humm....brooklyn strikes just happen. no matter what, someone, sometime, will get one. yup it will happen. just go on with it. beating yourself up about it wont help nothing. nothing. i dont take it as bad luck either. i take it as- i need to make the adjustment and try to hit the 1-3. but if i hit it i hit. tuff, i take them. i bowl to bowl. i'm not pro. dont want to be. i like having fun with it. plus i try for them sometimes with my spare ball to see if i can get one. why not? if you try for one and get it, thats just helping your accuracy. you hit where you wanted to. so go try it on the other side and see what happens. i guess i practice a lot different than every one else. plus , saying something about the way someone got there high score is a bit rash. or jusr poor sportsman ship. i don't understand that one either. we just yell brooklyn when it happens and yell sandbagger for fun. no one cares. i like brooklyns. there fun to watch too. they hit a lot different. a lot more messy too

Lefty,

If I am being totally honest as you say I was aiming for the 5 board but I found out quick that anywhere in that 5-7 board range from where I was standing would work because I would either hit the pocket, hit a little high but get away with it, or cross over strong to the Brooklyn. I dream about those forgiving conditions and finding a spot like that.

As far as being happier because I executed well rather than scored well I don’t quite understand that. If I was using a conventional line (like I was in the first 3 frames when I opened in every one of them) and struggling like the other bowlers we would have lost all 4 games instead of splitting 2-2. Does not do much good to execute by the book if you do not score well and lose all your games. Just because my line was unconventional does not mean I was not executing.

In my honest opinion I feel the lack of respect comes not from a bad shot that happened to strike. Maybe if these were random lucky sloppy shots but these were crushing all 10 in the pit shots. I think it is that I had found a way to beat the lane condition unconventionally and beat bowlers on the opposite team with averages 24 and 35 pins higher than mine who could not get it figured out. As a bowler who averages in the 160-170 range this happens a lot when you encounter certain bowlers who think they are too good to get beat by a lower average bowler so they make up excuses as to why they lost (like the guy telling Brandon it was the worst 229 game he ever saw). One night light hits were tearing up the pocket so I kept holding that line and was getting the constant “are you going to take that” and head shakes. I get tired of certain people who think they are so good that they can dictate what is good bowling and bad bowling. I am supposed to change my line to a more conventional pocket hit no matter what is carrying? I don’t think so. When I get beat by a bowler with a much lower average I am the first to congratulate them no matter how they got it done. Yes it can be frustrating but I would never have a holier than thou attitude because it just makes you look bitter because you just got your clock cleaned. Why would you want to take away from what that person accomplished whether it be by luck or not? Just man up and accept it.

Well I guess I have really taken off on my soapbox but I needed to get that off my chest. Actually I did plenty enough what I consider bad bowling that night in the first three frames and after the first frame of the last game when I started spraying the ball all over the place. It is kind of ironic that in that game I had 2 regular pocket splits. If I hadn’t lost my focus and held that line longer I would have likely had my highest series since my comeback 2 years ago.

There are a couple of ways to look at this. The most probable way is to say you missed your mark, and were lucky enough to cross and strike. The other way is that the law of averages evens itself out.

Yeah, I try to hit a set of marks on every ball. I do it with a fair regularity. But, sometimes, I miss right, and sometimes I miss left. When I miss left, I hope for a crossover strike. That evens out the buried shots where I left an 8 or a 9 or a solid 10.

So, even though it is a missed target, it balances the good shots where I thought I should have carried. Just like hitting the 1-2-3 pocket or the even rarer strike where I didn't even hit the head pin.

So, if the name of the game is to get strikes, and the probability was higher to hit the 1-2-3 head on, everyone would do it. But, a Brooklyn is a shot of low probability that does have the possibility of a strike. So, take it when it comes.

It balances out. It is just a shot of lower probability.

That's not a forgiving condition. If you're on a house shot and hitting your own pocket and also crossing over, You're either missing by a lot, not close to being lined or or both. I can tell you that on a house shot, I'd have to pull the ball a whole arrow to actually cross over and strike if I was lined up. I don't cross over where I could carry a strike on a sport shot when I miss by 2 boards. Something is very wrong with what you're describing. Like I said, either you're missing by a lot more than you're admitting to or you're really in the wrong part of the lane.



Execution is also mental Execution. It's getting lined up. It's making the right moves when you should. Randomly hitting your own pocket and the opposite pocket and getting strikes wasn't about you out bowling someone else. Your scored enough to take 2 points, but in my book you didn't bowl well.



You're admitting to the ball finishing 10+ boards different and getting strikes on both sides of the head pin. Yes, those are lucky strikes. There's no 2 ways about it. To me it doesn't sound like you knew where the ball was going to finish when it came off your hand. How can it not be a "lucky strike" when you don't really know where it's going? Or really even where you want it to go?



