When We Were (At) Kings
The Story of One Man’s Heroic Bowling Performance against the Metro
It didn’t start out so hot.
Back on January 29th during opening night introductions of the Boston Media Bowling League at Kings in Back Bay, Team Barstool was the only team out of 12 audibly “booed” during the pre-game introductions. Granted it was a single boo from a lone assassin, not necessarily from BC Law, but a boo nonetheless. And most likely, the first recorded boo in the history of bowling.
“Who just booed us?” asked El Presidente.
“Who cares” was my reply.
To me, tonight wasn’t about making enemies. It was about starting out 1-0 in our quest to become the first expansion team to win the Boston Media League bowling title since the merger in ‘79. However, after only a few frames with this rag-tag bunch -- fellow-writers Jerry Thornton, Jamie Chisholm, Barstool founder El Presidente, Message Board Admin “Bon” and photographer extraordinaire Eric Levin -- the pre-season, Stalin-like blogs claiming “Total and complete domination” soon became a distant memory. We were awful.
And I felt I was the number one reason why.
See, being the only member of our 6-man squad who grew up around 10-pin bowling rather than candlepin, I knew I had to be the anchor for the team. The guy everyone could count on for a mark. The stopper.
But it just wasn’t happening - I couldn’t find the right ball, there were too many people, I had music blaring, college hoops on the big screen; plus, the amount of hot chicks in that place was ridiculous. They were everywhere. Left lane, right lane, serving drinks – clearly this was a distraction, and sure enough, in the 10th frame against the Phoenix, I fucking shanked an EASY 3-6 spare to finish with a well-below-my-average 121 and cost Team Barstool the win by 6 pins.
Final score of the 2 string match: Phoenix – 1430. Barstool - 1424. Ouch.
As any great athlete would, I took the loss hard. Drunk, dejected – and with the saxophone solo at the beginning of Glen Frey’s “You Belong to the City” playing in my head, I made the 2-block trek by foot over to the Hynes Convention Center T-stop. What was no more than a 5 minute sprint seemed like at least 7 or 8. Sure I had once bowled a 209 at Kings piss-drunk on a Tuesday night in ’04, but that was a thing of the past…
The next week against Kiss 108 we evened our record at 1-1. But after that, it was more of the same. While the other members of our team seemed to be improving each week, I struggled mightily in back to back losses to WBCN and the white-gloved Boston Magazine team - the latter performance prompting Jerry Thornton to describe me on the next day’s blog as “The Manny Ramirez of the team. Our most gifted player, but hasn’t yet had a trancendent performance.”
Jerry was right.
In week 5 we dropped another one, this time to the Globe, but you can throw that match out because it was 3 days before the Cover Model of the Year Party and we had our intern there trying on outfits. Fast-forward to Week 6 – the final week of the season.
With my average now hovering around 130, Team Barstool was 1-4 and found ourselves in a must-win game to make the playoffs against the big bad bullies of the Boston Metro who were atop the Media League standings at a perfect, 5-0. Before the game, all the comparisons were being made to Lake Placid. It was your classic David +28.5 vs. Goliath.
A few things before the match – on my cab ride over to Kings that night I got a voice mail from my dad. Not knowing what was at stake for me, he called to brag about the 205 he just bowled back in Connecticut. The man’s 60. He hadn’t bowled in 8 years and he just rolled a 205! Meanwhile I’ve been bowling the last 5 weeks and hadn’t topped 145.
Another interesting thing was when I arrived at Kings I noticed we would be bowling out of the far right lane – lane 12, which is next to the wall. And after striking on my first practice shot – it hit me. This was the very lane where I shot my 209 back in ’04. I loved this lane. It was private. Obviously there’s a wall to your right and other than the opposing team to your left, there’s really nothing else to distract you other than an Air Hockey table which nobody uses. I was ready to go, and so was our team. Little did anyone know, especially the Metro, of the perfect storm that was about to be unleashed.
Bon lead off the match with a strike. Bowling in the 2 hole, I followed. Double X to start. Team Metro, again perfect at 5-0, I’d say looked more puzzled than worried.
But by the 4th frame, we began to take control of the match. Bon, Jamie, El Presidente and Thornton were all bowling like I’ve never seen them bowl all year. And personally, I was unconscious. Strike, strike, spare, spare, strike, strike, strike. Fans in attendance claimed I was “in the zone”. And I’d have to agree, because for the first time in a long time it became clear why I was put on this planet.
Strike, strike, strike -- it was now the 10th frame and I was working on another turkey (3 strikes in a row). The last score that read on the board was 136 in the 6th frame – so I had no idea where exactly 3 more strikes put me, but I knew it was up there. Another strike. 4 in a row. I was like Jordan against Portland that year in the Finals – except instead of shooting 3 pointers with Clyde Drexler in your face, I was bowling.
When it was all said and done and I had thrown my final ball in the 10th frame I noticed a race car graphic on the scoreboard that reminded me of the old Pole Position game from Atari. As the race car sped around the track, the speedometer on the graphic was increasing to reflect my bowling score. Again, I had no idea where I was because I can’t keep score in my head, especially when drunk.
180…185…190….195...….200!
Holy fuck, I bowled a 201. And not piss-drunk on a random Tuesday. This was in a do-or-die game in the "Pac-10" of bowling leagues - the Boston Media League.
High-5’s, fist-punches and awkward combinations of the 2 were all around. I never know which one to do so I’m back to standard handshake now by the way. And not only that, we set the bowling league record that night with 859 points in the first string against the Metro. Though they gave us a scare in the 2nd string, we won by well over a 100 pins and advanced to the playoffs by a mere 15 pins in a tie-breaker over one of the other teams.
Unfortunately we lost again to the Phoenix in the playoffs the following week. The Metro won the title the same night.
But that night – March 5th, 2007 – will go down beyond a shadow of a doubt, as the single greatest night in the history of humanity and possibly bowling.
The night I bowled a 201 to beat the Metro.
The night When We Were (at) Kings...