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Author Topic: The Good old Days - Bah Humbug!  (Read 3196 times)

LuckyLefty

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The Good old Days - Bah Humbug!
« on: November 16, 2003, 09:42:45 AM »
Or I could have cried for them it was so pitiful!

Stopped by a local center and watched some statewide bowling studs look like fools!!!!

Condition was supposed to be setup for Junior Golds, (I don't know I guess some tournament that has a tough condition).

As I walked up I noticed many scores near the 10th frame in the 110 to 130 area and many gutters being thrown as I walked up!  Maybe 4 in two frames up and down 10 lanes.

REleases of all the players looked "Powerful".  I could imagine many averaging near 220 on league type conditions.

My guess as to the pattern would have been a 1 to 1 slightly less than 2 to 1.

One great looking ball revving player said only 30 foot shot with lots of carrydown.

It looked like throw what you get.  Swing it 12 to 10 and you hit ????, the 6 pin!

Throw 10 to 12 and you catch a piece of the head pin.

One thing I did notice is that most of these players were throwing 17 mph with good strong revs and getting nothing but skid. Saw one slow junior lady bowler throwing about 11 mph with about 4 revs and she had as much backend as anyone!

My observation!  Several old timers watching were in near ecstasy!  I think there have been a few orgasms!!!!  (Not there kid bowling)
1."Why this is the way bowling is supposed to be!"
2."When I bowled this is what we played on!".  
3."This will teach these young pups to be versatile like we were".
4."This is what scoring should be all about"

My answers to all these comments.
1. Bullsh.., it was pitiful one score over 200 in the whole time I was there
1 1/2 games.
2. Bullsh.., You never saw so much oil in your life, you just didn't have carry, it was easy to hit the pocket.
3. Half Bullsh...., there was a way to bowl better.
4. Definitely Bullsh....  Embarassing junior bowlers so they want to quit the game is no way to encourage the sport of bowling.  Plain nasty and much tougher than things I have seen televised on the PBA.  Or personally thrown on World team challenge shots or PBA proams(supposedly sport).

I believe that item 3 they will develop versatility is half right.
These players "A" game was a high speed high rev game(in general) which would create very high scores on a tapered league crown.

It appeared that a way to play this shot would be to throw very slowly while nearly maintaining revs!  I've seen in many of the leagues or tournament where I've bowled when they've gone in to FTL mode (Flood the lefties") shots very similar to this.  A 12 mph shot with near normal revs works great!

Except for a little gray hair I wish I could have slipped in and shown the juniors how this is done.   A nice little 580 would have probably made me the winner by about 40 to 50 pins.  Passing me off as a junior anymore, long gone!

The Good Old days Bah Humbug, was never this tricky!!!

REgards,

Luckylefty
It takes Courage to have Faith, and Faith to have Courage.

James M. McCurley, New Orleans, Louisiana

 

LuckyLefty

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Re: The Good old Days - Bah Humbug!
« Reply #16 on: November 18, 2003, 04:39:12 AM »
JAnderson,

Another sport that is up against what you are talking about is Waterskiing and the slalom event.

The sport is limited by how short they can make the rope.  Right now people are running the slalom course on ropes shorter than the distance to the buoy's by about 3 feet.  Distance to buoy about 37 1/2 feet and the world record is now being run on a rope that is about 34 feet long.  Naturally all top world class skiers under 6 foot are disappearing and most of the new stars are 6' 3 " to 6' 7 inches with Looooonng arms.  (and maybe getting longer trying to stretch around those buoys).  Maybe they should widen the course, again giving the advantage to the better athlete not just the talest athlete.

Another section of this comment section guys are complaining about basketball not seeing shooting as important as it once was. Well if you raised the basket 2 feet it would take away the advantage of the big man, his percentage height to the basket would now be closer to his shorter opponent.

They are approaching the physical limits of the sport.

Similar in bowling the highest score or average is 300.  Naturally the highest possible average is 300.  We've already seen 26X!!!

However scoring on the pro tour is going down, if one check's the stats maybe protourists are in the 210 to 212 range.  Many that are struggling are averaging 205 to 206.  TV matches week after week are having finalists struggle to shoot 170 and 180s.  Instead of all this tricked up lane conditions.

Maybe we need to raise the limitations of the sport.  Maybe we need a 12 frame game, now to get a perfect game one has to shoot 14 in a row, for your 360.
Maybe one has to now shoot 42 in a row for a perfect 1080!
Then we could ease up on lane conditions and have a lot of fun!

REgards,

Luckylefty
It takes Courage to have Faith, and Faith to have Courage.

James M. McCurley, New Orleans, Louisiana

janderson

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Re: The Good old Days - Bah Humbug!
« Reply #17 on: November 18, 2003, 04:11:16 PM »
PChee - My apologies, I worded that poorly.  I didn't mean to accuse you of never seeing Steve Cook bowl.  I meant to ask it as a question (have you ever...)  You could be right, with Steve Cook it might just be age.  It's been 25 years since I've watched him bowl in person.

Yes, I talk about the "good ole days" but I'm at the top of my game averaging 25 pins more than I did 10 years ago.  Some of that is the conditions and equipment.  (IMHO if you don't average 220 on a house shot today, you're not very good).

There are some bowlers who absolutely turn the cover off the ball today and are more "power players" than years ago.  And yes, we're all bowling on the same sh*t.  However, you're ignoring the important point.

The cushy shot made cushier by the equipment gives you 3 to 5 boards more "play" - you don't have to hit a one or two board mark to be in the pocket.

So, to me, if you have two young crankers that just turn the living torque out of the ball bowling on the same lane and bowler A is hitting the same two boards time and time again and bowler B is just "sloshing" the ball in an six- or seven- (or even eight-!) board radius - it is unfair to me that they both end up in the pocket the same number of times.

That's why tough conditions exist and should exist.  It separates the good bowlers from the average.
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