Big-Box Bowling

Wal-Mart and Target are big-box retailers. The big-box retailer has come to bowling in the form of the Brunswick Zone and AMF. Just like many big-box retailers, the personal touch is missing.

This bowler joined a late league at one of these national chains. I know that sometimes the early leagues run behind and your league will not always start on time. The early league in front of us kept running up to forty-five minutes late. After a month, I was fed up and called the manager. This is when the true adventure started. I was asked if I was a league officer. When I replied “No, just a bowler” I was told “I can’t speak to every bowler. This has to come from a league officer.” I was floored.

I also bowl at a small regional chain. I bowled in a late league for a year. The following year I joined the early league in front of it. The year I bowled in the late league, we never started late. I did not know until about three years ago that the early league was told to be done by 9:00PM for the late league. The secretary of the early league made sure the league stayed on schedule. The big-box manager was shortly replaced by another manager who still could not get this early league to finish timely. The big box center did not nothing about the lateness and lost many bowlers including my husband and I.

Put Down the Cancer Stick and Bowl!

In many cities and states across the United States, a debate about smoke free work places rages on. Your local bowling center is one of those work places that the government is trying to make smoke free. I think it is about time. Many smokers feel their rights are being stomped.

It’s my right to be able to bowl in a league and not come home smelling like an ashtray. I do not have the right to run around the bowling center spraying bowlers with perfume. Why should my car smell like someone smoked all night it because I left my bowling equipment in it overnight? I do not have the right to place a dead fish in their car.

Besides the smell, there is the health issue. Why should one group of people be allowed to jeopardize another group of people’s health?

Are you a Bowling Slut?

What is your bowling bag? Are you loyal to one brand of bowling ball or you a brand slut? What is a brand slut? A brand slut was a term coined by Marian Salzman, an advertising executive, regarding someone who frequently switches brands.

In my four-ball bag are two Brunswick balls, an AMF ball and Lane #1 ball. In my garden which is home to the bowling graveyard are balls from Storm, Brunswick, Columbia, Ebonite and even a Dyno-Thane. Somewhere in my garage is a ball from Track.

I buy the ball that is best for my game and my wallet. So yes, I am proud to be a bowling slut.

Mediocre Marvin Comes to Bowling!

There is a trend in little league baseball and other sports to give all the children trophies, not just the winners. At a certain age, children must learn that there are winners and losers otherwise they will not grow up to handle life’s disappointments. Of course, they could join a league that pays five places for high average, high series and high game for both halves.

That’s right folks five places in three categories for a total of fifteen cash awards for each gender and a bowler can only cash once. Assuming in sixteen team mixed league that there is an even amount of men and women at thirty-two each then forty-six percent of each gender will win an individual award.

You do not have to be an accountant to realize mediocre scores will be rewarded.

Lane Courtesy! Where the hell did it go?

The two summers I coached bowling to teenage boys the first lesson was on lane courtesy. It does not matter if you can hook a ball 30 boards on an oil slick, without lane courtesy you are just an annoying bowler.

Lane courtesy extends beyond making sure you do not bowl if someone is on the lane to left and right of you. Courtesy is not standing on the lane waiting for your ball to come back. Courtesy is not eating a roast beef sandwich from the league holiday party while waiting in line to throw a practice ball. Just because it Christmas, Hanukkah or Kwanza does not mean you can bring food down on the lanes.

Oh yeah! Let’s include under lane courtesy, your entire team never being anywhere near the lane when it’s your turn to bowl. And then when you are a good half game behind the rest of the league, you ask the one bowler who happens to make an appearance at a scoring table in the 10th frame when it’s not their turn to find their bowler who is up turns. They then turn around and make a comment to their teammate that mocks your team. To make sure she makes her rudeness clear to your team she goes to the bar to get a drink when it is her turn. When she finally does bowl she asks, “Was that quick enough?” Of course that is after she walks off the lanes with shooting her fill ball in the 10th frame. When you tell her you would like to be home at a decent hour, she quits and then stands in the back pouting.