Factor X Captain's Lounge

Ah, yes. The long-ago days of my childhood bowling career. I can still remember it like it was yesterday. Saturday morning junior leagues. Getting up early to hitch a ride with my Dad to the lanes. Frosty fall mornings, waiting outside for Charlie Harris or Bob Blake to finish their Saturday morning routine and open the front doors. Those were the days.

 Bowling was different back then. Shots were tougher. Balls weren't juiced. Bowlers - even the crankers - learned to play up the boards, strokers opting for shots around the track area (near second arrow), while the crankers (by yesteryear's standards, anyway) played first arrow or even further out; four-board, three-, or even two-board.

So much has changed over the last quarter of a century (have I really been bowling that long?). Everyone can buy a hook nowadays, and between proprietors drying out the outside boards and bowling balls with enough surface to double as winter snow tires, the gutter shot has gone the way of the Do-Do bird, becoming a lost art to all but the flamethrowers and wrist-floppers. 

So imagine my surprise at Merrimack Ten Pin this past week upon taking on FlashFire on the pattern de jour, Cheetah.  I had bowled the pattern a few times in Gardner, but it never seemed to play like it does for the pros:

"Where's the outside shot," I'd hear over and over, as bowlers (including myself) tried in vain to fire shots up five- or six-board, only to watch them skate off into oblivion (or take off across the lane, if tugged).

But then it happened... quite by accident, in fact. Opting to try one more shot up 5-board, I missed target - not just a little, but a lot. But as the ball drifted ever closer to the channel and I prepared for the inevitable thud that comes from a gutter-ball, something even more surprising happened: with the ball teetering precariously on the edge, it suddenly peeled from its would-be resting place, charging back to headpin for a wall-shot strike.

Could it be I had been playing the lanes wrong? Was it possible that this Cheetah pattern really did play like the pro pattern and that I just wasn't trusting the gutter enough?  I tried another shot up the ditch, this time intentionally up two-board. Again it peeled, and again it struck.

I went on to string the last eight strikes in game number two, then followed that up with two more to start game three for a total of 10 strikes in a row before leaving a soft 7-pin.  I finished the night with 660, which is also my all-time high series in PBA Experience action.  And even if it was just for this one, fleeting evening, the old Tom was back - the Tom that grew up in Yankee Lanes. The Tom that grew up making a living on 3-board. The Tom that grew up unafraid of anything, at least when he had a bowling ball in his hand.

Yes indeed, times have changed. Growing up, my favorite shot was the gutter shot. It was fun to see how close I could play to the gutter, and to watch others cringe thinking the ball was going to drop, only to watch in amazement as the ball roared back to the pocket. Now my favorite shot is the "inside fourth arrow" swing shot, albeit for similar reasons that I used to play the ditch 20 years ago: because it shows my versatility, and it's something that few other bowlers - lefties in particular - do.

But on this one night in Merrimack, New Hampshire, I have to admit - it felt wonderful to turn the hands of time back 15 or 20 years, and to do something that few of us ever get to do: to bowl like I did in my youth, but with the knowledge and experience that comes from age...

If only my weight and my hair had followed me back!

Another National tournament, another disaster.  Two teammates fire 600s, another just slightly below the mark.  So what do I do?  Same ol' same ol'.  Barely break 500.  Hell, I don't throw my first well-executed shot that hits pocket for a strike until frame number 25!  That's just plain embarrassing.

I left Reno this year more dejected than ever. I was sure in my mind this was going to be the year.  I've bowled so many Sport leagues and tournaments.  I've executed pretty well throughout, even on the tough shots.  This was going to be the year I focused on execution, not score - the year I was going to forget about the bleepity-bleeping approaches, and whether or not I was gonna stick or slip.  So what happened?

Simple.  On came the lights, and out the window went the game plan. Yeah, it would be real easy to blame my wife's ugly fall on her first practice ball, but that would be a cop out.  Sure, it distracted me for a bit - it should.  She's my wife. I love her, and she could've been seriously hurt.  But when I realized she was okay, that should've been that. I'm a big boy now, and I came in with a good game plan.  It's up to me to forget about the external stuff at that point and get back on track.  If I let the distractions affect me for more than one or two frames, than shame on me.

They affected me for twenty-four.

There's no excuse for that. I should've done better.  The shot on the left side was hittable.  I threw quite a few shots on pocket Sunday - a few bad breaks mind you, but all-in-all, not too bad.  All I know is that I'm sick and tired of letting my team down at the Nationals. I'm better than that. The team deserves better than that. If we've got three guys shooting around 600, we should make some pretty good money. They shouldn't have to carry my sorry butt year after year after year. If 170 is the best I can do in the team event, I should quit the team and let them get a real bowler - one that knows how to do something other than suck in bowling's biggest event.

