The Man Who Broke Bowling (gq.com) 60
theodp writes: In The Man Who Broke Bowling, GQ's Eric Wills profiles professional bowler Jason Belmonte, whose two-handed bowling technique made him both an outcast as well as one of bowling's greatest, changing the sport forever. Unlike the rest of us, a 7-year-old Belmonte was unconvinced by the taunts used to prompt kids into switching from bowling two-handed to one-handed ("It was, Come on, you're a big boy now. It's time to bowl properly," Belmonte recalls). As a result, Belmonte was able to develop a 600-rpm throw when most pro bowlers averaged 350-400, imparting a spin that "sends the pins into concussion protocol." Wills writes:
"When he first alighted on the professional bowling scene, Belmonte resembled an alien species: one that bowled with two hands. And not some granny shot, to be clear, but a kickass power move in which he uses two fingers (and no thumb) on his right hand, palms the front of the ball with his left, and then, on his approach, which is marked by a distinctive shuffle step, rocks the ball back before launching it with a liquid, athletic whip, his delivery producing an eye-popping hook, his ball striking the pins like a mini mortar explosion. Not everyone welcomed his arrival. He's been called a cheat, told to go back to his native Australia; a PBA Hall of Famer once called the two-hander a 'cancer to an already diseased sport.'
If you're interested in more on the technical aspects of bowling -- Belmonte's installed a tracking system in his parent's bowling center back in Australia that generates reams of data he can sift through to find areas for improvement -- Wikipedia goes into some of the physics of bowling balls.
"When he first alighted on the professional bowling scene, Belmonte resembled an alien species: one that bowled with two hands. And not some granny shot, to be clear, but a kickass power move in which he uses two fingers (and no thumb) on his right hand, palms the front of the ball with his left, and then, on his approach, which is marked by a distinctive shuffle step, rocks the ball back before launching it with a liquid, athletic whip, his delivery producing an eye-popping hook, his ball striking the pins like a mini mortar explosion. Not everyone welcomed his arrival. He's been called a cheat, told to go back to his native Australia; a PBA Hall of Famer once called the two-hander a 'cancer to an already diseased sport.'
If you're interested in more on the technical aspects of bowling -- Belmonte's installed a tracking system in his parent's bowling center back in Australia that generates reams of data he can sift through to find areas for improvement -- Wikipedia goes into some of the physics of bowling balls.
Make me wonder (Score:4, Interesting)
PBA Hall of Famer once called the two-hander a 'cancer to an already diseased sport.
Makes me wonder.
Are there scandal with player smearing nacho cheese on each others balls.
Or maybe some beer that accidentally got on the right part of the floor to mess with someones shot.
Or jealous lovers catching SOs polishing someone elses balls.
You don't think of corruption when you think of bowling.
finger over the line got to mark it zero! (Score:2)
finger over the line got to mark it zero!
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In bowling, beer should be considered a performance-enhancing drug.
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"Should be" and "a"? More like "is" and "THE"!
I would think that's easy to "fix" (Score:2)
If that's really such a big deal, just change the rules to only being allowed to use one hand.
Re:I would think that's easy to "fix" (Score:5, Informative)
That is the only way around this because the rules [pba.com] explicitly cite two-handed bowling as being allowed (Rule 10).
Re:I would think that's easy to "fix" (Score:5, Interesting)
The article points out that at the moment of release he only has one hand in contact with the ball.
He has two hands in contact for longer than other players and doesn't put his thumb in the ball. That's it.
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Well, there we go, make that thumb-thing mandatory and you're set.
If that's really a problem, there will be a solution by analyzing his technique and outlawing a crucial part of it. Wouldn't be the first time a sport invents a "lex $playername" because a certain player developed a style that would essentially make the sport uninteresting to watch because it's no longer a challenge to succeed. Especially if the competition is not against each other (like in, say, tennis or boxing) where the athletes compete
Re:I would think that's easy to "fix" (Score:5, Insightful)
Or, everyone could just learn to play that way. Who doesn't use the Fosbury flop these days in the high jump? Are track and field events "diseased" because of it?
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Are track and field events "diseased" because of it?
Diseased is perhaps a bit strong, but I've always considered discus to be highly degenerate.
Re:I would think that's easy to "fix" (Score:5, Insightful)
Sure, but it depends on what the change would mean.
