Sunday, March 09, 2008
Tuesday morning roll rates perfect 10
Aaron McFarling
Recent columns
I bought her when I was 16.
I liked the TV commercial. When you show me a ninja swooping in and slashing at pins with a katana, brother, I'm sold.
So I saved my pizza-tossing money and bought her. Sixteen pounds, a little counterweight, drilled with a semi-fingertip grip.
My first real bowling ball.
On Tuesday, that same ball sat on a rack in Salem, scuffed and faded from 16 years of use, waiting for her big moment.
I'd brought her to the lanes hundreds of times. I took her to Penn State a decade ago as a member of the Maryland bowling team -- such as it was -- and marveled how the little schools like Saginaw Valley State dominated the big, state universities.
I carried her to Navy bases and midnight madnesses and out-of-the-way alleys.
Just last fall, I took her to a cash tournament in Danville for the first time and lost in the quarterfinals to some chalk-tasting hustler straight out of "Kingpin."
And ever since friend and colleague Doug Doughty invited me to join his team a few years ago, I've lugged her to Lee-Hi Lanes on Tuesdays for three square lines in the King Pin League.
That ball had served me well. She'd been all over the East Coast, in the pocket and the gutter and everywhere in between.
'Failure is easy'
But last week, I barely knew her.
I don't know which is more unsettling -- picking up the Ninja in the 10th frame Tuesday with a chance at a 300 game or sitting at my keyboard now.
"Try it," the boss said. "You're a sportswriter. This is a sport. So write."
Oh, I'm fine writing about my athletic exploits if it's serving up a tape-measure shot to J.D. Drew in college. Or getting on "SportsCenter" for allowing a record-breaking home run to Florida State infielder Marshall McDougall. Or flopping as the manager of our company softball team.
Failure is funny. Failure is easy.
This is hard.
But I guess bowling nine strikes in a row is, too. Not as hard as it used to be, for sure, but still a challenge. I know I'd never done it before, much less to start a game.
But that's where I was Tuesday, when I stepped onto the approach on Lane 5 a little before 11 a.m.
The glances from other lanes had started about the sixth. Just little looks from the left and right, knowing nods from teammates Robert Anderson, Roy Jordan and Steve Bowery, who was filling in for Doughty.
Social chatter? Gone. Every Tuesday, I talk to Harry about baseball and hockey and UVa and whatever else is happening. By the eighth frame, we weren't talking anymore. Good ol' Butch, who gets on me every time I'm a little too hard on his beloved Hokies, wouldn't come near me. Same with Paul and Jim and Richard and the rest.
Even Jody, the wise-cracking mainstay of the league, stopped making jokes about my ridiculous luck.
By the 10th frame, all pretenses had been dropped. Nobody else would bowl. Instead, everyone gathered behind the benches to watch.
I stepped up and threw my first ball of the 10th. Another strike.
Everyone cheered.
My 2-year-old son -- whom, as fate would have it, I'd brought to league day for the first time in more than a year -- had to be wondering what was going on. Honestly? I wondered the same thing.
I stepped up again. I let the Ninja go again.
Another strike. Another round of cheers.
One more to go.
A career path
When I was 16, the same year I bought that bowling ball, I decided I wanted to be a sportswriter.
The simple reason was a love of sports. I fell for the drama, the moments, the memories. I know now that the business can be cynical -- many times, because it has to be. Steroids, arrests and scandal are a part of the deal. It hardens us all.
But at our core, most sportswriters still have something in common with everyone else: We're hopeless worshippers of the underdog, ardent fans of the unexpected.
I saw my younger self in everyone at Lee-Hi Lanes on Tuesday. All those people wishing, hoping, encouraging as I stepped up to throw once more.
Was this really that big of a deal, really that rare of a moment? Not really. But one of the great beauties of sports is things matter as much or as little as we want them to.
We can watch every pitch of spring training or just the final out of the World Series. We can spend a fortune following our favorite football team in an RV or get the score in the paper the next day.
We can care if we want to. And on this day, at this moment, we did.
My legs quivered as I approached the line. My shoulder twitched as I let the ball go. Everyone shouted at the Ninja, ordering her to deliver.
The shot was far from perfect. I'd known that as soon as I'd let it go. But after all these years together, I hoped the old girl wouldn't let me down. I hoped that crafty Ninja -- 16 pounds, a little-counterweight, drilled with a semi-fingertip grip -- would dive left of the headpin if she had to.
When she did, I immediately turned around. What I saw was a funhouse mirror, a whole league full of people striking the same pose.
My arms were raised -- and so were theirs.
My fists were clinched -- and so were theirs.
For a moment, we were all 16 again.
