Bowling deserves your attention

So many bowling questions, so few open lanes.

(Yes, I’m writing about bowling. Again. I realize some readers think I write about bowling every time I go through a divorce, but that’s not the case. In fact, Toni, aka She Could Be The One III, is better than advertised and she bowls – well, she has trouble cracking 100 even with the bumpers, but, hey, you take what you can get.)

•Is Walter Ray Williams Jr. the greatest bowler ever? He looks like an actuary and bowls like an assassin.

His steroid-free numbers are astounding: No. 1 in career PBA titles with 44, No. 1 all-time in earnings, 15 consecutive seasons winning at least one tour title and finishing in the top 10 on the money list, six times player of the year.

And, this season, Williams, who won his first Player of the Year award in 1986, is leading the pack for a seventh top honor – at age 48!

(Sure, you say, it’s only bowling and bowlers aren’t as well-conditioned and athletic as tennis or basketball players. Well, you go do it. You go roll 35 games a week and see how your back and knees and wrist feel. You go out there knowing the difference between a 224 average and a 217 average can be the difference between making the TV finals or making no money for the week.)

Remarkably, bowling is Williams’s second-best sport – he’s a six-time world champion in horseshoes.

(You would know that if you paid attention to bowling. But, no, you’re watching Georgetown-Memphis college basketball or the Papajohns.com Bowl or the “Brian Boitano Spectacular.”)

•Should women be bowling on television? Is this some type of trick question? Women play tennis on TV, they play golf, soccer, basketball, even poker. So why shouldn’t they bowl on TV? We might put a woman into the White House – we can’t put a woman in a bowling alley to roll a 748 series on TV?

If you don’t want to watch them, fine; heck, a court order couldn’t make me turn on a WNBA game. But I know the market is there – every time I go to my local AMF lanes, the guys are always staring at the gals.

The women’s tour disbanded in 2003. A truncated version was reintroduced this year, with four “women’s series finals” folded into PBA telecasts.

In the first one I watched, Joy Esterson and Liz Johnson were tied going into the final frame – first Esterson threw three straight strikes, then Johnson rolled three in a row to force a one-ball roll-off, in which Esterson threw another strike and Johnson got only a 7 count. It was like watching the end of Super Bowl 34 when the Rams held off the Titans, 23-16.

In another one, Diandra Asbaty, trailing unflappable Carolyn Dorin-Ballard by 42 pins, nailed five straight strikes to win, 236-225. It was like watching the Bills, down 35-3 to the Oilers in the 1992 NFL playoffs, rally for a 41-38 victory.

On both occasions, I drank two PBRs in a can.

•What’s the deal with the new PBA announcer on ESPN? His name is Rob Stone, and if you go online to various bowling forums and chat rooms, you would think he kidnapped the Lindbergh baby and entertained at al Queda’s office Christmas party.

To which I say: Lay off him, you pinheads.

The biggest complaint about Stone? He doesn’t know the game. Oh, please. Some bowlers believe you shouldn’t be able to talk about bowling unless you were born in the back seat of Earl Anthony’s Buick. But bowling probably has a quicker learning curve than, say, biomedical engineering. And, if by no other means, Stone can pick up bowling tidbits by simply following Randy Pedersen into the pro shop.

Stone is playful, enthusiastic and interested; he brings energy to the telecasts without trampling over them. He’s even invented a new term, for four straight strikes – a “hambone.”

I think he’ll figure out what the ball returner does by the end of the season.

Ask The Slouch

Q. Dick Vitale literally cannot speak for three weeks – how did you do it? (Lori Packard; Rockford, Ill.)

A. First of all, Vitale had throat surgery, and we wish him a full recovery. Second of all, when he regains his voice, I’m sure he’ll make up for lost time.

Q. I see where Chris Evert is engaged to Greg Norman, an Australian. Since she was previously married to an Englishman and an American, might she one day marry a Frenchman so she can complete the career Grand Slam? (Stuart Fischer; Rockville, Md.)

A. Pay the man, Shirley.

Q. Do you think George Mitchell got that big naturally? (Roger Minor; Houston)

A. Ring this fella up too.