Yeah, but watching the flex in his hand/wrist, I wish I had stayed in school and become a hand surgeon, since he's gonna need some work in a few years!

I myself am a product of the urethene ball (my first ball was an Ebonite Thunderbolt, remember the POWER CORE it had in it folks?), but when I was younger I had to bowl with house balls mostly made of either rubber or plastic.

I have also watched bowling on TV (mainly on ABC as well as other networks) occasionally since the mid-70's and have on a hardcore basis since 1989. I have a great deal of respect for not only the rich history of the sport, as well as the greats who were a part of it.

And thanks mostly to all the YouTube users who upload all of that vintage footage of PBA Tour events from decades (not just years) past, I have an even greater understanding of what lane conditions were like during the days when Hall Of Famers Earl Anthony, [censored] Weber, Marshall Holman and Mark Roth dominated the game. Those conditions were indeed what we call "grindouts", and very low scoring at that, yet it also make for good drama when you see a sub-200 game winning either a match or a title.

From there on to the urethene years of the 80s and guys like Brian Voss, WRW, Amleto Monacelli, Mike Aulby and others who dominated most of the late-80s and early-90s, until the reactive resin balls came out late 1992-early 1993. Even then I heard guys refer to the reactive resin balls in bowling as tantamount to aluminum bats in baseball (up until they turn pro).

I got my first reactive ball in 1997 (an Ebonite Jaguar) and I currently roll with the Storm X-Factor Series, mainly the Vertigo, Triple X, and the Ace, as well as my (U.S.-made from 1999) Ebonite Skull ball for spares. and they have helped me with my game greatly, due to the fact that my older urethene balls would just slide like a tire on ice because of all the oil that there is on the lanes (there is about 25X more oil on the lanes than when I started in 1989).

Yes, I am not one of the ones who is graced with a release like either Pete Weber or Wes Malott have, but I have a great deal of respect for the rich history of the game and the greats who made their mark (gee was there a pun intended? ) on it, but we can always dream that we were on TV needing a strike to win a PBA title (or especially a major), although it is all a figment of our imagination.

Wilbon accepts the challenge.

Erin

OldManMike,

I just wanted to add to your comments which I agree for the most part.

I too was raised to respect my elders and like you said even if you averaged higher than them you had the utmost respect for them. It is like you said attitudes are a reflection of society as a whole and that has invaded sports. Some of the behavior and showboating I have seen is disgusting. One night when my teammate congratulated a guy in his early 20’s on making the washout he left and his comment to her was “That is normal for me”. I always congratulate the other teams after a night of bowling. It is just good sportsmanship. Many times when I have out bowled these prima donna anchors they do not even so much as acknowledge that you did a good job and spend the entire night acting like something is wrong with the lanes, the approach, their hand, or whatever else they can look for as an excuse rather than just manning up and accepting they got out bowled that night. Several of them leave the lanes in a huff without saying a word.

Thankfully these guys are the minority where I bowl and they are outnumbered by far with good people who are friendly and there for the fun. The problem like you mention is the few bad apples can drive people away with their silly behavior and dumb arguments. Too many times these top teams try to bend or break the rules to get an advantage and then the entire league has to go through meetings to settle their silly disputes and it drives good people away.

On Wes Mallott I am not quite sold on the fact that he skipped the tournament because he would be exposed as a technology fraud. I will agree it is possible but I really do not think that since any given bowler can tank in any given tournament and most people would never even know.

Well I have had my rant and I am glad there is someone else who has the same feelings I do.

If the PBA and ESPN publicity machines get behind this, this could be one of the best things to happen to bowling in 20 years.

I agree, he is not a technology fraud, he might have even won the plastic ball tournament if he decided to bowl, but he did have an unfair advantage by taking off the week before the marathon tournament, compounded by the advantage of not having to spend a few hours practicing to remove any bad habits picked up from the plastic ball tournament (hitting up on the ball is not penalized as much with a plastic ball as it is a reactive ball, and can take some time to stop doing once started).