I wasn't originally going to post anything here regarding yet another failure at the Nationals. But then I thought to myself, "if you allow yourself to forget this, your that much more likely to make all the same mistakes again in 2008."  After all, that's what I've been doing for almost 25 years now!

Enough is enough!  Time to post my thoughts.  Time to put this latest underachievement in writing, and make a note to myself to re-read it every day starting in early May next year, just so I don't forget...

• What it felt like to let my team down.
• What it felt like to enter 20 $5 team brackets and only get back $45.
• What it felt like to enter $200 worth of doubles and singles brackets AND MAKE ABSOLUTELY NOTHING.
• What it feels like to only know failure in the Nationals!
• What it feels like to know your better than that!
• What it feels like to keep making the same, stupid mistakes over and over and over, year after year after year.

Everybody always says "focus on the positives." The power of positive thinking and such.  Not this time.  If I ever want to bowl well at the Nationals - I need to remember these hard lessons.  Not dwell on them mind you, but remember how terrible it felt to underachieve... yet again.  Only there, in my memories of how empty it feels to let myself and my teammates down, can I hope to find the courage and conviction to rise above it.  And maybe in 2008, armed with a dash of extra resolve and just a pinch of good luck, I will finally know how it feels to be able to hold my head high at the end of the team event, courtesy of a job well done.

Well if my primary goal was to get past my approach issues in Merrimack this week, then I guess I can say I accomplished my goals. Unfortunately, there was no turnaround in scoring to go along with it, which kind-of dulled my enthusiasm over my aggressiveness.

 As predicted, the pattern this week was Scorpion.  And as expected, it played a little slicker than it does in Gardner, which forced me to come a little deeper into the lane to start. Yes, I still started with my pin-down Vertigo, but I came into about 9-board to start, instead of my usual 6- or 7-board in Gardner.

And for a game or so, it worked pretty well. Opening with a 216 I figured maybe I had finally worked my way out of my MTP slump. Unfortunately for me however, what has become an all-too-familiar recurring theme crept into play in game number two.

One of the issues I've run into so far this season is that on several of the conditions, teammate Matt Coe has opted to play very close to where I'm playing the lanes, just with significantly more aggressive equipment to compensate for his higher ball speed and lower track. This week especially it began to cause problems for me in game number two, because he was using a ball at 320 grit - the kind of stuff that the pros will sometimes use when they want to burn up an area on the lane in practice (they sometimes do this to help set up the shot they really want to play on TV, other times they do it to mess up someone else's shot). By early in game number two I noticed the midlane just inside of me had "burned up," as all of a sudden balls I threw in that general area began to break loose.

I made the wrong move. I opted to come inside of him and try to pitch the ball towards his line of play. Problem is, I came too far inside. Not only is crossing boards in general a bad idea on Scorpion, but by coming so far inside of him I was, in effect, crossing his line too far down the lane. It was the midlane that had burned up, not the back ends. By coming so far in, I took his midlane track out of play, and was trying to, in essence, bounce off his breakpoint... an area of the lane that, if anything, had gotten a little slicker from oil carrydown.  My scores went from bad to worse.

All tolled, I threw a 548... respectable at least, but not good. I mean, yeah I bowled over my "sparkling" 170-something average, but the team needed more this week. Going against the dummy team, I had the average that was the farthest below par to start the season.  If we were going to beat the dummies I needed to bowl well all night, not just in game one.

Scorpion Pattern Notes

• Pattern plays slicker than Gardner, so you may have to start farther inside.
• As in Gardner, don't swing boards. The straighter you play, the less trouble you get into.
• Carry from inside is better than carry from outside.  Problem being, that means you have to swing boards.  Be very, very careful before heading down that road!
• Post-league practice proved that pin-down Vertigo is preferable to more-aggressive NV. Yes, the NV hit the pins much stronger, but getting the breakpoint just right was very, very tricky.
• Post-league practice session also proved that, as long as you set the wrist position at maximum 5/3, you can still play the 6- or 7-board you like to play in Gardner.
• More aggressive wrist position needed at MTP than Gardner.  4/3 works great in Gardner, but 5/3 works better here.

Future Strategy

• Okay to start match around 8- or 9-board, but depending upon where Matt is playing, your better option may be to move left, not right, keeping the wrist position strong.
• Should midlane burn up and you don't like the look moving left, move right only a couple of boards, just barely inside of Matt. Then take your hand out of the ball somewhat so your bouncing off the midlane burnout, not his breakpoint!

