Professional Bowlers Association

It’s always nice to see nice people do well, and this Sunday’s Shark Championship telecast, the last of the taped World Series of Bowling shows, did exactly that.

The big hero this week was the unassuming journeyman Jack Jurek, whose last (and only) win on Tour came in 1995 and has since kind of bounced around on and off the Tour his entire career after coming out of college in the mid 1980’s as one of the most highly touted players in history.

The now 46-year-old Jurek put it in a huge amount of training (mostly in the gym, where he dropped 10 pounds and 5% body fat) prior to the World Series, and it paid big dividends down the stretch as Jurek kept going strong as his fellow (often younger) competitors wilted down the stretch out of sheer exhaustion.

Three competitors who did not wilt were Jurek’s fellow finalists Wes Malott, Michael Fagan and Jason Couch. In fact, each of these three found their games in various ways down the stretch, with Couch regaining his form after knee surgery, Fagan adjusting to a change in equipment manufacturers and Malott finally figuring out how to win on the elusive Arena Bay side of the house that the National Bowling League built.

The first semifinal featured Fagan and Couch, and got the show off to an energetic start. Despite chopping the 3-5 in the first, Couch quickly settled down and tossed a double to get back in the match. Fagan, meanwhile threw a blistering turkey but missed the 2-8 in the 4^th, then followed that up with another strong double. Couch hung around, but didn’t figure out the right lane until it was too late, throwing three strikes in the 10^th. Fagan continued to pummel the pocket all game and posted a relatively easy 224-201 win to move into the final.

Semifinal number two featured the return of the reigning PBA Player of the Year and King of Bowling, Wes Malott taking on Jurek. From the start, both players looked extremely comfortable with Wes going spare, turkey, spare, double through seven frames, while Jurek burst out of the gate with the front six. But the match turned in the 8^th when Big Wes tossed one a little wide for a washout, which he failed to convert, while Jurek added another double in the 8^th-9^th to take a commanding 42-pin lead. Even though Wes lost, he looked very good, which should make next Sunday’s epic match against Rhino Page in the PBA World Championship LIVE semifinals even more tasty.

Once again the ladies stepped in to contest their final match, and this time it was Kelly Kulick facing Carolyn Dorin-Ballard for the title. Both ladies were making their second appearances of the World Series, with Kulick already posting a win in the Women’s World Championship, while CDB finished second in the Chameleon Championship.

If you remember, in the Chameleon show, Dorin-Ballard struggled with the dry-ness of the lanes. Well this week, she had just the opposite problem, as her challenge was how to get her ball to roll up strong enough on the gobs of oil now found on the PBA’s new Shark pattern. Despite that, by hitting the pocket on six of her first seven shots, she looked to be in control of the match, building a 25-pin lead heading into the 8^th.

A chopped 3-6 trimmed her lead down to the low double-digits in that frame and then the oily lanes really caught up with her in the 9^th, as her strike attempt skidded into the pins and bounced right like Rodney Dangerfield’s throw in that old Miller beer commercial, almost leaving the dreaded “sour apple” or “lily” 5-7-10 split (the headpin bounced off the wall to take out the 5 late). After missing that, she went nine-spare, strike in the 10^th for a 182, forcing Kulick to step up and throw a strike in the 10^th for the win.

Making an unbelievably gutsy ball change in the 9^th, Kulick stepped up and threw not one, but two dead-flush strikes for a 197-182 win, capping off an excellent World Series of Bowling that was probably only surpassed in its success by the run of her World Championship victim Shannon Pluhowsky.

The men’s final was a well-bowled affair that came down to the wire and then some. Fagan jumped an arrow or so left of where he was in his first match, while Jurek changed balls to a shinier, less aggressive ball to play in about the same place he was in his first match.

To say that Mike Fagan throws the ball good is a little bit like saying Michael Jackson was an OK dancer. All the young star did was throw perfect, pocket seeking lasers all game. Unfortunately, the pins weren’t cooperating all that much so he only had four strikes and five wicked ten pins to show for it heading into the 10^th. Jurek put together an early big lead but lost nearly all of it when his ball decided to hook an extra two boards or so in the 6^th (this was verified both by Jurek as well as CATS, as the graphic showed that the shot was thrown exactly on-line with exact same speed and rev rate, proving once again that bowling is the most maddening sport in the world because of its invisible and ever-changing obstacles).

Jack made the world-class adjustment in the 8^th, stringing together a turkey that brought him to the brink of ending his 14-year winless drought, but as he later admitted, the moment was too much for him to handle and he made a terrible shot in the 11^th. The resulting 7, spare give him 218, allowing Fagan the opportunity to throw three in the 10^th for a one-pin victory. Fagan calmly ripped the first two racks to shreds, then planted the third one half pocket, sending a decent messenger back off the wall for the still-upright 10-pin. The messenger gave the 10 a small kiss as it fell off into the pit, wiggling it but not knocking it over. The match was tied at 218, sending us into a one-ball roll-off for all the wheat.

 Jurek calmed his nerves by this time and struck high flush on his first shot. Fagan needed a strike to extend the match, but his shot sailed way wide, catching the infamous Shark OB and leaving a 1-2. The wait for Jurek was over and he was able to pick up his second career trophy and, more importantly, the comforting self-proof that he still does belong out on Tour with the best bowlers in the world.

The telecast was quite a fitting end to the World Series of Bowling, and now we will get to enjoy our first live telecast of the season with this Sunday’s PBA World Championship finals from Northrock Lanes in Wichita at 1pm ET. I, for one, will not be missing it (mostly because I’ll be there in person covering the event for Xtra Frame, so my recap may be a bit late next week until I have a chance to watch the show on TV) and I’m sure you won’t either!

