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 of the Day--Mike J. Laneside Interviews Mark Baker About Coaching Philosophy

Bowling Quote of the Day--What Mark Baker Looks At First

"The first thing I look at with any bowler is, How good's their rhythm? How much momentum do they create and where do they create it? And how good is their balance when they throw a shot? And once I figure out those three things, then I start talking about footwork, or timing, or the release point."

--Mark Baker, arguably the most respected bowling coach in the world

Bowling Quote of the Day--Mark Baker's Favorite Clutch Bowler of All Time

"When the question gets asked, "If you had to pick one bowler to hit the pocket for your life?" my answer is always Mike Aulby--he always hit the pocket for the money."

--Mark Baker

Bowling Quote of the Day--Modern Bowling Lingo

"The guys today have much better lingo than we ever had. The first time I ever heard after a player answered the question, “How’d you bowl this week?” with “I threw it good, I just didn’t match up.” I went, “What the (bleep) does that mean!” In our era there were two answers: “I bowled good.” or “I bowled bad.” End of story. Some weeks our carry was better than others, but when I bowled well in my nine years on Tour, I always made the finals, period. Now, I may have spent the next 24 games shuffling between 21st and 24th, but at least I’d bowled well enough to earn some extended play. But now I know the real reason I wasn’t able to make the show those weeks: I didn’t match up! Silly me, back then I just thought I’d forgotten how to bowl between Thursday night and Friday morning! So score another one for today’s player – “Not matching up” is a much smarter way to look at it - at least from the standpoint of psychological preservation. It also would have saved me quite a few fine slips!"

--Mark Baker

Mark Baker Compares the Great Bowlers of the 80's With Those of Today

Mark Baker bowled on the PBA Tour in the 1980's and is now one of the most respected coaches in the game. He recently wrote a column on pba.com, Comparing the Greats of My Era to Today. He begins by writing:

"The most common question I’m asked when I’m out among bowling fans is to compare the players of my era (1982-1990) to today’s players. So I thought with the next two blogs (this week’s will be Part 1 and the next Part 2) I’d give it a shot. "

He says that there were many more tour stops in the 80's than there are today and more players to beat out in each tournament, but that:

"the best players of today would have had absolutely no problem competing in the '80’s. Conversely, the superstars of my group would have been just fine today…actually, a few of them (Walter, Voss, Duke and Pete) were able to succeed in both eras."

He goes on to say that today's players have to and do know a lot more about equipment and other technical aspects of bowling than players used to. To highlight this point, he writes that more new balls probably come out each year now than came out in ten years in the 80's, that most of today's players utilize many more ball layouts than they used to and carry many more balls around with them, and that they have a more specialized bowling vocabulary and a far more sophisticated understanding of bowling.

Finally, Baker writes that one of the biggest differences between today's players and those of the 80's is that today's players are much more businesslike or even "robotic" in their approach to the game than players used to be. Players in the 80's used to be much more demonstrative when they bowled well or poorly, running out strikes even in qualifying and berating themselves and physically reacting much more strongly than they do today. One example he cites of running out strikes involves the great Steve Cook:

"When Steve Cook got it going (which was a lot) and you were within three pairs to his left (his favorite run-out zone) and you bowled before he was done, you literally took your life in your own hands! Cook was a seriously large human being who took striking and winning very seriously. Just ask Norm Duke. One time at the U.S. Open, I was bowling Norm and he was on the approach three lanes over from Cook. Steve ran one out, slapped his hands (which sounded like one of Zeus’ thunderbolts hitting the Acropolis), then pirouetted in front of Duke (probably sparing Norm’s life), picked him up by the side of his arms and set him back down in the settee. Norm looked at me and sheepishly asked, “Can I bowl now?”"

I look forward to reading Baker's second installment of his series comparing and contrasting the players of the 80's with those of today.

Mark Baker's Coaching Philosophy

Mark Baker was a pretty good bowler in his day. He won four PBA Tour titles, 6 PBA regional titles, led the PBA Tour in average in 1985, and finished second to Marshall Holman in the Firestone TOC in 1986. But he may be an even better bowling coach. He is one of the most respected coaches in the game and works with bowlers at all skill levels from the Tour elite on down.