I see you say this multiple times and you say these young guys are disrespectful, arrogant, and don't give their due respect. Then you bring up that Norm Duke, Walter Ray and Pete Weber are not from that era and show plenty of respect, but in my opinion Pete Weber has just as much arrogance (I would say its confidence as well) in his abilities. I don't think these new guys are acting different than anyone else did at that point in their career. Wes Malott has every right to be confident in his abilities, and in order to be at the top of your game you have to think you are better than everyone else, no matter what the conditions are. If you are not confident enough to say that you will never make a TV show, let alone win a title.

Which is a testament to how good PDW and Chris Barnes are to make both shows...

As far as arrogance... that is not a generational thing. That's a personal thing. It would be absolutely unrealistic to think that there weren't bowlers in the WRW Jr/Duke/Voss prime that weren't arrogant. Nor would it be realistic to say that there weren't bowlers like that in the Weber/Carter/Anthony days.

And those opinions are completely subjective. I've heard stories about Burton Jr and Holman and that list goes on, indicating that they were not necessarily the most humble of people.

Additionally, I have heard stories of Barnes, PDW, WRW Jr, all the way up to Tommy Jones, Malott, etc.

Are they arrogant? Depends on your personal definition of arrogant. One person's arrogance is another's confidence. I've met several pros both products of the modern game and back as far as plastic. I've met Roth, who sat and chatted with me for 30 minutes. Wayne Webb, not even the time of day. Tommy Jones, very quiet and not a lot of interaction... arrogant? or shy? Walter Ray, very aloof... bored? uninterested? tired? Again who knows. Depends on the day and your own tolerance.

Back to Wes, he could have shrugged it and left it alone. But we'd be fool hardy to think that there aren't people within the PBA that weren't pushing ole Wes to continue it. Strike while the iron is hot, so to speak.

I don't think that it was an unfair advantage. An advantage? Sure. Bowling week after week as many as those guys do, being able to take a week off probably did him a lot of good. Tiger doesn't golf in every tournament. He plays the majors, other big tourneys, then a handful of others. There are guys who play week in and week out and win every so often. When Tiger won 6 times in a row once and 7 times in a row another time, people were talking about how impressive it is to be able to win that many times in a row. Which it is. But, he also took tourneys off inbetween. Byron Nelson won 11 tourneys in a row. You think that he took a week off? No. He also won 18 times that season by the way.

People don't criticize Tiger for taking so many weeks off. It may be unfair comparing Tiger to Wes but to me, it seems silly to attack a guy for taking a week off between a major and before a 54 game marathon tourney. Golfers do it all of the time. If it would have been just another tourney, no big deal. But, because it was a plastic ball challenge, everyone is up in arms about it. On top of that, they guy is married and has kids. Taking a little time off to spend with his family is not a bad thing.

When talking about the arrogance/respect factor, you can't make such broad generalizations. Sure there are the arrogant young players that have no respect for the older guys that aren't scoring as well as they are. What you forget is there are just as many that hold those older players in high regard and really enjoy playing with them. It's just the arrogant ones tend to stand out and be more easily remembered.

This however, is not isolated to bowling, it's just the way society in general works.

I will say this however. A lot of the older bowlers are much more stubborn in their game. They don't want to move, even if the oil conditions change, they would rather complain about the volume of oil. All they have to do is move 4-5 boards right and play more up the edge, but they refuse too.

There also seems to be some sort of label for the younger power players. If you crank the ball or are a high rev tweener, you must be an arrogant ***. Now personally I'm a stroker, low rev, high speed. But most of the guys I bowl with reguraly are crankers and high-rev tweeners. All of them hold older players in high regard, shake their hands, chat with them, and just enjoy bowling, the history, and the stories that go along with it. After thursday night late shift, we reguraly don't leave the bar till 2-3 am from sitting around listening to stories of days yonder.

And finally, people seem to be holding Wes to their own expectations. These players, for the most part, are not massively rich. They are driving their RV/Car's from one stop to the next, not living the lavish lifestyles of the rich and famous. Their income is directly related to their bowling performance week in and week out. This plastic ball tournament, was more of a publicity stunt for the PBA then it was a serious tournament. With the amount of games they are playing per week, I would want some time off too.