Plus, don’t forget all of the other awesome stuff we have going on this week on Xtra Frame, with the return of live bowling action from the Pepsi Red, White and Blue Open starting with Tuesday's Bonus coverage, then continuing all week long and then the all-new Chris Barnes Challenge presented by Columbia 300 this Saturday. I’ll be seeing you there!

This Sunday’s telecast of the Scorpion Championship had more supporting characters and plot twists than a Spiderman sequel. Who to root for?

Well, there was local boy makes good Tom Smallwood, who now throws X’s for a living after getting the ax from GM last X-mas (what company does that, by the way?). Then, there was Mike DeVaney, a guy who’s never been lower than 19^th in points in any of the last six seasons, yet, somehow, found himself living out of his car just a few short months ago in order to save up enough money to even get to the World Series. Then there was Sean Rash, who’s gone from looking like Tommy Jones to Chris Barnes on TV. And finally, we had the guy who’s been saddled with the overwhelming task of single-handedly “saving bowling” in Jason Belmonte.

Belmo and Smallwood were featured in Match 1, and this one was no contest from the start. Smallwood was suffering from a sore back and didn’t seem to be 100%...well, it was either that or the fact that he couldn’t get his ball (any of them…he tried three during the match, which may be a record) within shouting distance of the pocket. Belmo started the game off with a bad break in the 1^st (a pocket 4-9), then after tripping the 4 on two consecutive high hits, he switched to a less-hooking ball and crushed four more strikes. After building a huge lead, Belmo conducted a bit of an area check the last three frames and coasted into the final with a 222-175.

Match 2 was a struggle-fest of titanic proportions, as Sean Rash looked to exorcise the demons of last week’s 10^th frame meltdown against journeyman pro Mike DeVaney. Everything was going along smoothly for Rash through six frames, as he’d built a nice lead and looked pretty well lined up on both lanes. In frame 7, Rash left an impossibly wicked blower 7-10 on a great shot, then nearly converted when he bounced the 10-pin back out onto the lane.

DeVaney tried urethane to start, but quickly became unconvinced of that strategy before switching back to reactive in frame 6. Although he never struck on the right lane the entire match, DeVaney hung in and threw strikes on the right lane in frames 6 and 8. Rash then got up and began to go down. A missed washout in the 8^th preceded a 2-10 split in the 9^th, and suddenly it was an even match. DeVaney missed again in the 9^th (making him 0 for 5 on that lane for the game) but packed a double and nine in the 10^th to force Rash to get all three in the 10^th to win. Rash grabbed the first one and missed high, leading to a 182-162 loss.

That brought us to the Women’s Series final, and those of us hoping for a low-score reprieve like we had last week were out of luck. Shannon Pluhowsky, who was looking for her second consecutive title, looked unbeatable once again as her opponent Liz Johnson rifled through several different balls trying to find some kind of decent way to get to the pocket consistently. Shannon had this match firmly in her grasp until two big boo-boos in the 9^th and 10^th (a missed 2-4-7 and a 3-7 split) unbelievably gave Johnson a chance to double in the 10^th for the win. Lucky for Shannon, Johnson had to throw on the brutal right lane, and could only muster a 3-6-10 leave on her opening attempt, giving Pluhowsky another title, 192-177.

In the men’s final, Belmo made a giant leap right and opted to play up the first arrow. His first two frames looked pretty good with a 4-pin and a flush strike. DeVaney stayed in at 25 with his reactive ball for this match, but ran into trouble in the third when his ball hooked high for a 4-6-7-10 split. Belmo tried to give back some of his early lead in the 3^rd and 4^th when he nearly missed the 3-6-10 and then converted the 2-4-10 split. Heading into the commercial break, the booth asked JB what was going on out there and he explained how the 3-6-10 was probably tougher for him to make than the 2-4-10 (in literature, we call that foreshadowing).

As good players always do, DeVaney got himself lined up on the right lane and parlayed it into a quick double in the 4^th and 5^th. But a blower 7-10 in the 6^th derailed his momentum and Belmo clung to a 13-pin lead heading into the 8^th, where his first pitch was thrown a board and a half left of target and snapped through the nose for (what else?) a 3-6-10. On the spare, Belmo tried to get it further right but the ball grabbed early, catching too little of the 6 and leaving the 10 for an open frame. DeVaney threw a clutch double in the 8^th and 9^th, giving him a 7 pin lead as Belmo stepped up for his final turn.

The young Aussie drilled a perfect strike in the 9^th, and needed two in the 10^th to force DeVaney to get the same for the win. But Belmo’s shot in the 10^th was a carbon copy of the one he threw in the 8^th, and the ball veered high for a 3-6-9-10. He could still force DeVaney to mark if he could spare it, but although he figured out how to get the 3-6-10, his plastic ball deflected off the 3-pin and failed to get the 9, leaving the door wide open for DeVaney to pick up his second career win. DeVaney got the required 7 pins and finished with a 189-170 victory, earning the nickname “El Gato” from Rob Stone after demonstrating an uncanny ability to come back to life after being down and out so many times.

And the nickname is probably even more appropriate after hearing what DeVaney said in his post-match news conference (available now on the pba.com home page by clicking the video window at the top right). That’s right, DeVaney was living out of his car just a few weeks ago in order to save up enough money to even come to the World Series of Bowling. Now, without any knowledge of the details of what led to that circumstance, the only thing I can comment upon is just how much pressure Mike must have been under to perform well. In fact, it seemed to be etched on his face with the contorted facial expressions and incessant squinting of the left eye that I can’t remember from back in the days when DeVaney was just a carefree young bowler in the West Region in the mid-1990’s. But he’s back in the winner’s circle again and one can only hope that the next time he finds himself in position for a title the situation is a little less dire.

• Another good Around the World Series Feature by Rob. Funny stuff!
• Belmo’s move to the gutter shows what serious talent he’s got (and the look on his face after losing shows what serious desire he has to win). I wonder if he’s ever tried putting his thumb in for certain spares (like the 3-6-10) when the lanes get super dry?
• Was it a coincidence that they went to commercial interviewing Belmo (who was sporting a Grizzly Adams beard), then showed a USBC commercial featuring Belmo clean-shaven, then showed a Barbosol ad in succession?
• Although no low-scoring records were breached, the finalists may have set a record for ball changes (10 different strike balls were used by my count).
• The song they played during DeVaney’s turns (picked by DeVaney) was “God’s Gonna Cut You Down” by Johnny Cash. A little heavier choice than Shannon Pluhowsky’s “Tonight’s Gonna Be a Good Night” by the Black-Eyed Peas.

That’s all for this week folks. See you next week for the Shark TV Recap…Wes “The King” Malott is back on TV baby!

Probably the most famous line from Sunday’s runner-up Ronnie Russell’s favorite movie Talladega Nights was Ricky Bobby’s mantra, “If you’re not first, you’re last!”

By that logic, this week’s Chameleon Championship title match combatants, Russell and the PBA’s most-celebrated prior non-winner Bill O’Neill have finished last in every single PBA Tour event they’ve ever entered (a combined 176 career tournaments).

Of course, this is far from the case, but watching these two fight it out on one of the most demanding oil pattern/lane surface combinations in quite some time actually resembled something more out of the Lord of the Rings trilogy than a trifling Will Ferrell picture.

This week’s show kicked off with Russell taking on his good friend and four-time PBA Tour champion Sean Rash in a match that was about as ugly as it gets. Missed spares, multiple line and ball changes, balks, begging and pleading, and one mid-game four-bagger from Russell that ended up being the difference was the story of this match, but the egregious ending capped off everything appropriately.

Rash entered the 10^th frame somehow with a chance to turkey to force Russell to get at least one strike for the win. After X-ing the first one, Rash yanked the follow-up attempt (after going through a Sergio Garcia-esque series of balks, fidgets, re-grips and generally unconfident-looking gestures) through the beak for a 3-6-9-10. He then needed at least three of them to force RR to mark. Now, while the 3-6-9-10 is one of the most difficult non-splits in the world to make, getting three is not all that difficult whatsoever. So what does Rash, who at one point in his TV career looked absolutely invincible, do? He whiffs the whole thing wide left! His final score of 170 allowed Russell to get just 8 pins for the title berth, which he got, very shakily, on a 3-10 leave to move on with 172.

If we were hoping things would improve in Match 2, we were indeed very wrong, as the horribly injured Amleto Monacelli (strained tendons in his throwing arm) stepped in to take on O’Neill. Things were so bad, in fact, that the producers decided to go all Cheetah Championship on us and present the match documentary-style to focus on Amleto’s gutsy performance and past career accomplishments.

Having been there at the taping myself, and seeing just what kind of pain Monacelli was going through, I think this was a good decision. No point in making a guy who busted his butt his entire Hall of Fame career and is still one of the fittest bowlers in the sport’s history look bad when all he could muster was 142. Yet the able-bodied O’Neill fared only a little better with a 170 (I’m guessing that Walter Ray Williams, Jr., who lost to O’Neill after failing to double in the 10^th frame of game 7 in the Round of 8 to miss the show, was kicking himself over how easy #47 might have been had he gotten that pesky second strike).

Thank goodness the ladies showed up for their title match at this point. And the two men’s finalists were probably thanking god that they wouldn’t have to bowl Shannon Pluhowsky. All Shannon did was calmly step out on the lanes and throw an easy nine-strike 268 game to defeat Carolyn Dorin-Ballard’s 206. 

CDB was obviously less than thrilled with the lane conditions, and I can’t say I blame her after seeing what junk reactions the men had too (although despite the order of the matches on TV, the ladies actually bowled first and then PBA Lane Maintenance dude extraordinaire Mark Sabbatine re-oiled for the gents). I do have to wonder what Carolyn might have had if she’d moved way right and played up the 2-3-4 boards…but hey, did anyone else double-take when they flashed her age in the bio? I mean, how great does she look for 45?!

Shannon’s win soothed the sting of her loss in the PBA Women’s World Championship (which came just the day before in actual WSOB time) and qualified her for the April PBA Women’s Series Showdown at the end of the season. She’ll also have another crack at a title in next week’s Scorpion Championship.

As we moved on to the men’s final, I couldn’t help thinking how much I love to watch title matches between guys who are both looking for their first win. And with as difficult as these lanes were, I thought we might get to see some real grind-it-out-to-a-bloody-pulp ugliness.

I sort of got what I was looking for, as the guys both struggled hard to keep the ball in play and fill frames. Russell blinked first with a miss of the 4-7 spare in the 5^th frame (the ball hooked by the 4 and took out just the 7). He then shocked the crowd on hand (and the fans watching at home) by flagging the 10-pin in the 8^th. These highly amateurish mistakes were obviously of great embarrassment to Ronnie, but I’m sure it did not slip the attention of the watchful bowling fan that, even though Russell switches to plastic for his spares, he still does put a decent amount of rotation on his spare shots. And when the lanes are hooking as much as these lanes were, even plastic will grab the lane and hook.

