Adding different spin on rev rates
Numbers have been a big part of sports since the days of Babe Ruth's 714 homers and Wilt Chamberlain's 100-point NBA game, and they've always been a fascination of mine.
Thanks to Fox Sports taking over the Professional Bowlers Association's telecasts, bowling has more statistics than just the scores.
The eighth edition of the PBA League began Sunday on Fox Sports 1, a competition that assembled 50 top PBA and 10 PWBA players in Centreville, Va. Only eight of the 12 fiveplayer teams competed Sunday (the other four had byes), but 40 bowlers proved enough of a sample size for me to dive into the numbers.
With "Strike Track" technology, which provides live tracing as a ball rolls down the lane, I was able to record and analyze speed and spin rates for each of the bowlers.
Now, this is a far-from-perfect analysis. Most bowlers rolled only four shots (first ball only), and the network didn't show the graphic on every shot. Darren Tang and Pete Weber each had only one shot recorded, and Weber's rev rate of 290 indicated to me that he didn't get an accurate reading.
Putting that aside, here are some of the things I observed: Four of the top five spin rates were two-handers. Jakob Butturff, a one-handed lefty, snuck in at No. 4. The only other twohander among the 40 who competed Sunday was Chris Sloan of Ireland at No. 13. The average spin rate for the 30 male bowlers was 436, or 35 percent higher than the 10 women (297), all of whom were one-handers (and right-handed). In speed, the male/ female disparity was much smaller, 18.61-17.83 (4 percent difference). The highest spin rate belonged to twohanded lefty Jesper Svensson at 570 for six throws. The top average speed was by Ryan Ciminelli, who recently retired from the PBA Tour, at 20.9. Jason Belmonte, who popularized the two-handed approach and is the unquestioned No. 1 bowler on tour, was third in spin rate (518) but only 14th in speed (18.9), showing that angle trumps mph when it comes to striking consistently. The top spin rate among the women was 345 by Jordan Richard. Shannon O'keefe, who looks effortless in her release, had the top average speed of 19.1. Rotterdam's Liz Kuhlkin was sixth among the 10 women in rev rate (305) and seventh in speed (17.2). B.J. Moore may have been the most impressive one-hander. Like O'keefe, he seems to exert little energy in rolling the ball, yet he was third among one-handers in rev rate (492) and fourth in speed (19.6). “B.J. Moore is probably the definition of the efficiency of motion,” FS1 analyst Randy Pedersen said on the telecast. “I’ve never seen anybody create that much power that looked like they weren’t doing a whole lot.”
So why do these numbers matter? The higher the rev rate, especially if accompanied by speed, the wider a bowler's margin for error. Most of the women didn't have the rev rates of the men, so they needed to be more accurate. It's also why most experts consider women to be better spare-shooters.
If I toss out what I believe was a bad number on Weber, only one male had an average rev rate lower than the top woman. That was Walter Ray
Williams Jr., the PBA'S career victory leader and now 60 years old. He also is likely the most accurate thrower in bowling history.
So you don't necessarily need a lot of revolutions to succeed, but it certainly helps.
National news
Unfortunately, Kuhlkin’s trip to suburban Washington resulted in just four frames on TV — two strikes, a 10-pin and a 3-4-6-10 that she didn’t convert — as her Miami Waves lost in a first-round roll-off to the Brew City Ballers. The other all-women team, the Phoenix Fury, won its opening match Sunday. ... Many of the foreign players who were forced to miss the made-for-tv events over the summer because of COVID -19 concerns are back in the States, led, of course, by Belmonte. The players will remain in Centreville to bowl the animal-pattern finals of World Series of Bowling XI, which was interrupted in March by the pandemic. Those finals will air at 5:30 p.m. (Cheetah) and 7:30 p.m. (Chameleon) Sunday and 9 p.m. (Scorpion) Monday. It wasn't made clear by the PBA, but I believe the World Series telecasts will be taped.
Local scene
Dave Handlowich of Ancram captured the Sammy V's 10th Frame Senior Tour singles tournament Saturday at Idle Hours South in Scranton, Pa., winning $1,000. Rich Strath of Schenectady lost in the first round of match play, earning $140. ... Handlowich teamed with Brett Cunningham of Syracuse to finish second Sunday in Sammy V's over-50/under-50 doubles at Chacko's in Wilkes-barre, Pa. They split $850.