I was watching Whitlock, Broussard, Kenny Florian, and another analyst discuss the McGregor-Mayweather fight and they landed on the major selling point of the fight being race. I’ve known about the fight for however many months now and that thought never even entered my mind. The idea that I would root for McGregor because he’s white, and I’m white, has no implication on who I would want to win. He’s not even American, he’s Irish. I’m not sure what difference that makes but I don’t have some unbridled passion for McGregor to come out victorious because my next life path is joining the KKK.

Now as it is, I would like to see McGregor knock Floyd the fuck out. Racist! His trash talk game is next level. Telling Floyd he has a little head is a first class insult. I’m sure he’s insinuating that Floyd can’t even read while also trashing the fact he has a small head. Does the problem occur to me that McGregor might not know how to box? That Floyd will be so evasive that McGregor has no chance of hitting him? That with padded gloves that are 6 oz heavier he won’t be able to do any damage to Floyd? All of these are concerns and my feeling is that he will lose this fight (as is Vegas with his +550 odds).

The reason I’m pro-McGregor and anti-Floyd is strictly how they hold themselves. Conor is a showman who at least knows he’s a showman. He’s very self aware. If you saw Floyd yesterday he reached into a backpack and showed his 100 million dollar check. Who does that? You can tell McGregor gets under his skin and that’s entertaining to watch lose.

Floyd Mayweather pulls out a cheque of a $100mil Conor McGregor replies 'That's for the taxman…' ?? pic.twitter.com/KvX01iTPzC

— Ali (@ChocMilkSheikh1) July 12, 2017

Dance For Me Boy!

Here is 28-year-old Conor McGregor telling 40-year-old Floyd Mayweather "Dance for me, boy." pic.twitter.com/ocIVgk4oOE

— Keith Boykin (@keithboykin) July 12, 2017

Dave Gildea is laughing all the way to the bank as Sam replicated his last performance against Strike You in our bowling finals. I’m kidding…not. Was it Sam’s fault we lost? No. It was Evan’s. Am I throwing blame around unnecessarily. Yes. The bottom line is we win as a team and lose as a team.

I’ll elaborate further on the game last night before you get sucked into the minutiae in a post I wrote prior to the finals below. We showed up bringing about 20 spectators and the other team had 0. The final game was being played for the difference of $100 dollars which was news to me. Essentially the regular season standings is where all the money lied. So what I conjured up as a big game, was essentially for who wins the league. Either way, we still wanted to win.

We started off lackluster, but held them off until about the 8th frame. In crunch time they rolled strikes, we rolled opens and spares. I rolled a 255 leaving the 5th frame open with a shot I should have hit, and then didn’t double in the 10th but all else were strikes. Evan was leaving splits and missing pins and Sam’s ball didn’t have the power through the pins. My opinion is that the ball was spent. It was a combination of the ball being rolled to death, being chipped, and Sam knowing this. We needed Sam to show up big in this game and the timing of the deteriorating ball threw off his stride. Weens didn’t have a drink during the games and rolled sharper than he’s been rolling. I still think he has more room for improvement in the mental game, but he took it seriously when it counted and rolled well.

The 2nd game was over by the 5th frame. Weens and I started with turkeys and then I missed a fucking 3,6,10 which I’ve been missing lately. Once Weens and I extinguished our strike run, the other team kept firing. They didn’t have an open from the 2nd frame to about the 7th, and we were toast. 2nd place are the first losers.

It was a good season and this league will keep getting more competitive. We made some headway in our games. I can safely say that I’ll be over a 200 average with my new ball for a full season. I almost nailed my first 700 series in competitive play with a 698 in the playoffs. I’d bet I’ve been practicing more than anyone in the entire league and I’m not exactly sure when I’ll move on to a new activity, but for now I still have about 10 to 15 more pins of improvement. Sam will benefit from a new ball the same way I did. I’m sure you’re reading this so get a 15 lb ball and make sure it’s an upgrade in the hook department from what your using. I moved a clear 5 boards left with my new ball and it’s all in the hook. The spares will take about 2 months to get comfortable, but the change has to be made. If you go to Pavlinko’s tonight, give me a call and I’ll go with you. Evan and I agreed that his ceiling is capped with a shot that isn’t hooking. Considering a two finger shot or another adjustment should be looked at. Jordan is easily the toughest bowler to break down as the more I say, the worse he does. My thought would be to make sure every ball stays to the right. Jersey strikes are failures. If you want to get more consistent, you make sure every ball stays right.

Onto a post that I wanted to release at the start of the playoffs but figured it would do more damage than good.

What I Learned From Being Captain

Our bowling team is entering the playoffs after an absurdly long 31 week regular season. In mismanaged taste, the commissioner’s decided to merge two seasons of bowling to, in my opinion, keep more teams paying money for longer. Here is how our league finalized right before playoffs. We are Snaking Back Monday.

This is our 3rd season in the league. Our first league game started on 1/18/2016 and our team average was 658 at the end of the season. Our 2nd season raised our average to 731. This season our last 10 games have seen us roll a 751 team average (Getting the total would take to long as it averages Jeff in there for the 12 games he played). Here are our averages after each season to date:

Being the highest average and anchor, I’ve elected myself captain of the team. As much as our team is a democracy, at some point there has to be someone to make decisions. Making these decisions doesn’t always lead to happy campers but I’ve learned a lot from spending so much time with the same group in a team environment. Here are some of the situations that I took away some knowledge.

