Four! Four! Four recaps in one! Coming down off the high that was BV converting the 7-10 at a crucial point in the position round match here in the Bayer Don and Paula Carter Mixed Doubles last night, I’ve decided to try and squeeze in a couple of missing recaps from the last few weeks of action on Tour before tonight’s second Chris Barnes Challenge presented by Columbia 300.
Not to make excuses, but my new gig traveling with the Tour to cover the events for Xtra Frame gives me precisely one full day home a week with my family…so my choices are 1) re-watch the show I just attended and do a recap that a few fans inevitably will criticize mercilessly (and are the only ones whose feedback I seem to remember unfortunately) or 2) attempt to hold the threads of my marriage and family together by spending every possible moment of my almost non-existent free time I can with them until the season ends in April. As hard as it is for me to put the bowling crack pipe down, the last few weeks, I’ve been choosing #2.
So that leaves us with four missing recaps that, despite not a single message board thread or email telling me that you’re missing them, I’m convinced you no doubt are…so let’s talk Dublin, Fountain Valley, Chris Paul and the USBC Masters.
Earl Anthony Memorial Classic (Dublin, Calif.)
Now this tournament took place just over a month ago, and featured the breakthrough win of collegiate standout Anthony LaCaze. Coming out of the TQR (LaCaze is not exempt) this Michigan native withstood a Hall of Fame lineup of tough opponents (including PA and TJ in the Rounds of 16 and 8, respectively) and even tougher lane conditions to qualify for the telecast.
After slipping by Mike Wolfe in the semifinal, LaCaze faced a red-hot Mike Machuga, who was making his second consecutive TV appearance. Although Machuga struggled hugely in his semifinal win over Sean Rash (who should’ve won the match about 50 different ways, continuing his recent streak of rotten TV performances) he made a giant leap left and had a pretty decent reaction lofting the ball over the left gutter.
Trailing by 10 pins heading into the 9th, LaCaze somehow cobbled together a clutch turkey to force Machuga to double for the title. Chuges packed the first one, but the second, another perfect pitch, left a ringing 10, leaving him short by 8 pins 214-206. The win was extremely hard-earned and showed the toughness of the Michigan native who’s often been overshadowed by his former Saginaw Valley State teammate Bill O’Neill. But seeing the look in LaCaze’s eyes at the T of C the following week (the win got him in…and I actually did do
a recap for that one) was priceless…he was absolutely a kid in a candy store all week.
One A Day Dick Weber Open (Fountain Valley, Calif.)
This was the infamous stop where I attempted to compete in the tournament whilst wearing a wireless microphone for the edu-tainment of Xtra Frame subscribers. While that didn’t go so well for me, the show was double-awesome with a great field (PDW, WRW, Bill O’Neill, Ryan Shafer and Mike Fagan, who dominated the entire event from start to finish looking to win his first singles title) and a special guest announcing gig for celebrity sportswriter Bill Simmons.
As is always the case when PDW makes the show, there was drama. As he closed out O’Neill in Match 2, he unleashed on a hapless photog, berating her for “flashing the camera” during his approach. Apparently, he didn’t appreciate her retort that the camera’s flash wasn’t turned on, because he snapped back, “I can hear it click!” PTI and Sportscenter ate it up and provided additional coverage the following Monday.
Unfortunately for Pete, he again ran into his superhero archenemy Walter Ray Williams, Jr. who defied physics all week by playing up 10 (ironic that the man has a degree in physics is it not?) and beating all comers except for the talented Fagan. After Williams crushed PDW, the stage was set for Fagan (who’d lost to another legend, Norm Duke, in the previous season’s title match at the same tournament) to attempt to knock the “best player never to win a singles title” monkey off his back. A solid 241 score proved more than enough as Fagan finally hoisted a Lumber Liquidators PBA Tour singles trophy.
And just one note on Bill Simmons’ guest appearance: it was freakin' awesome! Anyone who criticized it is obviously not familiar with
Simmons’ work as an ESPN columnist or his fantastically entertaining “
The Book of Basketball: The NBA According to the Sports Guy.” And I’m not just saying that because of our desire to appropriate some of his 1.2 million Twitter followers and/or few million fans of his other writing projects that the appearance no doubt brought to the PBA telecast that week. (Aside: Now Bill, let’s talk about how we’re going to franchise your book success in the bowling world and co-produce “The Book of Bowling: The PBA According to Some Random Bowling Writer Who Slobbered Over Bill Simmons’ PBA Commentary Gig.” I guarantee we’ll sell HUNDREDS of copies! Tempting, isn’t it?)
