Sports are pretty much my life. I’ve played them all, and was pretty damn good at it. I always performed under the pressure, last in the shootout to win the county championship, two outs in the bottom of the 9th with the tying and winning runs on 2nd and 3rd, on the foul line with mere seconds left to seal off the game. i never seemed to fail. The pressure never got to me.
I’ve been a bowler my whole life. Youth league, high school, college and now adult league. Wednesday night I shot the first 9 strikes in a row. While waiting for my turn in the 10th frame, it actually hit me what I was about to try to do. It was the slowest frame in my life. When I finally got up there, I picked up my ball and tried to compose myself…yeah didn’t happen.
First ball in the 10th I yanked to the left and got really lucky that they all fell. 10 in a row. No idea how it happened, but they all went down. I went back to the ball return, and I could feel my legs starting to tense and my heart was pounding. Not only was I going for 300, but everyone in the damn place was watching and the lanes to my left and right had stopped. I didn’t want to pick up the ball, I didn’t want to line up to shoot, but they were waiting. My legs were basically in knots. As I got closer to the line to throw the ball, I basically had no idea what i was doing. As soon as I threw it, I knew it was over. Way to far to the left. It almost still struck on the Brooklyn side, but there the 6 pin stood.
Everyone clapped and I got a lot of handshakes and “nice game”s. 289? Not to shabby. My heart rate didn’t come back down to normal until half way through the next game. I will get my 300 this season. This was a good way to know what it feel like to be close.
On the good side of all of it, I wont the high game pot for the night and walked out with $85 in my pocket.
