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Another great week for Bowl Movement. We entered the week with 1 win, 3 losses.  Having notched an unexpected victory in game 3 last week, we’re now tied for 14th place. Right where we want to be – a predatory beast of the plain, concealed in the grass that is 2nd to last place.

Silent and waiting.

Biding our time.

Ready to pounce on any bowling team, gazelle or other potential prey…

On to the current week. We did a little multi-tasking. Celebrated a birthday and kicked some ass. Kris Inman – parent of two up and coming Graphic Arts Bowling League stars Cal Inman and Liz Cardenas – turned 39 last night. One more year ’til the big FOUR-OH! Festivities, flowers and ice cream sandwiches. Good stuff and it meant that we had a solid crowd cheering us on.

We also did a little bowling. Here’s our story.

Once upon a time there was a team that completely dominated their opponent. The team’s name was Bowl Movement and the time was Wednesday, Sept 10th.

As our recent experience with the Olympics has taught us all – the spoils of victory and endorsement riches come to a very, very select group. To those who are willing to sacrifice, to work hard, to forge ahead through any obstacle and to gut out those moments of doubt and fear that accompany any quest for greatness.

My writing can’t do the reality justice so just imagine a compelling story of perseverance and triumph rolling off the lips of Bob Costas, a nice video montage along with some commentary from our parents.

Final Tally: 4 points us. 0 points them. Thank you very much.

Let’s meet our opponent

We played Team 5.

They were a friendly and capable crew featuring three members of the Runyon Family (Bill, Nancy and their daughter Ashley). Nancy’s been bowling since the mid-80’s and she’s a damn good bowler. Dropped a 175 on us in the first game. Nancy is also the league treasurer – so she was heavily occupied collecting league payments and organizing the resulting paperwork until mid-way through the second game. Bill is just returning to the game after a decade long absence. Very nice guy. He just switched to a finger-tip ball and is still on the early side of the learning curve. Next time we meet he’ll be deadly. Ashely – very likely the youngest bowler in the alley – had Tweety-bird ball and was honing her game. She made a big leap the second game, more than doubling her initial score of 58.

The other two bowlers – Bill Runyon and Gean Andross were good people. Quiet. Friendly. Solid Bowlers.

Handicap

Handicap is going to play a big part in the early weeks. Our average gave us a 187 pin lead going into each game – that’s a big deficit for the other team to make up, especially when we’re bowling above average as we were this time. We’ve got a lot of new bowlers but for the first few weeks we’re going to be increasing average at a steep clip, that’ll make it tough for other teams. We’ll want to pick up as many points as possible in this early stage because they’ll be harder to come by mid-season.

Bowler of the Week: This award is new. Some may say that I invented this highly sought after, soon-to-be-world-famous-bowling-award simply because I had an incredible performance on the lanes. To those people I have one thing to say: You’re right.

With that said, this is the most impartial and transparent most valuable player award in the history of sport. This award will go to the player who exceeds their average by the greatest number of pins that week. Before handing out this incredibly esteemed award I want to say that everyone on the team bowled VERY well (I just bowled better). EVERYONE on the team bowled above their average – by a lot. It was a tight race.

Winner: Me. 41 pins over average.[1. More caveats. I've heard rumblings that my bowling effort in the first week, my deliberate effort to lower my average and the fact that I purposely threw the ball in the gutter half of the time should cast a shadow over my Bowler of the Week Award. Well, maybe you're right. But one person's shadow is another person's rainbow. Ces't la pomme.]

So. Congrats to Me :)

Now for the weekly stats[2. No fancy charts this week :( I'm still working out how best to present all the data that our rabid fan base NEEDS to know. I think I found a solution at TechCrunch50 but I'm still waiting for beta-user access. Next week I'm hoping we'll have fancy interactive charts courtesy of the guys at i-charts.net.]:

The Beginning – On Wedneday, September 3rd, Bowl Movement began it’s thirty-six week journey to victory.

Setting the Stage – Let me bring you back a few days, back to the night of the third….

The night was humid. The streets were wet but the night was as bright as the earrings in Margaret Donner’s ears[1. you know what I'm talking about.] As you know, these are the type of conditions under which Bowl Movement thrives..