To Russell’s credit, he shook off the misses and cobbled together a game-ending string of strikes to force O’Neill to fill at least 19 pins in the 10^th for his first win. O’Neill proved once and for all that he belongs in the elite company of bowlers who own PBA Tour titles by tossing two clutch strikes in the 10^th and then letting out a huge fist pump that effectively released all the bottled-up tension and anticipation of that first Tour win. In essence, O’Neill told his former fellow members of the talented Tour non-winner club (Russell, Loschetter, Ciccone, et al), in the words of Sasha Baron Cohen’s hilarious Talladega Nights character as he blew by Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly, “Hakuna Matata bi***es.”

• Enjoyed Rob Stone’s feature from the back of the pinsetter…made me think of the CSI bowling episode and I was kind of wondering if someone was going to drop a severed head into the ball pit.
• Another good tip by Randy…the unhinge-hinge-unhinge armswing/release method is definitely the thing to do nowadays.
• I know I mentioned it already, but what would WRW have shot on these lanes? I bet in the 230-240 range…but you gotta make the show to win.
• Wishing a speedy recovery to Amleto! What a class act he is and it’s great to see a guy at his age keeping himself in such great shape and continuing to be competitive despite having absolutely nothing left to prove.
• Belmo was hanging out in the crowd rooting for his buddy Bill. The tables will be turned next week when Belmo goes for the Scorpion Championship title…Can’t wait!

Be sure to check back to pba.com Wednesday for a new episode of The Bowling Show, and a very Happy Thanksgiving to all! See you next week!

This Thursday night (November 19) on CBS at 9pm, one of the most-watched shows on television, CSI (the original version, set in Las Vegas), will air a bowling-themed episode titled “Lover’s Lane” (watch the 30-second promo below) on which yours truly had the pleasure of working as a bowling consultant.

The way this happened was pretty random. The PBA received a call from CSI producers looking for a bowling consultant for an upcoming episode. The PBA turned them on to me, since I live here in sunny Southern California where the show is filmed. I then told the producer (more than half-jokingly) that it would be possible for me to convert a 7-10 split on camera in a reasonable number of takes, and they said, “cool, are you available, like, for pretty much all of next week?” Sure thing. Hey, when CSI says, “Jump!” you say, “How high?”

The mission, since I chose to accept it, was simple: Come down and meet the cast and crew on set in Hollywood (piece of cake), teach a few of the actors how to bowl like pros…in two hours or less (a bit more of a challenge), then spend two days on set as a consultant/coach/stunt double (at upscale Pasadena bowling lounge “300”) during shooting for the bowling-alley scenes (can you say, “performance anxiety for a thousand, Alex?”).

Lucky for me, I had a bit of vicarious experience at this kind of thing working in my favor. You see, my friend Barry Asher (the PBA Hall of Famer and 10-time Tour champion), once worked on the set of The Big Lebowski (in fact, he appears in the film during the final scene, bowling alone in the background).

The one cautionary tale I took from his experience was the time the Coen brothers asked him to leave a stone 8. Of course, he had to leave one using a 13-pound caramel White Dot on lanes that were oiled dead flat gutter-to-gutter with about 40 units. (For those of you not completely familiar with the difficulty of this, it’s a little bit like dropping a champagne glass from the top of the Empire State Building without breaking it). After about 50 attempts, he finally left the elusive tap. Elated, he wheeled around for approval but, to his dismay, noticed a chagrined look on the face of the brothers. “Do you think you can make the pin wiggle a little bit?” Remembering that, I was prepared for anything.

On day one, I showed up at the Universal lot to meet the cast and crew. Of course, my name was not on the list (definitely not the first time this has happened to me) so I had to endure the “another crazy dude trying to get on the lot to stalk ‘fill-in-the-name-of-the-celebrity-here’” stares from the security guards for a bit. Luckily, the lovely 2^nd Assistant Director Michelle Parvin quickly showed up in a golf cart and whisked me off to the CSI stage, a massive square building set amongst rows of similar-sized stages housing many of the most-watched TV shows and popular films in the world today.

The first person I met on set was Prop Manager Paul Byers, who explained that he had five bowling balls for me, and that they needed to drill them so I could stand in and throw shots for five different actors. He asked me what size my hand was (the choices were small, medium, large or extra large) so he could have the balls drilled to fit. I politely informed him that I could take the balls and drill them myself, since it’s been about thirty years since I’ve had my drilling specs taken by Wal-Mart. He seemed relieved and was also nice enough to help lug the five balls back to the parking structure with me at the end of the day (even though I did send him back early because I’d forgotten where in the seven-story lot that I’d parked my stupid car...yeah, it was the car’s fault…and didn’t want him to have to endure the embarrassing process of wandering aimlessly from floor to floor…with the very distinct possibility of running into a celebrity…whilst dragging three two-ball bags behind him).

Jumping back to the set, things were pretty surreal. This particular stage is where all of the CSI lab scenes are shot, and it’s really kind of a dark, sterile environment except for the body parts stored in little plastic bags from 10 seasons worth of fantastically creative crime scenes. The fact that everyone speaks in whispers because of the need for silence on set (even between takes) adds to the overall intimidating ambience. As I made my way through the various set-pieces, word of my arrival must have somehow percolated through the building, as everywhere I went I overheard various actors and crew members giddily discussing bowling. In one instance, the gorgeous (and surprisingly tall) Jorja Fox, who plays workaholic Sara Sidle on the show, mentioned how she “hates” bowling because she “sucks at it.” I pretty much feel the same way about acting (and those of you who’ve seen my show “Let’s Go Bowling” would probably agree with me…that I suck at acting, that is), so Jorja, at least we have that in common.

