I never got around to telling the story of my glorious 138 in bowling last week, a new career high in the final law-school bowling night of the year. (Woohoo!) I will do that after the jump… but first, a few Thursday-night post-bowling pictures from the Backer:


Me and Sophia in what she rightly called “a classic Backer picture.”

Me and Chris, singing along to one of the many Backer classics. (You know how they always play cheesy-yet-wonderful ’80s music? Do you ever wonder what they played in the ’80s? Were they actually contemporary back then, or did they play cheesy-yet-wonderful ’60s music?) Photo by Jimmy.




Jimmy and I do the old “you take a picture of me while I take a picture of you” trick. (My flash fired late, so I didn’t really get a good one, alas.) Photo by Jimmy.

Being the “#1 Katrina blog” and all, I obviously had to take a picture of this t-shirt on the bartender.

Oh, and here’s a picture from the bowling alley. The exposure was terrible because I was far away and using flash, so I had to seriously enhance it in iPhoto; hence the weird lighting. But anyway, it’s Sarah with a pitcher:

Fun times!

Anyway… about that 138. I know you’re all dying to hear the whole story. (Humor me, people…)

Law school bowling on Thursday — the last official bowling night of the semester — was a bit chaotic. There are seven people on Team Beefeater, but only six can bowl at a time on a lane. Usually, this isn’t a problem, because inevitably somebody is either sick, or out of town, or has homework, or has a Gonzaga game to watch, or something. But last night, for the first time since (I believe) the second week, we had all seven people there, which meant we couldn’t all bowl at once. Patrick’s team, two lanes over from ours, had a similar problem. So Patrick and I, the team outcasts :), tried to bowl on the open lane between our two teams. It was, as I said, chaotic: we had technical difficulties … we started over … Patrick’s brother Lee was bowling with us, then he wasn’t, then he was, then he wasn’t … the open lane’s regular occupants showed up … they were going to kick us out, then they weren’t, then they were … etc. etc. It’s a long story, but to cut to the chase, it turned out there was a legitimately open lane a few lanes down, so Patrick and I decided to go down there and bowl while the rest of our respective teams finished up their first games.

Good move for me. Dunno if it was the faster pace, or being away from my teammates :) or what, but I bowled my best game ever, quickly jumping out to something like 65 pins through four frames. I then cooled off a bit, missing a few spares in the second half of my game… but heading into my tenth frame, I still had a chance to break my career high of 137. I’d left the ninth frame open, but I had 120 pins on the board. I did the math and announced to Patrick and Chris Pearsall, who were standing behind me: “Not to put pressure on myself or anything, but I need a spare and an eight to break my career high.” I then promptly knocked nine pins down with my first ball, leaving only the 7-pin standing. Nine pins down, nine to go.

You may recall that it was the 7-pin that produced my most dramatic spare ever the previous week. This one topped that one, because of the urgency of the moment. I had to have that spare! I aimed pretty well and bowled the ball about where I wanted to, but it looked like it might be just barely wide right; it was very close. But it just barely managed to nick the thing and knock it down, giving me my all-important spare. Needless to say, I celebrated like a madman, hooting and hollaring and jumping all around. (My celebrations are by far the best part of my bowling game.)

So now, I got to bowl one more ball, and I needed an 8. Some bowlers would think, “end it on a strike,” but not me — I just wanted my damn 8, and my new career high of 138.

Ready, aim, fire — trying not to think about it (when I think too much, I usually screw up), I bowled the ball forcefully, right down the middle, then walked backwards with my hands straight up in the air, bouncing on my feet a little, like a three-point shooter trying to will a high, arcing shot into the hoop. It was a Joanna Lyn Bayot moment (that’s a very old Newington reference that I’m betting no one on the blog will get, especially since I probably spelled the girl’s name wrong). I watched and I waited. The ball — my trusty greenish-blue 12, the perfect weight with the perfect size finger holes, the one I’d been using all night — hit the head pin dead-on. It knocked down… six pins… seven pins… [deep breath… two pins untouched, one pin teetering back and forth for an oh-so-suspenseful instant] … EIGHT PINS!!! I jumped up in the air and pumped my fist like Tiger Woods. “YES!!!” Patrick and Chris were, I think, momentarily confused, not having fully registered what I’d explained to them before, and not understanding why I’d be so ecstatic about a split 8 on my final ball; I think I heard one or both of them groan sympathetically for a moment before they realized that I was actually happy. Why the celebration? I ended any suspense very quickly, exclaiming: “CAREER HIGH!!!” Heh. Definitely the highlight of my bowling year. :)

(And yes, I’m well aware that calling it my “career high” instead of my “personal best” sounds ridiculously pretentious. I do that on purpose, because I think it’s funny. Yes, I’m easily amused.)

This is actually the second straight year I’ve set a career high on the last night of law-school bowling. Last year, I got a 125 to finish off a miserable season. This year, I’ve bowled much better — I’d win Team Beefeater’s “most improved” award for sure, if such a thing existed — rarely failing to break 100. I topped my personal record with a 127 on Feb. 3; a 137 on Feb. 16, thanks to my lucky Gonzaga shirt; and now a 138. W00t!

As a matter of fact, I was wearing a Gonzaga shirt again Thursday — a different one. I was wearing the “Kennel Club” shirt that Kristin got me, via a friend who still goes to Gonzaga. (See photos above.) This is a big deal in the world of Brendan’s Superstitious Sports Nonsense, because it means I no longer have to worry about that shirt possibly being unlucky. (Explanation and back story here.)

So anyway, yeah, a 138 for me. Woohoo! Oddly enough, though, my best score ever wasn’t good enough to get me in the Top 4 for our team, even though previous inferior scores had been good enough throughout most of the season. That’s due to the presence of all of my teammates and, especially, to the resurgence of K-Boss, who bowled a season-high 178 on Thursday. Here are Beefeater’s final Top 4:

Chris: 217
Brian: 178
Nick: 169
Joel: 169

Unfortunately, I’m fairly certain the SBA has once again completely dropped the ball on actually keeping tabs on everyone’s scores. We haven’t heard anything about it from them in weeks. Hopefully next year, Chris or some other friend of mine will be appointed SBA sports commissioner, and BrendanLoy.com can take over the scoring. :)