It’s been a good second half of the season for Cici’s Pizza so far in the Thursday Night Men’s League.
I was the last to arrive of our fantastic five last night, having volunteered to fill the CX5’s tank for my dear wife Karen because she so graciously allows me to take advantage of the all-wheel drive feature on these snow-filled Syracuse night. I wanted to brave the 6:45 at-the-pump teeth-chatter instead of the 10 p.m. bone-freeze.
How we stood.
The guys were buzzing at the standings. Cici’s Pizza was in fourth. It’s been a good second half after our 10th-out-of-12th place thud in the first chunk of the season. We’ll never be world-beaters, mind you.
So far, so good.
We are by far the lowest-averaged team in this very good league. Yes, since it’s a handicapped format, we get pins every week, but the way-good bowlers regularly roll 250, 275, perfect games … and we don’t. Sometimes my teammates will string a lot of strikes together and get in the higher half of the 200s, but I’m happy to crack the double-century mark.
In fact, when I saw on our team breakdown above that my average had inched to 161 for the first time on the back of two straight weeks of a 520 series, I was smiling even more.
I thought this would be a good week to video our methods to this madness, what with my new YouTube channel, and my four teammates all agreed. Tiny was reluctant at first, but I shamed him into it.
So without much further ado, here are the Cici’s Pizza five, from my iPhone 6, me shooting the other four and Steve Vicik handling my turn on the lane.
Watch closely. There is going to be a quiz at the end, you know.
Steve Vicik leaves and then misses his spare. Sorry about the random timing, Steve.
Randy Dearstine strikes. Big-hooking lefty.
Tiny Hanavan strikes. Smooth guy.
Tom Stagnitta leaves and converts his spare. Steady anchor.
I leave the 10 pin and miss it in the first frame of the night, and then leave it again and make it in the same frame that everybody else bowls in.
We all bowled well, again. Randy in particular had a terrific and interesting second game. He didn’t get a spare. In fact, he didn’t get a spare all night until midway through the third and last game. But his first ball was on. In the second game, he struck from the second through eighth frames.
Here’s how we all finished for the evening.
The other team, ninth-place A.R.E. Truck Caps, had more bowlers stringing more clusters of four, five, six strikes in a row. They took two of the three games and total pins, and that converted to five points them, two points us.
The standings are so bunched, that pulls them a point ahead of us going into next week’s position round. We may face them again. Uh-oh.
Our friend Rachel Carrera wants us bowlers to have nicknames just like KP and Tater and me, Beels, in our summer golf play stories. I’m stumped, accept for the fact that Tiny already IS a nickname. Here’s your chance.
After watching the videos, what do you think our blog nicknames could be? All bowlers will have right of refusal.
Mark Bialczak 
I grew up bowling ‘duckpins.’ Never learned to bowl the traditional way.
As a kid, every Saturday morning, I’d pile onto a school bus with a group of kids and head to the local ‘Fairlanes’ and bowl a couple of games. I had just enough money in my pocket from dear old mom to purchase a coke, French fries, and a slice of pizza. Ah, the good ole days! Such fun!
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Of course I bowled duckpins, too, when I lived in Maryland, Kate. It’s much harder than regular bowling!
When I was a kid, the food I had enough to buy when bowling on Saturdays was an English muffin. Funny what I remember. It cost two dimes.
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I thought you’d know about duckpins!
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Short and stubby pins, small ball with no holes, three throws if you don’t get a spare!
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i’d like to offer a name for the lot of you. ‘the hole-in-the-wall gang.’
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I like the team name, Beth. That’s our underdog status to the ‘T.’ Thank you, my friend.
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Fabulous footage, Mark. A great sport in the winter, for sure.
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Thank you, Aud. Yes, the winter is made for kegling. 🙂
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It is fun just watching and reading your comments. No nicknames shout out to me, yet! Smiles! 4th place is pretty darn good in my book, Mark!
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I think we peaked, Robin. I hope I’m wrong …
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Great Post Mark. Your i6 does an excellent job of shooting video – very stable and great depth. You lads are amazing to me – I have a hard time breaking 120. I’d have to know your colleagues a little better to suggest nicknames. Your team is doing really well – something to be proud of. I really like the short videos imbedded in the post – they bring the material to life. Keep up the great work.
Oh, as an aside Mark, I did a guest post over at Cordelia’s Mom. i would be honored if you had the time to drop by for a read and comment. http://cordeliasmomstill.com/2015/02/19/the-learning-curve-guest-post-by-paul-curran/ Thanks! 😀
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Thanks for your kind words about my new video additions, Paul. I’m trying.
I’ll get over to Cordelia’s Mom’s to read you, of course! 🙂
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YAY! You’re warming up to the nicknames! Okay here are my suggestions: Steve should be “Train” because he drives it right down the middle like a locomotive. Randy obviously should be “Lefty.” Tiny should be “Dr. Smooth” because he’s so smooth in his delivery. Tom should be “Smiley” for obvious reasons. And as for my favorite bowler, Mark? “The Long Island Kid” seems fitting. 🙂 When do you bowl again? I’m dying to know what they guys think. (This is only my first round attempt… If you don’t like these, I can come up with more.) 😀
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We bowl Thursday night. I will let you know, Rachel. The Long Island Kid is on my list!! 🙂 You are a good one for starting this, you know.