He has just started blogging on the PBA website, and he posted a very good entry recently about his coaching philosophy. Here is some of what he writes:

"Every bowler throws a good shot now and then, relative to his or her skill level. But what's the one thing most bowlers don't want to do? Change! I hear it all the time. I want to raise my average, increase my rev rate, have better balance, I want to throw it better, but I don't really want to change my game." Well, guess what? That's pretty much exactly what I try to do as a coach. That is, changing a bowler's game without them feeling that they are being changed."

Baker goes on to write about a misconception that many bowlers have about the mistakes they make and how he deals with it:

"The hardest part for me is when the feedback I get from a bowler comes in the "I pulled it" or "I elbowed it," variety, which is basically just a bunch of baloney about the release which, in reality, is more a byproduct of something that went wrong somewhere in the approach way before that. It's simple cause and effect. The bad release is the effect and once you find the cause and fix it, a miracle happens. The bowler has the "A-HA" moment. Now you have something, because once a bowler knows what he does (and what it feels like) when he throws his best shots, and can then start to tell me why he missed in a larger (and sometimes, like Barnes, more mechanical) vocabulary. At that point, the improvement is immediate."

This is a really good article that coaches, aspiring coaches, and those who are contemplating receiving coaching should read. And let's hope Mark Baker keeps blogging.

You can read Mark Baker's entire blogpost here, check out his official website here, and watch his 1986 Firestone TOC championship match with Marshall Holman and a coaching video with Walter Ray Williams Jr. below.

Mike Fagan Wins, Bill Simmons Loses

Walter Ray Williams has been my favorite bowler since he began to dominate the PBA Tour in the 1980's, and he's been my favorite bowler ever since. So naturally I wanted to see him win the One a Day Dick Weber Open Sunday and extend his record title total to 47. And if Walter Ray couldn't win it, I wanted to see Pete win it in honor of his father after whom the tournament was named.

Having said that, I'm not at all unhappy with who did win the tournament. I watched the qualifying and match play rounds on Xtra Frame and was very impressed by how well Mike Fagan bowled all week on lanes that looked really, really tough for almost everyone else but not for him. He led the tournament almost the whole way and more than earned his first singles title.

The aptly nicknamed "King of Swing" looks to me to be on his way to bowling stardom if not superstardom with that uniquely loose but powerful armswing of his coupled with an expanding versatility that makes him able to adapt to whatever's out there. The bowlers say that the lanes this week were as tough as the U.S. Open pattern, and they certainly looked that way to me. Ryan Shafer missed just a little right in match play and took out only the 6-10 for a two count after, as I recall, opening the game with a six-bagger. Others missed just a little left on their strikeballs and either knocked down only the 7 pin or ended up in the left gutter. You had to be on your game with the right ball rotation, the right speed, the right equipment, and the right line(s) or you were screwed. Mike Fagan was "on" in every way and roundly earned his victory 241-213 over Walter Ray in the title match after Walter Ray continued his televised dominance over Pete Weber 234-178 in the previous match.

However, I have to say that, as much as I enjoyed the tournament, I think I would have enjoyed it even more if ESPN.com's "Sports Guy" Bill Simmons had been somewhere else during the telecast. He sat in with Randy and Rob and tried to make up for his lack of bowling knowledge with irreverent humor that, for me at least, detracted from the intensity of the matches.

To my way of thinking, bowling doesn't get enough respect as it is, and to put a clueless guy like Simmons on to make light of the competition is the worst thing you can do to honor the sport or appeal to fans. By contrast, it was very interesting listening to PGA champion and semi-serious bowler Woody Austin talk substantively a few telecasts ago about the parallels between professional golf and bowling. I'd like to see knowledgeable, articulate people like that who respect the game come on with Rob and Randy. I'd love to see Carmen Salvino do it sometime. He's always back there watching anyway. Or how about another pro bowler, a great coach like Mark Baker, a ball rep, or "Bowling Doctor" Jeff Mark?

Who would you like to see join Randy and Rob for a telecast?