Chris Paul PBA Celebrity Invitational
Super Bowl Sunday saw the tape-delayed airing of the second celebrity event featuring Chris Paul, his friends, and a few hand-picked PBA stars. Starring Paul, musician/actor Ludacris, and football luminaries Hines Ward, LaMarr Woodley and Jack Del Rio paired with Jason Belmonte, Pete Weber, Wes Malott and Norm Duke, respectively (Del Rio was eliminated in a play-in match and sat on the sidelines during the telecast), this event was a fun and charity-driven made-for-TV event.
Despite the fun atmosphere, the PBA stars produced plenty of strikes, including a couple of clutch ones by two-handed Aussie Belmonte to propel he and Paul to the win over Duke (who’s ankle was so badly sprained he could barely walk…even more amazing when you consider he managed to hit the pocket on all of his 11 shots over two games) and Woodley.
Those of you who remember last year’s inaugural event will recall that CP and Chris Barnes lost a close one to LeBron James and Jason Couch and Paul (sort of) redeemed himself by winning this year. I say sort of because LeBron wasn’t there to defend, and the only bad thing I have to say about this year’s edition was that I missed King James’ trash-talking and his uberstar mega-presence on this year’s show.
Now that CP has the trophy, I can’t wait to see he and LeBron duke it out for the undisputed title next time...even if that next time happens to be at James’ private bowling lane (I’ll definitely volunteer to ditch my family to film that for Xtra Frame!)
USBC Masters
The third major of the Tour season had a very familiar face at the top (Chris Barnes, again) and in the spots immediately below (Williams, Jr., Mike Scroggins and Ryan Ciminelli). Leading up to the show, Xtra Frame offered a free preview week (viewed by more than 30,000 fans) with wall-to-wall event coverage, including full commentary and multiple cameras during qualifying, and continuing throughout the whirlwind of double-elimination matches.
Fans who watched the coverage witnessed an epic game 3 perfecto by Barnes to stay alive in the winner’s bracket against reigning PBA Player of the Year Wes Malott. After easily finishing off WRW in the final winner’s bracket match to extend his undefeated streak in Masters held at the National Bowling Stadium to 10 (Barnes also led the 2004 edition, where he lost to, who else?, Walter Ray Williams, Jr. in the title match), Barnes was the favorite heading into the show.
After Ciminelli dispatched Scroggins in Match 1, Walter Ray took advantage of one bad shot the young lefty threw coming out of a commercial break to advance 258-224. The rematch of the 2004 USBC Masters final was a near-rerun, with Walter Ray erupting for a 290 to cruise to his 47th career win and 8th major victory. Although the historical implications of Williams’ victory were enormous (what this guy is doing at the age of 50 is flat-out unbelievable), the bigger story for me was the ongoing theme of Chris Barnes struggles on TV.
Although he bowled a great match (he hit the pocket every single shot but left three solid 10-pins and a 4-pin for 217), you have to wonder when Chris’ luck is going to change (as it did for WRW and Parker Bohn III after their own early-career TV struggles) and he starts racking up the titles like Rasheed Wallace racks up technical fouls.
Epilogue
Normally confined to books, this column will include an epilogue because it actually feels like it is approaching book-length (which one guy pointed out a few weeks ago as a critique…well dude, if you don’t like it, you can always just read our press releases and then click back over to TMZ for their “thought-provoking” 2-sentence commentaries on photos of celebrities walking out of Starbucks…oh, did I mention that I actually read and memorize your critiques especially?)
Here at the Bayer Don and Paula Carter Mixed Doubles, we (again) witnessed another epic Xtra Frame position round (
check out Voss’ clutch 7-10 conversion as captured live on XF here) to set up a fantastic show (that I actually plan to recap) Sunday. Let me just say, if you’re a true bowling fan (and I would consider every person who subjects him/herself to the torture of actually reading this column a true bowling fan), and you do not subscribe to Xtra Frame for $7.99 a month (or $5.45 a month if you subscribe for a full year), then you’re really only depriving yourself. It just seems that every week out here on Tour, something overwhelmingly dramatic unfolds in front of our cameras that you can only watch if you are an Xtra Frame subscriber…so don’t miss another moment!
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Thanks for reading...see you back here Monday for the recap of Sunday’s sure-to-be awesome show!