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YAY! I can’t wait to see the embroidered shirts with the new nicknames. 🙂
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You and the embroidered shirts, Rachel. We are just a poor squad of five regular Joes with a sponsor that went out of business!
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I love bowling. It’s part of our heritage. But it doesn’t have the cool, dark panache of billiards. Yet, they occupy the same space. They’ve written books and made movies about pool hustlers. You’ll never see one about a bowling hustler. If you’re good at pool, you can probably get a girl to sleep with you. If you’re going to bowling, nobody cares. That was always a big problem of mine.
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Oh, there are women who like bowlers, Mark. I’m married to one. 🙂 She even comes to the lanes to watch the league play sometimes.
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Before I even finished reading your post MBM I was thinking “I like that classy slappy move” he does. Shows restraint (I probably would have groaned or stomped a foot). Slappy. Though……for some reason it doesn’t sound ……. nice.
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Slappy is sort of … yeah … class clown … but a lot of nicknames are just that, MBC. So Slappy is on the list of consideration.
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I have to say MBM, you carry off classy extremely well.
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What a fun way to socialize through these rough winter months…I stink at bowling, haven’t tried it in years but maybe next year. Love the way you described the lesser of two evils when getting gas–ha! 🙂
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Yes, Ermine, isn’t getting gas around here in the winter, fun? I mean, putting gas into your car around here in the winter, that is? 🙂
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I want to know more about Ding’s Disappear. ?? Congrats on finishing fourth and also a fine year. Very cool with the video. Though I know it’s all relative, I’d do cartwheels and flips if I could hit nine pins down in one toss. You are the master. And so is Randy.
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We still have six weeks to go and could fall way down, Liz, but we we enjoyed fourth while we had it! I’m glad you liked the video. It was fun to put us all up here for my friends to see. I think we have to start a new craze and call it “The Nine Pin Dance.” What do you think?
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You take bowling quite seriously there, Mark. Too bad about the 10 pin … oopsy! So all American bowling is, that and baseball. Perhaps I will take hubby out to go bowling this weekend to forget about this dangblammit snow. Sure, I will have my camera along. What else would I do? LOL Stay warm there, couz! Love, couz from the west
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Yes, it is fun and we love taking it seriously, sort of, Amy. Have fun bowling out there to the west. This snow is getting me stir crazy. 😦
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Um, me too!! I be thinking of going to Niagara Falls. A wee birdie, yep, I still have some, told me Niagara Falls is completely frozen. WHOA BABY!!! First I must get my enhanced license, which will be done by Monday. Then plan, and then execute the plan. So as I am throwing those gutter balls, I’ll be thinking how best to plan. GRIN!!!! (((HUGS))) Amy
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My daughter and her boyfriend went to the Falls a month ago and they were still flowing, Amy, but boy they looked cold in their pictures!
Get that enhanced license and cross the border to show us the wonder of the world. Wow!
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I’m excited, Mark. I heard that tons of people are flocking there due to the absolute frozen-ness, which does NOT happen often. I’ll have to park my tripod in the PERFECT place, and NOT move and hubby can be my body guard! LOL
PS This is exactly what I need in my Life right now. In more ways then one!!! Yippeeeeeeeee!!!!!! Fall shots are a’comin’! And one last thing …. Hubby says he has the paperwork for me to fill out …. that paperwork is buried in his um rather messy study. Until Monday he has, and if those papers are not produced, HI HO I go to the license bureau to get that license! ….. Yep, this is a definite!
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Yay, Amy Rose! That is very exciting. I can’t wait to see the results. 🙂
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Working right now on getting proof of US citizen and proof of age (REALLY MUST I?). I need SSN card (original which I have), NYS license (check), Birth Certificate (still need to locate … grrrrr …. in hubby’s mess AND NEVER AGAIN!), my RN license (check), and postmarked mail addressed to me (check). Whew! All that JUST to get a license JUST to get into Canada. 911 really put a damper on things, let me tell you!! Carry on …… GRIN!
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Good form Mark! How fun to see clips of you and the others. You are a fairly quiet group, I’m pretty sure if I bowled a strike, I’d be doing a football-touchdown-dance! Would that be a bowling etiquette issue? ❤
Diana xo
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That would be an issue only if you crossed into somebody else’s path and caused a bone-breaking collision, Diana. 🙂
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It was fun watching ya’ll bowl. Bowling and pizza sounds like a great combo. Years ago, I was on a bowling league too. It was always fun, the people were terrific, and I loved competing with myself. Bowling will never go out of style.
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I am with you about bowling being a great social game, Me Who. It’s cross generational. Our league has members from 20s to 70s of its 60. And I hope that is always so.
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Good form, Mark! Pizza and bowling, you’re very American. I can’t tell if you’re snapping (in which case, you can be the Snapdragon) or doing a Rock-Paper-Scissors move.
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I may be Snapdragon or RPS. Let’s see how the naming goes, Kerbey. You are first voice in, my friend. Thank you. Do I look like the kid in your blog photo?
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The kid?
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Bowling alleys intrigue me — universally the same everywhere you go.
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So different than golf courses that way. And I’ve yet to lose my bowling ball in the woods or a pond, Ross. 🙂
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