The Fosbury flop actually added complexity to the sport and made succeeding actually more challenging. Before, the high jump was mostly a feat of strength, while today it's a matter of body control. You need to get your body across that bar in a fluid motion where you have control over a lot of muscles just to pull it off. Far more challenging than the old style which was mostly a feat of raw strength.
There is also no "limit" in high jump. If you pass 6 feet, you pass 6 feet. If you pass 7 feet, you pass 7. If you pass 20 feet, you pass 20. A better technique means that you can jump higher, yes, but others can still beat that. In Bowling, there is a perfect game. Once you reach that level reliably, there is no way to improve on it. If it becomes trivial to reach a perfect game, the game loses its challenge.
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If you pass 20 feet, you pass 20
You're also Spider-man.
A better technique means that you can jump higher, yes, but others can still beat that. In Bowling, there is a perfect game. Once you reach that level reliably, there is no way to improve on it. If it becomes trivial to reach a perfect game, the game loses its challenge.
A better technique in bowling doesn't automatically win you a perfect game though. There's still a lot you have to do aside from just a throwing technique that gives you more power and spin. Plus players win perfect games all the time without this technique. Perfect games just aren't that rare. Even amateurs who don't know what they're doing sometimes get them. If you do achieve a perfect game, your next goal can be two in a row, then three in a row, and so on and so forth. If we wan
Re:I would think that's easy to "fix" (Score:5, Informative)
Even amateurs who don't know what they're doing sometimes get them.
I know, we don't RTFA, but I read this earlier today when it popped up on HN. One point from the article: amateurs get them on lanes that are designed to be played by amateurs, which are treated very differently from lanes for competition.
Even fairly poor bowlers like me know that you throw a bit to the right, spinning to the left (if right-handed), in order to curve in between the 1 and 3 pins. A lane set up for amateurs will have lots of oil in the center of the lane and almost none at all at the edges - so if you throw it down the middle, it will keep going straight, and if it wanders off to the side, the ball's rotation will get some traction and curve its path back toward the center. And less oil at all the farther down the lane the ball travels.
Competition lanes have extremely variable oiling that is the bowling equivalent of how "fast" the greens are playing on a golf course - something that changes from day to day and indeed throughout the course of the day, and thus requiring the player to adjust to the conditions.
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That is informative, but I don't really see how it's relevant. You're saying that conditions to score a perfect game get harder as you progress so that there are actually different levels of perfect game to aspire to. That's the opposite of an argument that there's nowhere to go in bowling after you've scored a perfect game.
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Sounds like an issue with the game, not an issue with the player.
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There's still a patch for difficulty: the conditions. That's why the various oil patterns already exist, and that idea can be taken considerably further. If, for example, they used an oil that gets dragged down the lane more easily, the conditions would deteriorate more rapidly and it would be much more difficult to maintain perfect trajectory for 12 consecutive strike balls. Or limit the hardware: the ball is allowed to have the weight off-center, and it generally does, which greatly affects how it wants t
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Fosbury was insanely controversial when he did it
Sure, but it came to nothing because no-one could find any rule that he actually broke and varying techniques for clearing the bar already existed. Also, like you said, you can't argue with results. So it's now pretty much the standard way of performing the high jump. They could have always split the sport into forms that allow the flop and others with strict form requirements. Maybe they did and I just don't know enough about the history of the sport. If that's the case though, it still seems like the flop
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There were several techniques for the javelin that were more effective but banned because they had the small downside risk of killing spectators.
However- in this case, it doesn't sound like he is risking hurling a bowling ball into the adjacent lanes or the spectators and it's within the rules too.
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Oh and doing a flip during the long jump was banned too.
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This happens all the time in eSports. For example, someone figured out it was faster to strum the back of the controller in Nintendo Tetris, rather than trying to tap the d-pad, allowing previously unbeatable levels to be cleared. Some people were annoyed, but most just leaned the new technique to stay competitive.
You just have to deal with it. These things happen in sports.
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Then have bowling go back to its slow irrelevant death?
The opinions of a Luddite that can't keep up with disruption and the techniques of a new generation of competitors is as worthless in sports as in tech.
Disruption is not only good for it, it may be the only thing that at least temporarily saves it.
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If that's really such a big deal, just change the rules to only being allowed to use one hand.
The bowling version of the Eddie Gaedel rule...