After meeting all of the key people on set, my homework was to get my five new balls drilled (special thanks to Fred Berger at Brunswick Zone Simi Valley for his help with this) and prepare for a two-hour coaching session with four of the actors (one series regular plus three guest stars who would be playing professional bowlers) over at Pinz in Studio City the next day. Of course, the balls were all plastic (with the exception of one reactive resin ball) and each weighed 13-pounds (what is it with Hollywood and 13-pounders, anyways?). I also noticed that all of the balls’ logos were carefully painted over (I guess the manufacturers opted not to pay CSI’s “product registration fee,” which I would assume is a wee bit higher than the PBA’s, given the number of viewers they reach?). I would later find out, however, that 13lb plastic would be an absolute blessing.

On Day 2 over at Pinz, I met up with the actors (and excellent Production Assistant/aspiring writer Ian Maio) for their bowling lesson. The job was to teach guest stars Marcus Giamatti, Devon Gummersall, Blake Shields and series regular Eric Szmanda how to bowl well enough that they could easily pass for pro bowlers. 

I brought along a bag of my own equipment (two reactives plus my Columbia Blue Dot spare ball) to demonstrate a few things, but first, I had the guys each throw some warm-up shots to see just what I had to work with. One of the guys (Devon, who you might know from MTV’s cult ‘90’s hit My So Called Life, and who will be playing a cocky, Terrell Owens-of-pro-bowling kind of character) was actually pretty decent. He immediately got the concept of the pro release and threw the ball well enough that, with just a few months practice, could easily be averaging 190-plus on a typical house shot.

Marcus (who I later discovered is the son of former baseball commissioner Bart Giamatti and brother of Academy Award-winning actor Paul Giamatti and who will be playing a crafty Tour veteran on the episode) was a former baseball pitcher and quite a good athlete. He was a little slower than Devon on picking up the release so, instead, we focused on proper rhythm and timing and, in a few minutes, we had him looking like a pro from the foul line back.

Blake, who plays a character on the episode whose luck is so bad it makes Kingpin’s Roy Munson’s raw deal look like a Powerball Lotto winner, was the one who required the most work of the group. After I finished up with Devon and Marcus, I had Blake focus on counting out his steps so he could first get his timing down. Then, we incorporated the ball and armswing into his approach and, before long, he was looking pretty decent too.

The last of the group was 9-year CSI veteran Eric Szmanda, who plays field agent Greg Sanders on the show. I can’t really talk about Greg’s bowling-related arc on this week’s episode without ruining it for you, but I can say that Eric was quite intrigued with the two-handed style. I left the choice up to him whether he wanted to go with the traditional one-handed approach or the Jason Belmonte/Osku Palermaa-style new-school sensation (see clips of those freaks of nature below). But after two-handing a shot out to the twig and watching it scream back to destroy the pocket, Mr. Szmanda was hooked and he started to look as giddy as a schoolboy about this bowling thing.

We wrapped up the session by bowling one game for score and, to handicap things a bit, I offered to throw my Blue Dot. The boys each rolled games in the low-to mid 100’s and, after flagging a 7-pin in the first frame (good thing I had my spare ball with me, eh?) I threw 10 of the next 11 strikes for 258. The actors were indeed very impressed. I didn’t mention to them that they earn more for a single episode than I’ve earned in my entire competitive bowling career, but hey, why ruin the illusion? 

My impression of the actors was that they were a great bunch of guys. Completely down-to-earth and totally not like Ben Stiller-inspired Tropic-Thunder actor-types whatsoever. They took their jobs incredibly seriously and genuinely wanted to put on as realistic a performance (especially with respect to their bowling) as possible. I gave them each homework assignments to work on prior to shooting (which was a day-and-a-half away) and we went our separate ways.

My first day on set over at 300 in Pasadena was an interesting one. I showed up at 10am (crew call time was a lot earlier so they could get everything set up to make 300 look like a typical Las Vegas casino/bowling center) and was immediately greeted by producers, the show’s writer Dustin Abraham, the director (Andrew Bernstein), assistant directors, wardrobe, and many others.

In almost no time, the place was ready (when CSI does something, they do it right…and fast) and looking exactly like a PBA-style TV set. That’s when the waiting began (for me, at least). Pretty much until 5pm I waited around like the little sidekick dog in those Warner Brothers cartoons eagerly hoping for something to do but, alas, I was not needed. Between takes I hung out mostly with J.T. “Action” Jackson (a local actor and PBA member who bowled Tour Trials at Thunderbowl this season…he was playing the color commentator on the episode) and Mike Villani (voice talent extraordinaire who had the role of play-by-play commentator) and talked bowling and pop culture. J.T., by the way, is a seriously funny guy and not a bad bowler either for someone who just picked up the sport a few years back.

After lunch (which occurs at 5pm in Hollywoodland) I began to sense that my services might be needed soon, so I hustled to get my equipment ready. The five 13-pounders were all ready and drilled to fit my hand like five little gloves. Then, at 7pm, the call came. “Jason, we need to get you into wardrobe right away! Follow me!” A young lady named Veronika Bakos (whose name I horribly mispronounced causing embarrassment to myself and further solidifying the reputation of the American ability to butcher foreign languages) whisked me off (in TV, there seems to be a lot of whisking…and that’s not to mention the cooking shows) to “home base”, which is a large preponderance of deluxe motor homes and trailers housing all of the productions’ various needs. They fitted me in an exact replica of Blake’s outfit and then whisked me back into the bowl and right down onto the set, front and center.

