I'll get straight to the point:
If more people bowled in America, we would be a stronger democracy.
While there is no hard data to support my claim, it is inarguable, incontestable and irrefutable. Bowling is the backbone of everything good for which this nation stands.
| _____ Monday Morning_____
A look back at the weekend and a look ahead at the coming week's action with a fresh new edge.
• Norman Chad's Couch Slouch
• Starting Lineup
• The Chat: Kung Fu and Tae Kwon Do black belt Ryan Pinkston
• 7 Days
• The Review: Find refuge from the lockout with ESPN NHL 2K5.
_____ The Quote _____
"I would never do anything that's in bad taste. ... I've been a family entertainer all my life. We're not selling sex, we're selling a health product."
-- Mickey Rooney, whose Super Bowl ad was nixed by Fox because it briefly showed the 84-year-old actor's bare bottom. _____ The Monday Morning Poll _____
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(In the interest of full disclosure, I must admit to not only being an avid recreational bowler but also to being an avid recreational viewer of bowling on TV. Actually, I TiVo bowling because my friends at ESPN insist on showing it on Sundays, and though I love the game, I'm not going to watch the PBT instead of the NFL. So I can't see Parker Bohn III and Mika Koivuniemi live. Which is okay, I guess, but I have to be honest with you -- if you're watching taped bowling, chances are you have all the sex appeal and social life of an automatic ball return.)
If you take two individuals with identical backgrounds, with the only difference being that one bowls and the other doesn't, the one who doesn't is more prone to character slips, fear and loathing, divorce, criminal activity, anger, lapses of judgment, deception, hyper-aggressive driving tendencies, irregularity and chronic tardiness.
No bowler has ever been convicted of insider trading.
Bowling is a better life. In fact, given a choice between bowling a 220 game or dating Jennifer Garner, Halle Berry and Lindsay Lohan on consecutive nights, I have six words for you, "What size shoes do you need?" Who wouldn't want a bowling shirt with your name on it?
I love the messenger pin. I love tripping out the 9. I love going Brooklyn.
I love that Lonnie Waliczek, during an interview with ESPN's Randy Pedersen, said, "I've wanted to be a professional bowler since I was 5 years old."
I love that during the Waliczek-Doug Kent match at the PBA Uniroyal Tire Classic at Freeway Lanes in Wickliffe, Ohio, the nation's largest bowling center -- 96 lanes! -- a woman held up a sign, "Doug Kent Rocks My Socks."
I love that I know Mark Roth won a record eight PBA titles during the 1978 season and that Walter Ray Williams Jr. is chasing the late Earl Anthony's career mark of 41.
I love it, on a strike ball, when ESPN's Dave Ryan says, "Ten in the pit!"
(I don't love the constant replays. I know we're a replay culture, but watching bowling replays is like watching rainwater trickle down a window pane. The ball rolls down the lane and the pins go down. End of story. Next thing you know, they'll start replaying the flop in poker.)
Bowling on TV is an acquired taste, like a beet-and-goat cheese salad, but once you make that leap of viewing faith, you never go back to the NHL and "American Idol." Meanwhile, everything you could possibly want is in a bowling alley.
