My Best Series To Date
- April 22, 2005
- 2 comments
I bowled my best series and my third best game to date last night. What was funny about it was that I wasn’t even worried about trying to get a good series. I was more worried about our team coming back from behind and splitting the wins against one of the better teams in the league.
We had lost the first game in the last frame by only 19 pins. Part of that was my fault since I opened in the 10th frame. Another teammate opened as well. The second game we also lost in the 10th frame by 31 pins. Again, two of us opened in the 10th letting the other team win. This kind of pissed me off, so I was determined to bowl a good game so we could win.
I ended up bowling a 276. I probably could’ve bowled a 290, but the ball stuck to my thumb in the middle of the 10th frame! Here’s what the 276 looked like on the scoresheet:
So I ended up bowling games of 215, 252 and 276 for a 743 series. My previous best was a 717, which happened to be my first 700 series. I’ve had four 700 series this year so far, seven since I started bowling. Hopefully I can have one more before league ends.
Yeah, I’ve been in a league for a few years now. Two leagues actually. On one I do so-so (191 average), but I think that’s because one of my teammates is amazingly gorgeous so I’m not focused on bowling as much. 
On the Thursday night league it’s another story. That’s go time. I’m averaging 207 in that league.
Bowling a nerd sport? Ha! Tell that to some of the people I bowl with. I see what you’re saying though. The sport is fun because it’s easy to track stats and progress. You know exactly what you need to bowl in order to maintain or raise your average. Plus, it’s not just scores and averages that make it geeky and fun. There are all kinds of different bowling balls that track different ways based on lane conditions and oil pattern, so you can change balls if the lanes are not working with what you have at the moment. The ball will also hook more or less depending on how you have it drilled and where you put your fingers on the ball at release. The line is always changing during the games so you have to calculate how far to move and in which direction.
You ought to try bowling. Of course, casual bowling is nowhere near as fun as league bowling.
Congrats, Chris! I missed that you were in a bowling league.
I haven’t bowled much in my life, but it occurs to me: bowling is kind of a nerd sport, in that it’s so quantifiable.
The only sport I’m playing these days is Ultimate Frisbee (no caps?). It’s pretty much like any team sport, I suppose, and as a result, you don’t have a lot of stats to come up with. I mean, I suppose you could keep track of how many times you catch the disk, complete a pass, etc., but the play is mostly nonstop, so I guess you don’t have time to log the numbers, as it were.
With my own metrics-obsessed personality, I guess I’m glad I don’t have a sport that has the sort of temptation bowling appears to offer.