Splitzter - April 3, 2003

  Well, State Tournament is over for another year.  Too bad.  You know how it is when you look forward to something for weeks and when it’s done, there’s a void.  So many stories from the weekend and so little space to fill.  I don’t have the scores from the weekend as of yet as the Valley-Yocom bracket machine churns away.  Next week I’ll devote some space to re-capping what I didn’t see scoring-wise once I get my set of scores.  I’ll just have to wing it with what I heard and observed from the festivities.

            A big “Atta-Boy” to Todd Bischoff who shot his first career 300 during the tournament in doubles in game two.  That was cool hearing the roar of the crowd as Todd threw his 12th strike a dozen lanes down.  He finished his doubles series with a 750 plus series.  Al Pfund was his partner and threw okay, but lamented afterward that he wished he could have given Todd more help.  I believe they shot in the mid 1400s in doubles, with handicap. Todd won the in-house raffle for the bowling ball, also.  Nice ball, too.  A Storm Shock Trauma.  Pretty good day, I’d say.

            Duff Parker had a great weekend.  Duffer scored a solid 700 plus series in doubles Saturday afternoon and followed up with a mid 600 series in singles.  That ancient Torq ball of his didn’t leave an open all day Saturday as the Duffer stayed clean all day.  He was next door to us on 49 and 50 and commented on how he didn’t have to move but a board or two all day.  That was hard to listen to while I was throwing over the left-hand gutter by game 5.  So to all those folks who say I have no hand, I found someone with less hand than the Splitzter.  I guess that means Katie has more hand than both of us combined.  No great shock, I guess.  I paired with him Sunday in team event and he shot another good 600.  The little turkey led the pair.  I’m not sure if that means we bowled lousy or he bowled great.  Okay… he bowled great.

            Best story of the weekend?  Anyone who was… um… lucky enough to see Scott Lange’s bruise last year after his tumble in the jacuzzi knows the pain he was in all weekend.  The joke the entire trip south Friday was how long it would take him to bang himself up this year.  Old fumble-feet didn’t disappoint.  We weren’t in the rooms 10 minutes before the phone rang.  Those magic three words started the phone call, “Scott’s bleeding again.” It seems he found a short cut to the conference rooms through the window and safely negotiated 80 percent of it.  My gut hurt for 20 minutes I was rolling on the floor laughing so hard.

            Best oops of the weekend?  This relates more to the ABC trip a few of the boys took the previous week.  Those who know Geritol Bill Botjer understand he’s a stickler for details.  Bill was concerned that his doubles partner, Denny Boyer, not miss the tournament start time.  He double-checked Denny’s wake-up call so he wouldn’t oversleep.  Bill went through the whole list of things that could go wrong so that he’d be sure Denny would be there.  Satisfied that his partner would show, he relaxed.  Well, guess who races into the conference center in the eighth frame of game one of doubles about half an hour late?  Not Denny, but Bill.  I hear he took a “short-cut” that landed them somewhere in Nevada.  Too bad the tourney is in Kentucky.  You gotta love it.