There was an electricity in the air when we stepped on the wood. Albany Bowl was buzzing – 1st night of league, who would step up and take command? Who would make their presence felt and send a message that they’d come for victory and would accept nothing less?

Not us, that’s not our style. Instead we decided to play things loose – really, really loose.

We had other things to worry about.

Team building. Camaraderie. Season strategizing. Adapting to the bowling lifestyle. Picking up on bowling nomenclature. Heavy drinking. Greasy food. These were the subjects of our intense focus, of our unbridled lust for total domination. It was an experience in high-grade immersive learning. We had jumped straight into the deep end – no turning back, sink or be impaled. That is what the first week was all about.

We learned Lane Etiquette: This is the primary indicator of a serious bowler. Lane etiquette guides the highly choreographed dance of the bowling insider. Summarized into a single rule – don’t step on the wood if your neighbor is on the wood. Of course the nuance of any rule of social behavior cannot be captured by a single line.

• Is it ok to pick up your ball when another player is on the wood? Maybe
• Is it ok to step onto the deck after your neighbor has released their ball? Probably
• What about bowling ahead of another player who was waiting first but is in the middle of their elaborate pre-deck ritual (ball cleaning, talking to teamates, deep meditation and/or beer drinking)? You’re good to go

We also began picking up some bowling lingo

• Ball return: this is what you scream into the mic when the machine eats but does not give back your ball. In our case a highly trained technician spent 20 minutes deconstructing the beast and sticking a mop handle into its belly…
• Dead wood: this friendly comment will send an employee skipping down the mid-lane hump to get a pin out of the gutter or off the lane
• Brooklyn: a strike that hits the left side of the pocket (for righties at least)

So much to learn, so little time. On the whole it was a brilliant debut. A perfect night.

In the coming weeks we’ll have more in depth coverage of the team, it’s members and it’s pursuit of gold medals, laurel wreaths and applause and adulation from millions[2. I'm thinking something along the lines of the true triumph of will displayed by Owens at the '36 Olympics. Nothing like taking 4 golds, sticking it to the devil and doing it all in front of the entire universe.]. You’ll get access to behind the scenes interviews! member profiles!! weekly statistics!!! and even…. live updates from the lanes!!!!

Now for the Week 1 stats:

A handy table:[3. actually I can't get tables to work via the wordpress plugin?!? So this week you'll have to live with less...]

—————– Game 1 — Game 2 — Game 3 — Total Pinfall — Session Avg
Carol Camp           97           111             129              337                112

Shannon Noe         63           109              86               258                 86

Liz Cardenas         72             94               90               256                 85

Cal Inman           **33**         64              123              220                 73

Chris Camp          130          130              132             392                130

Bowl Movement    395          508              560             1463              97.2

There are few things like watching a grown man bowling a 33. It’s an astonishing and shocking thing to witness. It was a gutsy performance and proof that a newly drilled finger tip ball can bring the strongest to their knees…

And now for a beautiful graphic…

As you can see I’m clearly no Edward Tufte – we (aka I) pride ourselves on supplying some of the most useless data visualizations you’ll find anywhere….

A note on the handicapping system. Our Graphic Arts League is handicapped. Handicapping is a means of placing bowlers and teams with varying degrees of skill on as equitable a basis as possible for their competition against each other[4. http://www.bowlingfans.com/faq/hc.shtml.].” We use a 90% handicap, it works like this… Example: 210 – 160 (player’s avg) = 50, then 50 x 90% = 45. If your average is 160, your handicap is 45.

Since this was the first week of the league, our handicaps hadn’t been set. The other team is in the same boat and this combination makes it tough to determine who actually won. Next week our averages/handicaps will be in place and we’ll be able to start tracking the number of points[5. A brief not on the point system: 4 points are awarded each week. One to the winner of each game and one to the winner of total pins.] we won…

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It’s bowling time amigos!

This blog will be following Bowl Movement’s trajectory through the Albany Bowl Winter League. No doubt it’ll be a hard fought battle but we will stop at nothing in our search for truth, beauty and the title of winter league champion. In the coming weeks I’ll be recapping the action of each league night (Wed.), giving you in depth player profiles and offering up Bowl Movement schwag to lucky readers.

For now I offer up just the logo – a preview of things to come: