Every fan of the Lumber Liquidators PBA Tour can now download the 2009-10 edition of the PBA’s Official Media Guide for FREE.

At 310 pages, the PBA Official Media Guide is the ultimate resource for information about the Professional Bowlers Association – make sure you have plenty of paper in your printer and a good supply of ink before you hit the “print” button.

The PBA story begins with the story of Eddie Elias, an attorney from Akron, Ohio, whose vision to form a professional platform for the sport of bowling rose from humble beginnings in 1958. Last season, the 50th Golden Anniversary season of the PBA celebrated in grand fashion during Tournament of Champions week in Las Vegas where the 50 Greatest Players in the history of the PBA Tour were honored.

The names of the 50 greatest players in PBA history may be found on Page 18.

The PBA’s 51st season got underway in 2009 with the birth of the PBA World Series of Bowling in suburban Detroit which recently culminated in spectacular fashion with the live PBA World Championship final on Dec. 13.

Starting on Page 25 you will find the entire lineup of exempt players for the 2009-10 season followed by player bio pages and statistical information for each and every player.

From there you will find a complete record of the 2008-09 Lumber Liquidators PBA Tour season, fascinating historical records, information about the PBA Senior and Regional Tours in addition to player awards and PBA Hall of Fame records.

I would tell you more about it, but I am printing a copy of my own and I think my printer just ran out of paper and ink.

Approximately 9,000 women will converge on the Green Bay area between the end of January and the early part of May to compete in the 89th annual Wisconsin Women's USBC Bowling Association State Championships.

Taylor Fischer won four titles at the 2009 United States Bowling Congress Youth Association City Tournament.

The Official 2009 PBA Tour Media Guide is now available online in pdf format.

The guide includes complete player bios, tournament stats, archived historical data and much more. 2009 is the first year that the PBA is offering the Media Guide in pdf format, which will allow every fan with a computer and internet access to download a copy and view this massive storehouse of bowling info.

To download or view the Media Guide, simply click on the following link:

http://www.pba.com/Content/files/pressroom/MediaGuide_09.pdf

December 26, 2009, 12:33 AM / His fourth-place finish didn't automatically qualify him in the USBC Team USA Trials last week in Henderson, Nev., but John Szczerbinski of North Tonawanda will be on the team nevertheless.

The Fred Mathiasen Classic League at Great River Bowl is known for its scoring. But last week's output was unbelievable.

The Fox Cities Bowling Association will hold the 2010 Match Play Tournament on Saturday, January 2, at Sabre Lanes, 1330 Midway Road, Menasha.

Tom Smallwood defeated Wes Malott in an absolutely thrilling PBA World Championship final showdown. This tournament finale brings to an end the inaugural World Series of Bowling, which over the last year has been debated nearly non-stop on the PBA message boards and through the media.

Many people commended the PBA for taking this drastic step to build the profile of the PBA to a worldwide audience, while many others nit-picked pieces and parts that challenged the tradition and history of the PBA Tour.

The WSOB spanned a little over a month in August and September. Seven different PBA tournaments were conducted in that span of time alongside Women’s Series events, and even the PBA Senior World Championship.

The WSOB challenged the greatest bowlers in the World to compete on physically and mentally demanding conditions with very little recovery time between events. Many were hampered by injuries and exhaustion, let alone a revised set of lane patterns that were incredibly difficult to navigate.

The WSOB inspired a wealth of International talent to test their skills against the best players in the world for one month in August. Talents like Osku Palermaa, Martin Larsen, and Paul Moor traveled over the Atlantic Ocean and into Detroit for a shot at bowling stardom in America.

The WSOB led to the dramatic improvements in Xtra Frame and coverage of professional bowling via live internet stream. Including post day recaps on PBA:39X60, player interviews, product spotlights, and nearly non-stop qualifying and match play action.

But everything about the WSOB wasn’t well received by fans. Almost all of the telecasts were tape-delayed by nearly two months and with the tour stationed in one location for seven events, other towns that would have hosted some of those events were left without one.

Two weeks ago, the WSOB concluded with an incredible live final that sent the PBA and former GM employee Tom Smallwood on a whirlwind media tour. But that wasn’t the only incredible story to come out of the WSOB.

Walter Ray Williams, Jr. kicked it all off by winning the Motor City Open and topping one of the most star studded PBA finals fields in this decade. A final that included Tommy Jones, Bill O’Neill, Pete Weber, Chris Barnes and 103 combined titles.

Next, Norm Duke defeated Ryan Ciminelli in a seven-game Cheetah Championship final which aired using a unique documentary style telecast (you can even watch it now on the pba.com home page). This telecast helped the average viewer take a peek into the inner workings of a PBA tournament and the difficulty of winning one. And it was, in my opinion, the best of all of the named pattern championships.

Rhino Page arrived at the WSOB with new motivation and a new haircut and made his first telecast of the season at the Viper Championship. He would face fellow lefty Ryan Ciminelli, who was making back-to-back finals and trying to earn an exemption for the following season with a victory. The two put on a clinic on how to strike using urethane, which hadn’t been seen in quite some time. A couple stubborn 7-pins in the last few frames sealed Ciminelli’s fate. Well that, and Rhino just kept striking.

