrontations occurred before and after Sean's angry words that were caught by the cameras and will be shown the second weekend of ESPN's airing of the GEICO Team Shootout. The first week's airing is on Saturday, June 25. So, I'm reluctant to say much more about Bottlegate 2 until I've seen all of this.
PBA Xtra Frame Exclusive
Fortunately, as a subscriber to PBA Xtra Frame, I may not have to wait until early July to see it. For Jason Thomas and Jeff Mark announced this afternoon that they've obtained video from ESPN that shows more of the incident and that they've asked for and expect to receive permission to show it on Xtra Frame. If they do get that permission, they plan to show it tomorrow between the final match play position round and the beginning of the stepladder finals. This means it should air shortly before 3:17 PM PDT tomorrow. I wouldn't be surprised if it also ends up on YouTube shortly thereafter, but I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for it. In the meantime, I'll watch it tomorrow and blog soon after about what I saw.
Besides this, while watching Xtra Frame, I got a chance to ask Jeff Mark and Jason Thomas, via the PBA's Facebook, page the following question:
"Do you think Belmo is crinkling his bottle to purposely distract his opponents and is lying when he says he isn't, or do you think he's doing it out of unconscious, nervous habit?"
Jason Thomas replied on Xtra Frame by saying that given the frequency of Belmo's bottle crinkling and the problems it's been causing, there are essentially two "options": (1) Either Belmo IS deliberately distracting opponents and then lying about it when called to task for it, or he's pretty "clueless" or careless. In either case, Thomas said, Belmo needs to stop doing what he's been doing and should "come out and address it" publicly before he suffers irreparable damage to what's left of his good reputation.
Belmonte Writes to Me
Now it just so happens that after I posted my first blog entry about this issue on Tuesday, Jason Belmonte wrote to me privately to give me his side of the story, and I would love to share with you what he said. But I'm still trying to secure his permission to share it. In the meantime, I will only say that he denied purposely crinkling his bottle to distract Sean.
When I look at all the coverage I and other people are giving this relatively minor incident and issue, I feel a little sheepish continuing to write about it here. Yet, I won't lie and say that I'm not kind of jazzed over it and that I'm not having fun writing about it, and I've received many more hits on this blog over the past couple of days than I normally do. So, it seems as though a lot of you are interested too.
“We wanted to try to marry the newest trend in bowling with the greatest bowlers in the world. Chicago knows bowling, it has a good league base and it’s a great place to be in the summer. When you add those things together, this was a great marriage.”
--PBA Deputy Commissioner Tom Clark explaining why this year's Geico Team Shootout was held at Chicago's upscale 10 Pin Bowling Lounge. You can read the entire Chicago Sun-Times story here.
~ Will anyone ever surpass Walter Ray's career accomplishments? -- "It was once hard to believe that anyone would equal or overcome the late Earl Anthony's 43 National titles when his greatness was being witnessed. Hank Aaron's home run record once seemed insurmountable until Barry Bonds eclipsed it. Richard Petty's 200 career victories in NASCAR has stood for the better part of two decades now, and no one is even CLOSE to passing that milestone. I'm sure there are some other astounding records out there I'm leaving out. Having to account for some of the differences in the current version of the Lumber Liquidators PBA Tour from years past, I am hard pressed to come up with any bowler who has a clear cut shot at taking down Walter Ray Williams Jr. and his 47 victories, or his career earnings record, for that matter..."
~ Bowling Manufacturers Set to Do Battle in GEICO PBA Team Shootout -- "Four of bowling’s leading ball manufacturing companies are going to do battle when Six Flags Great Adventure hosts the GEICO PBA Team Shootout in Jackson, N.J., June 11-12. ESPN will air the 15-segment series beginning June 27. For the fourth summer in a row, stars of the Professional Bowlers Association will don shorts and sunglasses, and bowl outdoors on specially-constructed lanes at Six Flags Great Adventure in a made-for-television team competition. The 2010 twist to the Baker team battle will feature Brunswick, Ebonite International, Storm Products and 900 Global – rival bowling ball manufacturers who have selected their own teams...The 2010 GEICOTeam Shootout will use the Baker team format for all matches. In Baker team competition, five players bowl two frames each to complete a game. The Shootout will call for each team to face each of the other three teams twice in “home and away” matches. The “home team” in each match will select the lane conditioning pattern and finishing lane. The head-to-head matches will produce 12 half-hour shows.The standings after the round-robin matches will determine stepladder positions for the final three half-hour shows. The “championship round” will begin with the No. 4 team vs. No. 3. The winner will bowl the No. 2 seed. The championship will feature the semifinal match winner against the No. 1 seed. All matches will be contested on June 11 and 12, with June 13 as a “rain date.” The first two shows will air back-to-back on ESPN on Sunday, June 27, at 2:30 p.m. Eastern. The next four shows will air consecutively over a span of two hours on Saturday, July 3, at 1 p.m., followed by four more shows airing Sunday, July 4, also at 1 p.m. The series will wrap up with a five-show, two-and-a-half-hour finale on Sunday, July 11, beginning at 1:30 p.m. Eastern..."