The Spirit – Easily the hardest part of a functioning bowling team. Bowling is a team game at heart, but the core is the individual performance. We all want to bowl a 300 but when you throw a pocket 7-10 in the first frame, it’s not simple to pick yourself up and come back strong. Each person on our team reacts differently to the ups and downs. Jordan is the best example of saying “blind me out” in one game and then coming back to roll a 276 the next. Once you’ve been doing it a while, and this is why we are better than we were, you move past the downs and keep doing what you’ve done thousands of times before.

The Pre Bowl 300 – This was easily the most cumbersome decision of the season. Both Cohen’s are Jewish and missed the same week for a Seder. In our league bowlers are allowed to pre bowl. We have a sub on our team so that we can avoid pre-bowling. I’m very anti-prebowling for various reasons that you can ask me later if you really care, but it’s not a fair substitute. Anyway, I would say that the Cohen’s would be incapable of making a decision that allowed one of them to pre-bowl and the other to sit out for the week. I couldn’t make this decision without one of them holding it against me. In order to keep the balance of the team, I said it was fine to pre bowl even though I knew having one of them pre-bowl and Jeff to sub was more appropriate. In my worst nightmare, Jordan rolled a 300 and a series high that is still the entire league high after 31 weeks of data. The great part about this happening is that it could never get worse. As I look back it wasn’t as big of a deal as it felt at the time, but still an odd ball everything.

The “Anchor” –  After Jordan’s big week, he started bowling better. After 26 straight weeks of being between 175 and 177, Jordan rolled that huge week and followed it up with 1 one more week of a 636 series. The following week he rolled a 201, 201, and was clean into the 5th and he made the comment “so, if I keep rolling this well, when do I get to be anchor?” Knowing that Jordan is a little green with regards to competition, I didn’t take to keenly to this thought and replied with, “that’s such a little boy comment.” Well what happened next was fairly funny as Jordan went open the next 5 frames and finished with a 148. Looking back at that spot, this wasn’t a captain’s comment. I should be doing what’s best for the team at that time and rather than brush it off, I crushed his spirit and Evan and I both knew it immediately after I said it.

Moving – The biggest adjustment to maintaining a high average is moving with the lane. Early on I didn’t pay much attention to where I was starting or playing on the lane. What difference did it make? I never threw the same ball anyway. At this point of bowling, moving spots until you start to land is a huge factor and what separates the best from the rest. I’ve learned to make board adjustments. The common thought is “miss left, move left.” If you notice 1 ball missing, you don’t need to adjust. Once it happens twice, you need to move.

The Ball Change – After rolling a 270 and 279 in consecutive weeks, the highest of my career, I switched to a new ball a month after. Without a doubt, my scores took an initial hit but it was a long term move. Not being scared to experiment is a key to bowling. *I wrote this post prior to rolling a 290 which should add to the effectiveness of equipment.

So that’s my 1,500 word write up about bowling. I’m pretty sure only a few made it this far but I’m sure those that did appreciate my thoughts. Sadly, I don’t think any real reward will come from bowling as much as I do but I do find it fun. I like the competition. I like trying to improve. I like drinking and bowling. I like the people. I would even consider running a bowling alley because it’s something would actually like doing. Hi-Spots is being sold. Investors? Possibly you!

Last night was round 1 of our bowling playoffs after 32 weeks. We started back in September and have finally gotten to the nitty gritty. Sam had a race to run in Swarthmore at night that made it so he could only bowl 2 of the 3 games (which I’m thankful that he decided to roll). Since it was a best of 3, we were hoping to make short work. That didn’t exactly happen.

I’m going to detail this from my perspective so there are going to be a lot of I’s in the following paragraphs. This isn’t the best way to write to the reader but it’s my fucking blog so deal with it.

I came into this week feeling great. I drank a total of 10 beers over the past 3 days which is minimal despite how it appears. I drank 2 PBR’s pre game and hustled warm-ups because Sam was on short time. On the previous Saturday I had rolled a 276 so I had a lot of positive energy in my game.

Our team started off well…except for me. I rolled 2 opens to start the game but didn’t get down. I then rattled off 6 straight and the team was pumped  because we were all bowling well. The first game was a breeze as 3 of us were in the 200’s and we won by 40 pins as I recall.

We started the 2nd game off hot and through the first 5 frames had made up the handicap and were cruising. What happened next was a disaster frame as I missed a single pin, Evan split, and Sam and Jordan opened. The life got sucked out of us and the other team capitalized. We lost game 2.

During the short break before the 3rd game I saw Sam as he was leaving in the bathroom and said, “don’t worry Sam, I got this”.

I threw a 9 spare in the first frame and then the strikes started rolling. Every ball I threw was nicely targeted and hit the pocket with force. I was starting on the 26th board and getting it out right. The oil pattern had been carved exactly to my ball as luck would have it. I had thrown 8 in a row and the game was close. Weens was having some lack of experience issues and Evan and I were carrying him towards the finish line. It came down to the 10th and the opponent anchor had opened the 9th. All I needed was a strike and the game was pretty much clinched. I wasn’t nervous as much as I was in the zone. I rolled another perfect strike. The opponent rolled a strike and we were up 13. All I needed was 8 pins and we had advanced. I rolled another strike…and closed with another (jersey) strike for a 290. The final ball was the only one to miss the pocket.

In the last game we needed every single pin and I stepped up like I said I was going to. Yes this is a brag. It’s why I’m the anchor. It’s why we’ll never talk about who’s the anchor again. It’s stepping up in a spot where the team needs it and we bowl as a team. As Adam says, “team game”. This was my career game and highest series ever so I would lying if I didn’t say we are pumped for the 2nd round. I wouldn’t want to be playing us.