The Chameleon Championship held true to its name, changing on what seemed to be every shot. And the leaders of each match changed at a pretty frequent rate too. Ronnie Russell pushed Bill O’Neill into a position where O’Neill had faltered in the past. Needing 18 pins in the 10th (which by the way, was pretty hard to come by during the day) O’Neill peppered the pocket with two rack busting strikes to win and get that annoying monkey off his back.

The Scorpion Championship saw Mike DeVaney earn only his 2nd title in nearly seven stellar years by defeating Jason Belmonte in the final. Maybe more newsworthy than his victory was the fact that he was living out of his car before the WSOB to save money for it. A good win for one of the good guys on tour.

If seven years between victories seemed like a lot, how about 14? Jack Jurek took down reigning Player of the Year and King of Bowling Wes Malott and then outlasted Mike Fagan in a one frame roll-off for his first title in 14 years!

And who can forget the Women’s Series? Shannon Pluhowsky made three out of five shows and won twice. Kelly Kulick made two out of five shows and won twice. Liz Johnson made two out of five shows and one once. Carolyn Dorin Ballard made two shows without winning. The only other lady to make a show during the Women’s Series at the WSOB was Lynda Barnes. Those are the only five names that made the show in a Women’s Series that was averaging over 30 women per event.

With that said, I’m wondering who your 2009 PBA World Series of Bowling MVP’s are? Shannon Pluhowsky and Kelly Kulick are clearly the frontrunners on the Women’s side with a slight edge to Pluhowsky since she made one more show than Kulick.

As for the men, I think you have to engrave the mythical award with Tom Smallwood’s name. I don’t think the major is the only reason either. Nothing like losing your job and deciding that your best career move at that point is to try your hand at the PBA Tour where you have amassed only $12,077 in career earnings over the course of nine events in five years. With all that added pressure to perform he managed to make match play in six out of seven events, with three top 10’s and a major victory.

THE BIG FOUR

• No bigger story in bowling than Tom Smallwood capturing the PBA World Championship last week. What an incredible final! Seriously, I got goose bumps watching those last couple of clutch shots.
• Scott Norton won the Regional Players Invitational in Reno this past week. More importantly, Ryan Ciminelli won an exemption for next season, which means your non-exempt point’s race just got a lot more interesting. Currently leading that race is Dave D’Entremont with Andres Gomez nipping at his heels.
• Have you seen Wayne Garber throw the ball lately? I think he takes the cake for uniqueness in his approach to throwing the ball. When I was about 12 years old, I used to take about 11 to 13 steps depending on what mood I was in. I cut back to a five step approach the week after I forgot how to coordinate my random approach so that I would slide on the correct leg (Yes, it got that bad). I counted 11 steps for Garber on a consistent basis. It would be pretty impressive to me if his slide foot and body line up with the same boards shot after shot because he does side step a little bit over the course of the 11 steps. I mean, isn’t it hard enough to drift consistently with a four or five step approach? Anyways, if you haven’t seen it yet, you will when the Pepsi Red, White & Blue Open presented by USBC final airs in January, as he qualified 2nd.
• The PBA redesigned their website and I have to say I like it. Best part is that you can comment now on all my blogs at the bottom of the page. Let me know how I am doing or if there is something you’d like my opinion on.

MY TOP TEN

1. Rhino Page (E) Rhino and Wes had a good match and it could have gone either way, but I didn’t see anything that was worthy of knocking him off his perch atop this list.
2. Chris Barnes (E) (Channeling my inner Kanye West) "Tom, I'm really happy for you, and I'm going to let you finish, but Barnes had one of the best WSOB’s of all time," (even though he didn’t win)
3. Tom Smallwood (NR) OK, maybe I was wrong about the guy. Shows up at the PBA World Championship and outsmarts one of the best on tour and overcomes two Brooklyns from the reigning PBA Player of the Year and King of Bowling Wes Malott in the final to win.
4. Wes Malott (+3) Bloody thumb and all, you fought until the end and were beaten by a better bowler that day. No biggie. (Plus you got hosed to barely miss the R, W&B show). As Brian Voss says, he’s bowled over 600 events and lost 576 of them.
5. Bill O’Neill (-2) In a one game roll-off, you better make the right lane-play choice out of practice or you’ll lose. Bill made the wrong choice and he lost.
6. Walter Ray Williams, Jr. (-1) WRW, Jr. loses a spot only because other guys gained.
7. Sean Rash (-3) I fully expect this to be his lowest rating for the rest of the season. I’ve got a hunch that he’s going to break back into the winner’s circle real quick.
8. Norm Duke (-2) Norm’s kind of a mystery to me. When he makes the show he’s the greatest player in the World. And then he just disappears like a comic book hero.
9. Jack Jurek (-1) Jack had one of the best WSOB performances on tour.
10. Jason Couch (+1) Injury free and bowling very well.