I've gotten beaten by lower average bowlers and it really never bothers me. Anyone can beat anyone on any given day. That said, this isn't about someone beating me. It's about any bowler being honest with themselves. A good shot is not one that you don't know where it's going. I've had people cross over on multiple shots and beat me. So be it. It doesn't make those shots good shots, and it doesn't make the game a good game. On a house shot, you have to miss by a lot to cross over. A lot. Less of a miss has a good chance of leaving a split. You'd consider going through the head pin bad, right? Crossing over is a bigger miss.

Maybe it's just me, but I want to bowl well, not just score well. Crossing over tells me something was really wrong.

I think we have 2 schools of thought here. I don’t think you can say either one is wrong or right, just different opinions. I still contend that if I am playing an “area” and blasting the pocket on either side I am bowling good. I am staying in that area and having success so how is that a bad thing? Until bowling becomes a sport where you score based on where you hit and not if all the pins fall down I would do the same thing if I were ever fortunate enough to have it happen again (not likely).

As far as your concerns about me not being honest with myself I wonder why you two (Lefty, [censored-bu]) are even bringing it up? Is it so important? Do you think it is important that I, a person who bowls one league, three games a week, little or no practice, averaging in the 160-170 range, who has recently struggled through four weeks of sub 500 series, who already knows I am a decent bowler at best, know that in your opinions that I really bowled lousy and just lucked into a couple of good scores? Getting a 230 is quite an accomplishment for me no matter how I do it.

This gets me back to my original rant. Certain better bowlers do not consider how lesser bowlers feel when they get up on their high horse and refuse to give high-fives or congratulate someone on an excellent score. They act like they never get a break on a high hit or a cross-over. Thankfully a lot of the guys who are really good have enough sense to know that we are not under some delusion that we are suddenly pros, that we found a good line that night and used it, that we just had a good night, and that we too deserve to be congratulated on a job well done without a need to point out any shortcomings we may have had in getting there.

Well said, Scott. While I may not be proud of myself after a Brooklyn, I'll smile and gladly take the result. I might feel bad if its decisive in the match, but I know eventually I'll be on the wrong end of one too. It's all part of the game. Everybody gets lucky sometimes. If someone who thinks they are a better bowler than you believes you beat them purely on luck, they should have bowled better and left no doubt or room for luck to intervene.

I don't know where you get the idea that I am disrespecting another bowler by not congratulating him on carrying a Brooklyn strike. If a bowler is aiming for the 1-3 pocket, yanks the ball and goes Brooklyn or worse yet, punches the nose and strikes, I am supposed to congratulate him? Sorry I won't do it. However, if he gets a string of three or four in the 1-3 pocket, even if his string costs my team the game, I am the first to congratulate him.

I don't get upset if the other team is getting lucky strikes. And I don't care for you to imply that I would "belittle" the guy who just got a lucky strike. I try and keep a poker face and maintain an even temperament. The effect is it has on me is to put it out of my mind and concentrate harder on my own game.

Do you ever see higher average bowlers do this? Do they "play an area" and "blast the pocket on either side"? Do you think that there might be a correlation between consistently scoring higher and accuracy?



Again, there's a difference between a good score and good bowling. One doesn't always mean the other. I've bowled bad at shot 750 and I've bowled great and shot 590. I know how I bowled and I don't walk away from a bad night of bowling where I scored decent thinking that I bowled well. If all you care about is the score (and that's what it appears like), so be it. There's nothing wrong with that, but it's not the mind set that will help you to improve as a bowler. You may not want to improve and that's OK too, but just because you're not focused on executing well doesn't make it wrong that other people care about it.



Where you hit has a lot to do with how you score. The higher someone scores on a consistent basis, the less they cross over as well.

Johnw,

I did not mean to imply that your actions would belittle a fellow bowler and if you felt that way let me apologize. I was just giving my personal opinion on how I feel. Then again I am not in a big money or super competitive league. I imagine it would be different in those type leagues. I am in a mixed league chock full of lower skilled bowlers so it is common to let the high-fives fly regardless of the quality of the strike.

My policy is to not get into the business of judging the quality of a strike. On the lanes I bowl on depending on the night high hits might carry, light hits may carry, and as this post has shown Brooklyn hits may carry. Much easier to just give the obligatory high five and move on like Silent Mike said. Again this is my personal preference.

I have become a little more fired up on this topic than I should but like I said it is very hard for someone like me to get a 230 let alone to then have people popping up saying you really didn’t bowl good or opposing team members not even saying so much as “Nice Game” or “Nice Score”. It is just my opinion that common good sportsmanship requires that unless the person was a real [censored]. You get what you give so if those either of the guys on the other team in the future were to bowl in the 250’s but a few of their hits were high or crossed over there would be no congratulations coming from me. I would have to assume they would not expect it unless they bowled a game where every single shot hit the 1-3 perfectly.

Scott, an X is an X, and you can't tell the difference on the scoresheet.