~ Egypt's Mennat Soltan stuns favorites to win women's title in 12th Sinai Open -- "Mennat Soltan (pictured left) from Egypt was the surprise winner of the women's division in the 12th Sinai International Open Bowling Tournament while Shaker Al-Hassan cruised to the men's title from the top seeded position Thursday at the International Bowling Center in Cairo, Egypt. Soltan, who earned the No. 2 seed for the women's stepladder finals after averaging 223.63 in round robin, topped No. 4 seed, Cassie Staudinger, Australia, in a high-scoring semifinal, 258-236, and then flew past No. 1 seed, Zandra Aziela, Malaysia, in the title match, 278-212. Aziela's team mate, Shalin Zulkifli, seeded third, lost the opening match against Staudinger, 213-203. Soltan received $4,500 for the first-ever victory of an Egyptian woman in an international bowling tournament. Aziela pocketed $3,200 for second place. Staudinger got $2,200 for third and Zulkifli garnered $1,500 for fourth..."
~ World Championship winner, Tom Smallwood, joins Brunswick Pro Staff -- "Brunswick Bowling announced today that Tom Smallwood (pictured), rookie-bowler and 2009 Professional Bowlers Association World Championship winner, has joined its Pro Staff. Smallwood, who has three career PBA 300 games, finished the season tenth in points on the PBA Tour. As the fifth earner for the 2009-2010 season, he's earned more than $100,000. Thanks to his win at the PBA World Championship, Smallwood earned a two-year exemption on the tour and a chance to bowl in the PBA Tournament of Champions in January. Smallwood's story has been all over the news media from USA Today to Sports Illustrated to the Los Angeles Times. After a job loss prompted him to enter the PBA Tour Trials in Detroit, he finished third and earned a full-year exemption to bowl..."
~ Former Team USA member takes Open Singles lead at Bowlers Journal Championships -- "Former Team USA member Derek Eoff of Arlington, Texas, may be quiet and reserved in demeanor off the lanes, but while competing, his performance often speaks volumes, and he has evolved into the type of bowler people stop to watch. This week, the 29-year-old right-hander turned heads at the Storm Bowlers Journal Championships, presented by USBC, where he fired games of 258, 289 and 268 for an 815 series and added a 202 for a 1,017 four-game total, which moved him into the top spot in Open Singles. David Ewald of Macomb, Mich., previously held the lead with 992..."
~ The many benefits of league bowling -- "For those of you out there who have never bowled in an organized bowling league, you may have won-dered what it would be like to do so. You may have questions about what a league really is and how you would benefit from the experience if you joined one. The simple answer is that league bowling is a group of people getting together to bowl on a competitive basis. League bowlers consist of people of all age groups, all walks of life, and all levels of athletic skills..."
~ Assess Your Bowlers Learning Styles -- "How do you or your bowlers learn best? Are they an auditory, visual, kinesthetic, or a multimodal learner? As a coach, you have a responsibility to learn about your individual players' learning styles and needs to communicate most effectively. Use the following free learning styles assessment to help you be a better coach and to meet the needs of individual players. This will enable you to express and explain ideas more clearly to your athletes..."
~ Traditional vs. functional training methods: Which does the elite athlete choose? (Training Room: Mark Gerule & Paul Butcher--Bowling This Month, May 2010, pgs. 38-41) -- "Regardless of what level bowler you are, it is important to understand what fitness and conditioning program is best for you. By adhering to certain fundamental principles you can increase the possibility that your workout program will produce your desired gains. How will you know which conditioning regimen is best for you?...traditional training and functional training are the two main types of training methods seen in athletic centers today. The authors believe that both methods should be used by bowlers to get transfer of performance from the gym to the lanes. The percentage of traditional versus functional training performed is individually specific and is based on areas of deficiency..."
~ The case for limited layouts: There can be simplicity in choosing your arsenal (Smart Moves: Rob Mautner--Bowling This Month, May 2010, pgs. 48-51) -- "The Five Variables...Coverstock...Core Configuration, RG and Differential...Limiting Pin Positions...What to do with a tired bowling ball...How to choose pin positions....Once you have learned to limit the layouts of your bowling balls, ball selection becomes simply a matter of numbers for the ball purchases and lane changes dictated by transitioning oil."