QUOTES OF THE WEEK

“My career is set.”

Ryan Ciminelli after securing his exemption for the 2010 season during the Regional Players Invitational. I guess I can’t argue with him and I think we all expect him to do well on tour as a full time exempt player.

"I think I'm pretty much done as a full-time touring player. I've done some soul searching. I like my normal family life. I like being able to go watch my oldest son bowl in collegiate matches. I'm not at the top of my game any longer. So I think I may bowl the majors and maybe the open entry events, but not much else."

Doug Kent contemplating retirement as a full-time player from the PBA Tour.

"The scores were very high, but people need to realize the Red, White and Blue patterns are house patterns, not USBC Sport Bowling or PBA patterns. Even the USBC Blue pattern, which is the hardest of the three, is a great deal less challenging than what the PBA pros bowl on week in and week out. Remember, these are the best bowlers in the world. They routinely average 220 or better on most of their patterns, so it really isn't surprising to see them average 10-20 pins higher on the Red, White and Blue house patterns."

USBC Technical Director Steve Kloempken commenting on the high scores at the PBA Red, White & Blue Open. I think this is important to note since many people seemed to think the Blue pattern should have provided a significant decrease in scoring. I read somewhere that the red was an 8-1 ratio, white was a 6-1 ratio and blue was a 4-1 ratio. Most PBA patterns are 2-1 ratio or less, which is essentially flat.

FORUM TOPIC OF THE WEEK

Reno Lane Fiasco

If you haven’t heard by now, during the Regional Players Invitational, the first squad was supposed to bowl on the Cheetah pattern. Well, half the house was oiled with Cheetah and the other half was accidentally oiled with the Chameleon. Honest mistake. As a result, bowlers who had practiced and prepared for 35 feet of oil and hook off the edge found more oil and no hook off the edge. So while half the players in the field were correctly bowling on Cheetah as anticipated, the other half was utterly confused. I think this highlights how much this game has really changed over the last five decades.

Back before my time, bowlers arrived at a tournament without any preconceived notion of what pattern would be out on the lanes. They showed up with their one or two balls and competed on what was out there. The invisible course made the game fun. Almost like solving a mystery, you had a very short time to figure out a way to score and if you were too late in solving the mystery, then you lost.

These days, the named patterns and the ability to show the players lane graphs and all kinds of information prior to the tournament has also opened the door for issues like this to occur, although it is very rare. Players today rely too much on preconceived notions as to how a house or pattern should play. No house plays the same and no machine can lay a pattern exactly the same time after time. It’s the inconsistency from day to day that allows little mysteries to remain like the good ole’ days.

I think this is part of the reason you won’t see Wes Malott shoe up for a practice session prior to the tournament. He doesn’t want a practice session to pre-determine how he will play the lanes the next day as they rarely end up playing exactly the same day after day.

Most good amateurs will show up to any tournament with a 6-8 ball assortment designed for a variety of conditions, whereas the top tier pros will show up to a tournament with a 6-8 ball assortment designed for a particular length and volume of pattern.

At the RPI, when the ball didn’t hook off the edge, players immediately knew something wasn’t right and scrambled to get lined up on a pattern they weren’t prepared for. A great player would have assessed the situation, watched other bowlers during practice to gain additional information and made a quick set of adjustments to get in an area that wouldn’t dig themselves a hole so big that they couldn’t climb out of it. I’m afraid some bowlers got so bent out of shape during practice that it cost them pins for the entire 30 game tournament and not just a few games on the wrong pattern.

Although the end result may not have been the fairest way of handling the situation, the bowlers should have been prepared for anything with an open mind, whether it was a human malfunction or a machine malfunction.

And just when Scott Norton thought things couldn't get any better ... Earlier this month, the 27-year-old Costa Mesa, Calif., bowler passed the California Bar exam and now can start working in the legal profession.

Over the holiday break, PBA fans and Xtra Frame subscribers can enjoy past episodes of ESPN telecasts nearly every day. Here is the schedule through January 11:

Dec. 22 – 2006 PBA West Virginia Championship
Dec. 23 – 2007-08 PBA Exempt Doubles Classic
Dec. 24 –2007 PBA Sun City Classic
Dec. 29 – 2004 PBA Chicago Open
Dec. 30 – 2007 USBC Masters
Jan. 4 – 2004 PBA Reno Open
Jan. 5 – 2004 PBA Empire State Open
Jan. 6 – Pepsi Red, White and Blue Open presented by USBC Round 1 of Match Play
Jan. 7 – Pepsi Red, White and Blue Open presented by USBC Round 2 of Match Play
Jan. 8 – Pepsi Red, White and Blue Open presented by USBC Round 3 of Match Play
Jan. 10 – Post-game show of RWB
Jan. 11 – RWB telecast

Xtra Frame is also working on a highlight recap of all the great moments on Xtra Frame during the first half of the season, as well as a second-half preview in preparation for the Tour's home stretch, which starts with the January 10 telecast of the Pepsi Red, White and Blue Open presented by USBC.