What's our name? wins

Our winter (fall?) bowling season finished up on Wednesday evening, and it all worked out. It was a wonderful, almost magical season. The finish just made it more special.

I started out the season on a tear that began last summer and coasted to my best 'book' average ever, a 209 (the sanctioning bodies for amateur bowling in the US have an odd sense of humor, we save our official, or book averages on April 15). I managed to finish up the season in the same place, which was even better. I'd shot 207 for a summer when we played in an interesting mixed trio handicap league with a number of very good keglers a few years back. It was challenging and I hit a good streak, but 207 over thirteen weeks doesn't quite compare.

We normally play in a mixed handicap league (5 players) with two halves, win one half of the season (first or second) and you play for the title. Every week is worth 4 points (3 games and total pins).

While I was on my tear, our lead off bowler was also on her way to a big first half. Judy had a wonderful year (and played a huge part on Wednesday). We all started off playing consistently above ourselves and feeding off one another, it was contagious. For a while there, we just clobbered everyone we played (it helped that we played most of the best teams early on). Our lead grew and grew. Eventually, reality caught up and dragged us back toward the pack.

Up by 12 points with five weeks left, we stumbled down the stretch. We had three disappointing weeks in a row. Losing our lead, bit by bit. With two weeks left, we were up by 7 when we rolled our next game early (on Dec 26th) because people were going out of town. We were awful and lost all 4 points (in absentia) against the second place team (I was going a bit crazy that day, I knew who we were playing). We played them in person after the holidays and split the points to win the 1^st half.

As a team, we were up and down during the 2^nd half of the season, finishing in the middle of the pack and on Wednesday evening we played to determine the league champion. Anything was possible. The team we were up against had been on quite a tear themselves (finishing up a lot like we'd begun) and were going to be tough to beat. I wasn't at all certain what we might do and just wanted to be consistent so I could finish out at 209. If that helped us win, great. Bowling is lot like track and swimming, you compete against someone directly and try to feed off the team positives.

I promptly went out and laid an egg (changing my line and then my ball because I was quite lost and confused and I needed to be stringing strikes now!) while the other team was beating our brains in and winning by 145 pins. We were down to two games and needed to win them both. In the second game, three of us were quite a few pins above average and we managed a comfortable, 62 pin win despite having a 299 thrown against us. The third game was well balanced (neither team was able to grab an advantage) and just to keep things interesting, it all came down to the last shots of the 10^th frame. We had a slim lead and all I needed was a mark and decent count on the fill ball. My opposite (Jim) is a terrific lefty, but he'd spared the 9^th, I was on a strike and they were behind. He had to go off the sheet (all strikes until the end) to win. On his first ball, he left a nasty split (which he picked up). Thankfully, I threw a strike on the first ball and the pressure was off. My next shot was a disaster (I left the 4-7-9-10 and believe I missed everything on the next shot, my mind was elsewhere). I finished with an erratic 165-259-238 (662) against Jim's 255-183-231 (669), winning two of three (I'll take any day that against a guy with a 222 average). We won game three (by 21 pins) and the season was over.

More important, this was the first taste of victory we'd enjoyed together. I've won twice before in scratch leagues (I used to play in at least two leagues year around; now I'm back down to just the one league for the winter season). In our 12 years of bowling, this was the first time Sarah had experienced it. She's happy, just not nearly as happy as I (I like to win). It certainly helps make up for all the times we came close twice and wound up somewhere between 3^rd to 5^th overall. Even in our worst year we couldn't quite win the crying towel.

Just in case you got this far, our team name really was "What's our name?" I hate naming things and when someone asked the usual question back in the fall, my response was "Yes!" We had the typical Who's on First? (audio) giggle about it but then we got everyone else to buy into it. It was the easiest naming process in years.