The first assistant director (the incredibly friendly, yet commanding Stacy Murphy Gold) instructed me that I would be throwing a shot for Blake’s character. The director then stepped in and explained that I would need to take two steps, starting from the far right side of the lane, walking in front of the camera (which was positioned on the approach, approximately 8 feet from the foul line…for those of you keeping score at home, that would be exactly one-half of the length of the approach) and then throwing a shot that leaves one wiggling pin (piece of cake compared to what the Coen brothers asked Asher to do, right?). Of course, I forgot to mention that there were precisely zero units of oil on the lanes (the crew needed them dry in order to walk safely on the lanes all day)…oh, and Blake’s ball happened to be the only reactive of the bunch. Riiiiiiight.

For those of you not hip to the bowling lingo, trying to get nine by throwing a reactive (which hooks wa-haaaaaay more than plastic) on a lane with no oil, while starting from the right side of the approach, and only being able to take two steps (this cuts off your momentum tremendously and consequently reduces how hard you’re able to throw the ball), while wearing a pair of shoes that have slide soles on both feet (part of the wardrobe continuity requirements) is a bit like trying to throw a ball down the wall of a cliff and getting it to stop halfway down. Of course, the director cut off my feeble requests for some oil on the lane by saying, “You are a pro right? Can’t you just do it with no oil?” Could this be a challenge? To my manhood? Good directors sure do know how to push an actor’s (or so-called actor, in my case) buttons.

My first shot hooked 20 boards before it reached the arrows and picked three off the left, which I blamed on not being warmed up. The next one missed the headpin left once again, leaving the 1-3-6. On the next one, I heaved the ball as far down the lane as I could with absolutely no rotation or axis tilt and managed to leave a Brooklyn five pin that wiggled slightly. “Perfect!” yelled the director. “We’ve got it!” (Pause) “Man, this guy’s good!” Mr. Bernstein said to 1AD Stacy. “Yes I am,” I thought momentarily before realizing, depressingly, that my shot was just a few short weeks from going into the well-crowded vault of all-time famous Hollywood Brooklyns ever captured on film. I changed out of my borrowed clothes (which I think actually fit me better than my own…I wonder if Veronika might have time in the near future to join me at the Gap to start picking out my clothes for me?) and set off in my station wagon thinking of the day for the entire 45-minute drive home. 

Going into my final day on the CSI set, I had very low expectations for how good a day it was going to be. Boy, could I not have been more wrong.

The day began with Marcus and Devon shooting their bowling-match sequence. Not only are these guys incredibly talented actors, but they took the advice I’d given them just two days before and had even improved on it when it came time for them to perform their bowling shots. Devon even managed to toss a strike on the oil-less lanes for one of his shots, prompting the hundred or so extras in the crowd to cheer even more enthusiastically than they had on the previous 13 takes. As a coach, I could not have been prouder of the two guys’ bowling performances if they’d just gone out and won the PBA Tournament of Champions.

For me, as soon as these scenes wrapped, it was over to the VIP side to shoot pick-ups of pin action (and to attempt to cash the big “I can make the 7-10” check my mouth had written the week before). The lanes on the VIP side were just as naked (from a lack of oil standpoint) as the main section, but on this side, I was able to at least throw from midway down the lane.

Fairly quickly, we were able to knock out all of the assorted strikes, spare leaves and gutter balls we needed for the bowling scenes, and it was then time to begin attempting to capture a conversion of the dreaded 7-10 split on film. To my knowledge, every 7-10 conversion ever captured on film (aside from the three times it’s been converted on television during PBA competition – see clips of those below) has been of the trick photography/special effects variety. Knowing this, we were determined to be the first to dramatize the “impossible” feat au natural.

With the camera positioned on the right half of the lane, I began my attempts to convert the split by throwing at the 7-pin. This is not my normal technique for, in the past, I’ve had quite a bit of luck (I’ve converted the 7-10 at least 15 times in my career…in fact, read this blog for a cute story on one of those conversions) throwing very hard cross-lane at the left half of the 10-pin. On my first attempt, I blasted the 7-pin so hard it actually went over the curtain and struck one of the mechanics behind the pit. After repeating this result several more times, another local league bowler (whose name I don’t recall, but he goes by the nickname “The Lizard”) took over for a bit and tried aiming for the left side of the 7. After about 20 takes, I was informed that I was needed back on the other side of the establishment for some pick-ups of the Devon/Marcus match. More on the 7-10 saga in a moment…(how’s that for a CSI-style cliffhanger, baby?) 

This time, the lovely Veronika again brought me out to home base for a wardrobe change and showed me to a trailer that (cue angel’s voices singing down from the heavens as clouds part to reveal blazing columns of sunlight)…had my name printed on the door! This was one of the most surreal moments of my life, which I would have literally stood and enjoyed for several hours had Veronika not reminded me that I was needed back in the bowl “yesterday.” I quickly changed (relishing the confines of my own very first trailer as much as possible) and headed back over to the set.

For this scene, they needed me to strike for Devon, a process that required me to throw the ball, then quickly run out of the shot (either left, right or straight back) allowing him to step in behind me to capture his reaction. Of course, there was still no oil on the lanes and, in fact, dust had begun accumulating on the dry surface, giving the lane the appearance of a virtual desert. Hot lights were set up all over the place, and the stands were filled with extras waiting for us to get the take right so they could go back to reading their books or grabbing a bite to eat over at craft services. It was the closest thing I’ve ever experienced to what the pros on the PBA Tour go through when they’re on TV, except I wasn’t throwing shots for 25 grand (or more).

While they were setting up for the shot, I grabbed a few quick practice tosses and, after missing on my first two, I got fairly well lined up doing my best Osku trick-shot impression, tossing the ball 30 feet down the lane, aiming at the 10-pin with no finger hit and just a little tilt. The first time I struck (on my third attempt), the crowd went wild and I began to ham it up. Then, Stacy came over and asked me if I was ready. Gulp!