Finally, Matt, if you read this, you're probably going to say (or at least think) "I'm sorry" again.  Don't!  Adjusting to what you're opponent is doing is part of the game at every level. The righties go through this every, single day of their bowling lives. As lefties, we're lucky (or sometimes unlucky) enough not to have to deal with that part of the game as much as them. It doesn't mean that it's not part of the game, though - just that we don't usually have to deal with it. Play your game. Do what works. I know I would.

Well here it is.  Thursday afternoon, lunchtime. In a little less than six hours, I'll get one more chance at a tune-up for next week's final, prestigious stop on our 2006-07 tour schedule: the Nationals!

With the exception of some tentative bowling in Merrimack due to my preoccupation with their approaches, I've been pretty happy with the way I've bowled since our last tour stop, the Lilac. I've bowled in two PBA Summer Series events in Gardner and won them both, averaging just under 210 in the process. (which is a pretty big step up from the 184 I averaged during league, wouldn't you say?) I went to Keene last weekend (oh, Tom, say it isn't so - Keene?) and that turned out to be a pretty good confidence-booster, too.  Despite the fact I was just horsing around with my son and using a ball that was a little too tame for Keene's back-ends, I had absolutely no trouble at all averaging in the 220s for three games... ah, yes, good ol' Yankee Lanes.

The pattern for this week's MTP PBA Experience league should be Scorpion... assuming they push the right button on the oiling machine this time. That's the same pattern I won this week's Summer Series tournament on, although I have no doubt it will play much differently on synthetic as opposed to wood.

One of my primary objectives this week will be to get aggressive with the approaches, to not let them ruin my game. That may sound like a strange objective, but given the effect the synthetic approaches have had on my game at the Nationals in the past, the fear of these non-wood approaches is something I definitely have to get past if I'm to have any chance of coming back from Reno feeling good about my performance.

We're playing the dummy team this week, which means we should be able to set a nice, smooth pace for ourselves without much in the way of external influences. And with averages well below our normal capabilities, we may be hitting the dummies at exactly the right time. If me and Bud Man can tend to business and hit something close to our normal abilities, we should be able to take most of our points against the dummies, even if Matt struggles to hit average (he's currently averaging the highest of any of us and seeing the Scorpion pattern for the first time).

So here's to Merrimack, to Reno, to PBA Experience leagues, to Scorpion, ... and to Factor X's final event of the 2006-07 winter season.

Long live Factor X!

Lack of Preparation Causes Snakebite on Viper...

After such a miserable performance last week in my MTP PBA Experience Trios league debut on Shark, I really did my homework this week.  I poured back through the literature on Scorpion. I dug through all my blog posts.  I went into this week armed and ready to execute.  The only problem?  The house screwed up. The lane mechanic "pressed the wrong button" on the oiling machine.  The result? No Scorpion pattern. And in it's stead, Viper.

Viper was what MTP put down in week one - the week I was at the Lilac.  I knew I wouldn't see that pattern again for several weeks. Preparing for Viper was the farthest thing from my mind...

it cost me dearly.

Yeah, I was able to "brush up" on the pattern thanks to the fact that Christina brought her cheat-sheets with her ... thanks, Chris! Still, the most important info of all - my blog posts - were inaccessible. I was going to have to wing it.

So wing it I did. Based on my limited research and memory, I decided to try hitting the ball "full hand" from out around 5-board.  Seemed to work pretty well in practice, as well as early in game one - opened with a three-bagger.  Unfortunately, as the oil pushed, the shot got dicey.

I tried moving both in and out a little, staying near the 5-board, continuing to hit the ball hard. Things went from bad to worse. Despite a strong start, three consecutive opens to end the first game left me at just 180. The onslaught of errant shots continued through most of game two as well, resulting in a downright ugly 130-something.

It wasn't until game number three that I decided that maybe I should try taking my hand out of the ball a little.  I backed off on the wrist guard to a setting of 4/3. Moved my feet in about four boards, my target two (I was now swinging around 8-board with less hand).  Guess what?  234.  D'ow!

When I got home, I checked my notes from my GTP doubles league last winter.  Guess what?  It was my highest scoring pattern. I had discovered the first time I bowled Viper in that league that trying to bowl with "full hand" didn't work well.  According to my notes, the best reaction was to take my hand out of the ball a little bit and swing between first and second arrows...

Hmmmm.  Sounds familiar.

So what of next week?  Well, rumor has it that MTP will once again try to push the "Scorpion" button on the oiling equipment.  Only time will tell whether or not they fat-finger some other button this week.  But between the fact I've been preparing for Scorpion since last week and the fact that I'll see it again this Tuesday in Gardner's Summer Series tournament, one thing's for sure:

If MTP manages to put Scorpion out this week and I don't bowl respectably on it, then shame on me!