Wednesday, October 22, 2008

Beer Frame - noun. The act of all five members of a bowling team rolling a strike in the same frame. Achieving the five consecutive strikes is traditionally rewarded with a round of drinks provided by the bowling alley.

After 3 seasons the pursuit of the elusive beer frame has finally come to an end. There was an increased amount of talk about this throughout this particular evening.....did everyone sense this was the night? How could this rag tag collection of 60% regulars and 40% subs even think of it, especially when the man who has been carrying us (so graciously and humbly, I might add) was not present? The tension built as JD knocked them all down, then Brian (yes, BRIAN!) followed by Jim H. The two subs and Brian did their part, now it was just down to the brothers. Could they hold up their end of the bargain? Pat, Mr. Clutch when he needs to make the perfect bags throw (but also the owner of the most gutters this year) came through followed by Dan. The team's reaction as the 50th pin fell in the 9th frame of the third game was as if we had just won the Super Bowl or the World Series. The rest of the bowling alley must have thought someone had a 300 game. There was a collective shaking of their heads as they realized it was just Los Diablos finally getting a beer frame....losers.

It was this 3rd game where everything came together. It helped erase the memory of the 8 pin loss in the 1st game where everyone but Pat failed to mark in the 10th. We rebounded in the 2nd game and won by 38 pins. It was on the strength of the beer frame that the bowling gods smiled upon Los Diablos. Brian finished the game with 5 consecutive strikes, Pat got his 4th and 5th straight strikes in the 10th on the way to a 216. Dan threw a strike in 6 of the last 7 seven frames to overcome a 3rd frame score of 33 on the way to a 202. Free haircuts for Brian, Pat and Dan.

Our 11 and 24 record (.314) of a few weeks ago has been improved to 24 and 32 (.428). It's fun to string some winning weeks together boys...let's keep it going.

Wednesday, October 8, 2008

Muli-Gutter night....

Looking back at the previous two blog entries, the author feels the appropriate amount of time and lineage was applied to the less than stellar 1st game efforts of Dan. However, Dr. Sensitive ("how come you always pick on me and not on Pat?") has pointed out that this is not the case.


Here goes....for the third consecutive week, the "anchor" came out of the gates with a dazed and confused look. Time after time pins remained and the designated 7 quarters for the evening were gone after one game as Dan "hit the hip" more often than his ball hit the pins. With a 74 in the 8th, Dan would need a couple or marks to break 100 (yes, Dan, we realize you are the only one who has not gone under 100). Of course, when you have earned a 74 through 8, doing this is not a sure thing. With the encouragement from his team (yeah, right) Dan got his 2 marks and limped in with a career low 107.

This was not the only low light of the evening as Pat managed to bowl 2 gutters in the same game. JD was so intrigued by the prospect of missing all tens pins with his first ball, he too, threw a gutter. This extraordinary bowling process (by 2 members of the same team who were different than the 107 game guy) prompted a member of the other team to sarcastically state: "Thanks for cleaning out the oil from the gutters!" Ouch.

Three paragraphs in and no mention of Captain Brian? He was there and proud of the fact that his 2nd game 109 was not as bad as Dan's 1st game 107. It is nice to know Dan's 1st game efforts are now the standard by which Mr. 133 average and Mr. 122 average gauge their games. While Brian was walking around with his 109 influenced chest puffed out, Pat brought him down to reality when he stated "I don't think I have ever seen Brian pick up a 10 pin". Ouch, again. Author's note: Brian did pick up the 10 pin.

There was a collective team effort in the last game as we rallied to salvage 3 points. Some gems from the other team...."Who put the quarter in Dan" and "You are the only team that can keep up with us drinking."

Sunday, October 5, 2008

Failure to launch!

For the 2nd straight week Dan showed up with his head up his ass, not prepared to do his part for the team. After an anemic 1st game "effort" of 116 last week, Dan topped that with an impotent 111 (his all time low). While this individual effort was pathetic, the other team members hardly picked up their struggling clean up man. Pat's 1st game 144 was 13 below average, Jim's 147 was a whopping 47 below average and FNG's 119 (he actually was bragging about his 119 in relation to Dan's 111!) was 4 below average. Thankfully, super sub JD's solid 165 kept the bleeding to a minimum and we only lost the 1st game by 111.


There was not much else positive on this evening with the exception of JD's high game of 179 on the way to a very nice 508 series. Pat's 455 was actually not that short of his average but a far cry from the 500+ goal he has set for himself. While Dan's 429 resulted in a 4 pin drop in his average, it was not quite as bad as the 9 point pin average hit that Jim's took as the result of his 484 (we all suspected that the two 600+ series would be hard to maintain, but not getting to 500?). After a solid 2nd game effort of 142, it was pointed out that FNG just needed a 139 to break the 400 barrier. With this added pressure on his back (and hand on his throat), he threw up a 115 to finish with a 376 for the evening.

O for 7 boys......let's regroup and get this team heading in the right direction.