The cheating started long ago (Score:2)
This is just the next step in the practice of oiling the bowling alley most of the way to the end so as to allow the ball to go straight and then curve sharply. This has dramatically changed scores as it made strikes a lot easier (the curve allows hitting at the perfect angle to get a strike).
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Video (Score:5, Informative)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
First is conventional bowler.
Second is Belmonte, about 25 seconds in
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Holy crap! That's a lot of spin! It's like the ball bounces off an invisible wall or something!
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
First is conventional bowler.
Second is Belmonte, about 25 seconds in
Honestly, his technique was much less weird than I thought it would be (yes I am a bowler... a VERY BAD bowler).
Not granny style (Score:3)
He's not bowling two handing granny style, I don't think he's going to add double or even 50% more energy to the ball: https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Re:Not granny style (Score:4, Informative)
Secondly, the optimum impact angle for the "pocket" behind the head pin is 6 degrees. That's more or less impossible to do with a huge hook down lane. You'd have to be three lanes over to get that angle without it. Higher revs, and more energy left means it will snap back more, meaning it hits harder, at a more advantageous angle.
More revs also mean you can throw harder, and still have the ball react the way you want it to, so you can use more of the lane than a low to mid rev bowler.
Bowling is way, way more math and physics than you ever imagined. I talked about cores, but not about cover stocks, or how you drill the ball relative to the core to make it behave in particular ways, or why two handed bowlers have developed ways to reduce their revs for certain conditions.
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Two-handed bowlers almost always have the ability to throw a normal one-handed spare ball as well, because it's often necessary to throw straight at something.
He better watch out (Score:2)
Don’t want to get Munson’d.
He can kill Dracula with his balls (Score:1)
Just look at Jason's last name. He's descended from a line of Vampire Hunters.
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For those who don't know (Score:5, Insightful)
Also the scoring is set up so that your score shoots up very quickly with a little bit of practice before leveling off (I think around 240 for a dedicated hobbyist but don't quote me on this).
I suspect this is a trick to encourage newbies. I now going from 240 to 300 is a lot harder though.
Buddy of mine was good enough that with more practice I think he could have gone pro, but it's surprisingly expensive to get that practice and except for 2 or 3 guys nobody makes a living.
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I don't know how many professional bowlers the world needs, but it seems like it will support several dozen to a few hundred. I don't really care for the sport, but if someone can make six figures from what most would call a hobby, I won't begrudge them that.
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It's like playing in a metal band. Even the bigger ones often have day jobs.
Old men yelling at clouds (Score:2)
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Exaggerated Story (Score:2)
First of all, Belmonte used to bowl with one hand and I've even heard some people claim that he criticized two-handed bowling before he adopted the approach. When he did start bowling with two hands, he wasn't even the first to do it in the PBA but this article makes it seem like PBA bowlers had never seen such a technique before. Don't get me wrong, Belmonte is a beast and his suc
Might be a stunt (Score:2)
But this has happened before and this time we are going to find out how the professionals wish to now define bowling, faced with a new possibility. I used to have a friend who bowled left-handed, outhand where his thumb left the holes last and some lanes wouldn't let him. Wasn't
Jesús Quintana (Score:2)
A "cheat"? (Score:2)
"Not everyone welcomed his arrival. He's been called a cheat"
If it doesn't violate the rules, it's not cheating...and apparently it doesn't violate any rule.
Either amend the rules or admit that the guy found a legitimate way to bowl that produces better outcomes (higher scores).
GQ on Slashdot? (Score:2)
Not New (Score:2)
Second Link: It's "rpm", not "rpm’s". (Score:2)
And Jesus... the 90's called, they want their website back.
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In speech, it very frequently is "RPMs" or "RPM's", in the verbal form of "rip-ems". Athletes don't care about conservation of plurality, unless they also happen to be pedants.
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In speech, it very frequently is "RPMs" or "RPM's", in the verbal form of "rip-ems". Athletes don't care about conservation of plurality, unless they also happen to be pedants.
I see you're a subscriber of the descriptive model. So if enough people are wrong but keep repeating it, it will be correct!
Damn those people who think they're right, those elitists who... graduated middle school.
bowling physics video (Score:2)
Veritasium has a video on bowling that goes into the physics, ball technology, lane oil, and so on. it's very informative and surprisingly interesting: https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Salam (Score:1)
Hilarious! (Score:2)
Bowling purists.
The only "pro" sport more laughable is cornhole.