I stepped up onto the approach and waited for the crew to go through the process of calling the take. First they roll cameras, then they cue extras, then they call action, and then it’s your turn to perform. The waiting seems like an eternity and I’m sure it can be when you know that all eyes are on you and everyone’s counting on you to perform. I tried to just focus on throwing a good shot and getting out of the way. After each shot, I had to run off so quickly I didn’t have time to watch the results, but, according to Action Jackson, I threw four of six strikes (one Brooklyn, which will probably be the one they use on the show I’m sure) and left the 3-6 and the 6-10 on the other two.

Afterwards, the crew “took five” and I was able to run outside to grab a snack. Almost all of the extras were congratulating me and telling me how cool it was to watch me throw all those strikes. I felt like Walter Ray must feel, well, like, pretty much every week. Then, when the glow reached its pinnacle, I was reminded by one of the crew that I still needed to pick up the 7-10. Oh yeah, that.

Upon returning to the VIP side, I was informed that the special effects team had attached filament to the 10-pin and that “The Lizard” had had some success in getting the 7-pin over close enough to the 10 to make it look plausible that the split had been converted. Disappointed, I held on to the hope that we’d get a few more cracks at the split before the day was out and, to my excitement, we did! After a few more unsuccessful attempts by yours truly, I gave way to Lizzie and, on his third attempt, he unleashed a perfect pitch that landed hard on the left half of the hapless 7-pin. The pin crashed violently into the top bar of the curtain and ricocheted directly into the 10, sending both pins flying out onto the pindeck like a couple of WWE heavyweights. The entire population of the building went nuts like Chicago Cubs fans might if they ever happen to win the World Series and we all warmly congratulated one another on capturing the blessed moment on celluloid (although I had a brief flash of that goofy air-traffic controller guy from Airplane! pulling our chain and telling us the camera wasn’t on).

Once that party broke up, it was getting close to the end of the day and things started to wind down. I was dismissed by Stacy at approximately 10pm and she thanked me for my time and for my help. I felt a pang of sadness as I left the building, but it was the kind of sadness you feel after a great day with your family at Disneyland…sad that it was over, but buttressed by the knowledge that I’d just created a wonderful memory that I’ll no doubt remember fondly for the rest of my life.  

The opportunity to work on the television show CSI was exactly the kind of dream experience I wrote about in my book “Livin’ the Dream.” And to see and observe (and to be adopted temporarily as a part of) the CSI team executing their enormously successful vision first-hand with a cast and crew that moves and works together with precise unison, effort, enthusiasm and understanding is validation of what can be accomplished if you have a goal, believe in your ability to accomplish it and work very hard.

I hope you all have a chance to watch this week’s bowling-themed episode of the hit show CSI (Thursday at 9pm on CBS), and that you thoroughly enjoy the experience. I would personally like to thank everyone involved at CBS (and the show) for the opportunity to help, and for the tremendous hospitality I was shown. I truly felt like part of their tight-knit family for a few fun-filled days. I still haven’t received my check yet, but it’s standard practice in TV not to pay out the talent until the episode has aired (I hear in the message boards that the PBA Tour players are just becoming familiar with that practice this season). Although I’m pretty sure they’re good for the money considering it’s around $200K for a 30-second spot during the show. Oh, to dream of the day when PBA on ESPN ad rates ascend to that lofty perch!

Until Monday’s TV Recap of the Chameleon Championship, good luck, good bowling and good TV watching!  

VIDEO HIGHLIGHTS

THE BOWLING SHOW - Special CSI Edition

CSI: "Lover's Lane" Promo

Jason Belmonte

Osku Palermaa

Mark Roth 7-10 Conversion

John Mazza 7-10 Conversion

Jess Stayrook 7-10 Conversion

This Sunday’s ESPN telecast of the Viper Championship reminded me of, to borrow a phrase used by the illustrious Randy Pedersen during the telecast, a hair in a biscuit.

Actually, it didn’t at all but I wanted to work that in there because it was seriously one of the most unusual things I’ve heard since my granddaddy used to say, “he’s dancin’ in tall cotton.” WTHDTM? (What the h-e-double-hockey-stick does that mean?)

Non-sequiturs aside, the Viper show was a solid follow-up to last week’s Cheetah Championship documentary, mostly because it extended the rags-to-riches storyline of 23-year-old lefty Ryan Ciminelli.

Ciminelli qualified for the Viper telecast immediately off of his runner-up finish in the prior event, and because of all the buzz and hoopla created by that unique Kenny-Mayne-helmed affair (watch it on Xtra Frame in case you missed it), it brought even more shine than Rhino Page’s freshly shaved scalp to this week’s show. 

The combatants included the two aforementioned lefties (who hatched a Dr. Evil-pinkie-to-the-corner-of-the-mouth-style plan to face one another in the final), Steve Jaros and Michael Haugen Jr. Between the men’s semis and finals, we were also treated to the season’s first official Women’s Series final between Lynda Barnes and Liz Johnson.

In the show’s opening match, Rhino Page took on “the underrated one,” Steve Jaros. I say underrated because not since Mike Scroggins’ has anyone gone as far under the radar with 7 Tour wins, a major, $1.6 million in career earnings and 41 career regional titles as Jaros. Unfortunately for Steve, who also owns the distinction of bowling the lowest AND highest games in TV history (a 129 and one of the PBA’s TV perfectos), his ball reaction resembled the buck-30 a lot more than the 3-bill reaction. After a ball change in frame three, Jaros, like the vet he is, hung in with some quality shots, but was undone in the ninth with a blower 7-10 split on a double. That gave Page, who was in or around the pocket all game, more or less a free pass into the finals as he coasted to a 221-180 win.

