It has been recommended that I find a more appropriate name for the sports that are to be covered in my column.
My favorite suggestion for characterizing these sports came from my friend Dan, who described “cute sports” as sports that one can play while drinking.
It did not take me long to decide on the premiere sport that’s played with drink in hand. It’s the one that has beer frames, the one that never has you more than a few feet away from a bar.
According to the International Bowling Hall of Fame Web site, bowling, or some game resembling it, can be traced back to 3200 B.C.
While the Web site makes its case for bowling as the sport of kings, I prefer to focus on the current, and indeed seedier, side of the game.
Frankly, I think one cannot truly have a complete bowling experience if there aren’t any pitchers of beer involved.
Just as some people hit more bull’s eyes or sink more eight balls after they knock back a few, many a bowler is able to get a strike more often while drunk.
High school and college students spend Friday nights under black lights with fluorescent colored bowling balls, dancing to cheesy club music while they “glow bowl” the night away.
However, hours before the kids take over, 30 — and 40-somethings — namely men with receding hairlines and beer bellies, are kings of the lanes.
That’s right, every night, shortly after quitting time, old men, long past their prime, spend hours attempting to recapture the glory days they had as high school and college athletes.
These men tape their thumbs, use rosin bags and wear wrist braces. They know exactly which floorboard to aim for. Their four-step approach and subsequent theatrical finishes are practiced works of art.
These men are masters of recapturing a lost youth and glory gone by every weeknight on the lanes.
Now, before every member of the Loyola Bowling Association inundates me with harassing phone calls, let me be the first to admit that I, like these sad men, own a bowling ball, and have since I was 10.
I come from Milwaukee, home of the American Bowling Congress and a regular stop on the PBA Tour.
My father qualified for the PBA Tour, but decided against joining, choosing instead to run the alley where the tour stopped in Milwaukee.
Besides, PBA.com is my new favorite Web site. Here, one can see a picture and bio of every pro bowler currently competing on the circuit.
My favorite player is Danny Wiseman of Baltimore. Danny has career earnings close to $900,000 and is an impressive 9-2 in title games.
Wiseman is known on the circuit as “The Rock and Roller,” due to his unique fashion sense. He also recently got a tattoo of a bowling pin with barbed wire and blood. (He won’t tell his fair public exactly where he had it put.) Now that’s dedication.
I am still debating whether to sign up as a member of the American Bowling Congress. If I do, I can enter the Fantasy Doubles competition, picking my favorite bowlers to create a team.
Rest assured, my team will be rockin’ and rollin,’ if you catch my drift.
