Bowling

This week was the last normal week of the winter bowling league that Sarah and I bowl on (we started doing this to get out of the house when the kids were little back in the fall of '94). The season is broken into two halves and we won the second half. Woo hoo! We get to play the team which won the first half next week while gambling in a crazy event known as sweepers.

We'd been close to the front for a while, and even with my missing a few weeks because of recent trips and us losing 2 of 4 last week, we were still only down by 1.5 points (team totals for three games and the total score for the 4 weekly points). We were seeded second for the position round and had to win 3 of 4 against the team seeded first (a tough team) to pass them.

We took the first game and they took the second. We were ahead by about 60 pins for the fourth point. Win the last game and we're in, lose and we're done. We didn't approach our high game of the season, but we all bowled really well (most of us were 20 more pins over average in the last game), the other team had one bowler with a really awful game and that was it.

We finished up tied for points for the year with the team we had to beat (they were ahead of us by 2 points for the year). We also ended up with the team high series and total pins for the season (unless next week counts, I'm not too sure about that).

And of course, next week is sweepers. The idea there is to gamble away all the 'award' money given to teams based on their finishes in a few categories. This being a handicap league, the money for everyone, including the winner isn't all that big. I won about $500 a few years ago when I played on a team that won a much more serious scratch league (my cut was from a team of four).

I can pair up my score with as many other people as I want (from this league) and it costs me $1 for each entry I make with someone else. I usually end up spending about $40 on this. Winners are picked from three categories; men, women and doubles (one of each). Have a really good night and pick a few people who also have good nights and you can walk away with $200 just from the pots. This being a handicap league, anyone can win and it's a lot of fun. And then of course, the season is over...

I normally take summers off but my wife has volunteered me and I get to start all over the following week.