In Match numero dos, Ryan “The Italian Stallion” Ciminelli faced Michael “I’m Baaaa-aaack” Haugen Jr. Haugen is returning to the Tour after missing most of last season with a partially torn ACL (ou-ooch!), and appears to be making the most of his comeback with an early-season TV appearance. And, in case you were sipping tea in a cave with Osama Bin Laden last week and happened to miss the totally awesome Cheetah Championship telecast (did I mention it was available on Xtra Frame? Oh, yes I did, sorry!), Ryan Ciminelli is seriously starting to resemble Rocky Balboa trying to get another title shot after going the distance last week with Apollo Creed, er, I mean Norm Duke.

For a second, this match looked like it might be very similar to the first one, with Haugen going big-four, 3-6-10 to start the match after Ciminelli looked pretty well lined up with his big black urethane ball. But the 7-pin that plagued RC last week started cropping up again (in the 3^rd, the 5^th and the 7^th – all between strikes, of course) and Haugen started stringing strikes in frames 3 through 6. In the 7^th, Haugen left a 4-pin on a pretty decent shot, then threw a turkey to give himself a chance to shut out the young lefty with one more strike. After gutting the rack with a high hard one on the previous shot, Mike went to the well once again but gave the shot a hair too much room and left a shaker 8-pin as the ball barely made it back to the pocket. This gave Ciminelli a chance to win with a double and 8 pins, and the emerging star calmly stepped up and threw two clutch strikes (and a nine-count) to slip by 238-236, setting up a dream match-up between the two lefties.

At this point in the show, we were treated to a Rob Stone “Around the World Series” feature, where he paid a visit to the player services truck and had a ball custom-drilled. Unfortunately, all the truck could spare was a 6-pound Lumber Liquidators spare ball (hey, times are tough, just ask Medford), so Rob was a bit disappointed. But these features are great and Rob is great at doing them, as his work on ESPN’s College Football broadcasts prove. And in case you’re not familiar with just how funny Rob can be, check out this chili pepper eating segment he did a while back.

After the feature, the women stepped in to contest their Viper Championship final. This match was a battle of the slow-hook special (Lynda Barnes) versus the high-hard-one (Liz Johnson). Lynda got nine on six of her first nine pocket hits and bowled a clean 196 as she never quite got lined up for carry, while Liz carried a turkey and a double for a 211 (despite an open in the first frame) to win her first PBA Women’s Series singles title (she took last year’s mixed doubles with Norm Duke in Reno). Even though I was a little sad to see Lynda lose (especially because she would later announce her retirement from big-time competitive bowling later in the summer), I was very happy to see Liz win, especially after her heartbreaking loss to Kelly Kulick in the Shark Championship semifinals a few days before this show was taped. She definitely deserved it after bowling so well for the entire World Series (and she has another show coming up in two weeks for the Scorpion Championship).

Now, the men’s final. This one was hard to pick a favorite. I mean, do we root for the young, non-exempt, seemingly out-of-nowhere challanger Ryan Ciminelli to pick up his first title? Or do we root for the young, head-shaved-in-support-of-cancer-stricken-friend, two-time champion Rhino Page? Luckily, they both bowled fantastic, with both guys tossing 7 of 8 strikes heading into the 9^th frame.

Page had a potential 280 after missing just once (in the 2^nd) while Ciminelli had a possible 279 with his miss coming in the 4^th. Rhino added another X in the 9^th, forcing Ryan to put the pressure on with a strong finish. Two stubborn 7-pins in the 9^th and 10^th thwarted Ciminelli’s chances, however, as he finished with a strong 246, leaving Rhino in need of only a mark to win. Rhino struck, and closed out the game with a fantastic 268, earning his third career title and an automatic slot on Tour next season.

For Ciminelli, the runner-up finish has to be a bit of a disappointment, especially after coming so close the prior week. But, his fast start will certainly give him a great chance of earning his exemption through the point list (that is, if he doesn’t win later in the season, of course) and he was just named Bowler of the Week by a local news station in Buffalo, so at least he has that going for him. After spending a little time with both players during the World Series, I can honestly say that they are both great guys (have you seen all the humanitarian stuff Rhino’s been up to lately, I mean, the guy’s a bowling version of Nelson Mandela) and I would expect to see a lot more of both of them in the future (Rhino for sure since he’s qualified for the PBA World Championship final live on ESPN December 13).

• Randy had a couple of doozies this week with “Hair in a biscuit” (sounds like the name of a punk band) and “the lyin’ shot.” Randy rolled out the second bit of jargon after Haugen missed in the first frame and blamed Jaros for burning up his path to the pocket…the term implies that Mike’s comment was covering up for a poorly thrown shot.
• Chris Barnes looked genuinely nervous during Lynda’s match. Might have been interesting to have a mic on him during the match?
• I wonder why the righties weren’t playing as close to the gutter as the lefties? Although it did look like Haugen had a pretty decent reaction where he was.
• To my knowledge, the last time a player won on Tour using a urethane ball was Brett Wolfe bombing ‘em with a Blue Hammer at the Masters in 2002. Like Rhino, he also tossed 260+ in that final.
• Check out the trick drilling Rhino used in the final match! You can see it during the Post-Game show in Storm Rep Chris Schlemer’s interview.

I’ll be back later this week with a blog on my experience working on CSI, as that bowling-themed episode will air on CBS at 9pm Thursday, November 19, then again next week for the recap of the Chameleon Championship. See you then!