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We thank Manscape for sponsoring this podcast. The following podcast is brought to you
exclusively by the rad rob Radio Network. This is PBA Champion Kyle Trupe,
Heyl Jigo Ledger here at Jeff wriggles here from eleventh Frame dot com. Hey,
guys, Chuck Ritchie here formerly a BOWLTV. Hey, this is Ryan
Schaeffer of Track staff at Valley Bowling Center in Waverley, New York, and
you're listening to Straight Up Five with Johnny Petrackleia Junior, Yo, the boys
from Straight Up five, rad Row dot Orcho and of course JP Junior Pick
it Out, Fear the Fro Baby. Welcome to Straight Up five with Johnny,
a hard hitting, in depth, cutting edge look into the world of
bowling. This podcast will not only cover all things bowling, but will also
give you a wrong look into real life issues. You'll get unfettered access into
the mind of one of the most gifted bowlers of this or any other generation
an they claim it. So without further Ado, Let's introduce you to the
hosts of the show, Brad Rob, Rob Francois, Ro Rob Francois,
Doctor Ocho, Doctor Ocho, and the incomparable Johnny Petraglia Junior John Petraglia Junior.
Hey, guys, looking back to Straight Up five with Johnny Petraglia Junior.
I'm your host, Rad Rob Rob Francois. This is episode number one
oh five and we have a very special guest with us tonight. Who isn't
here right now are my two co hosts, Johnny Junior and doctor Ocho,
which hopefully we'll be here in a second, So hopefully in the next four
or five minutes they will be here. Uh, but we are going to
continue on as usual. Let's see who's here, Chuck, Richie is here?
Good evening, Chuck. Uh. This this is a bucket list thing
for me tonight. I watched this this man that we have here coming on
night on ABC as a kid, and uh was just had the total package.
So but we're going to show some highlights of Mark Baker's career as we
normally do. Hello, John spron what's going on? Dave Picow, what's
up? Let's go, Let's do this. Here is a highlight package of
the career of the one and only Mark Baker. Bob Hanley is still in
it, but he must strike. He as a possible two and thirteen.
This would be a tremendous comeback. Much of the respect I have for your
pros as the fact that well, in the case of Handley, three open
frames and you come back, don't with your dabber down. You just keep
back. We're paid for our performance, not our ability. Right. Trust
is a must, and that was just too much. Mark Baker just took
a trip to the fire stone with that shot. So you're looking for a
first time winner the Professional Bowlers George telecast from Miami Ploda Don Carter's Kendall Lane's
Handley with a one at each three with a Baker's finals hand a chat with
him beg victory for this twenty two year old California. The air conditioning popped.
Doing it wakes me up at night sometimes. Oh forget who first says
shot, We're gonna have a hurling Chris. Okay, let's see what it
is. Here. Here's what happened. The headpin went to the sideboard and
knocked out the twopin. Baker apparently thought, now watch the action of the
headpin. It goes the sideboard twist line the two four and eight. Now
the two pin is standing right Here comes the rack. The five pin has
hit the back of the twopin as it rolls around. Now watch if the
machine touches the pin before the pin falls over. Here we go. It's
rolling. All the benefits of videotype replay. And I see the NFL football
is going to try that, and it's very true. Then look at this.
Here's his reaction, and here's the ruling. You cannot have the machine
help you in the pinfall. So the pin is reset. Baker will have
to shoot the spare. If he makes it, he'll lead by twenty three.
In that frame, you can only say proved that he can do push
ups. That's about it. What a tough flake, but a man that
Turner's two fifty three and three victories, and that frame will long be remembered.
The six last year is he talking to that and he's on the deck.
He's going to believe. Even Mark Baker couldn't believe he's going to lose
the tournament. Look at Baker's jumped up Walter Ray Williams has to make the
eight ten split to win. Watch the pin action. The ball hangs too
wide. We said he wasn't playing to fight the correct shot. He knocks
the two pin down. Walter Ray Williams must make the eight ten split to
win the tournament. He's up in the tenth frame. Here he goes he
has to have it. Baker wins in a bizarre championship match and over on
Bark pass one eight or three or one seven? Day six, Mark Baker
moved to tears. I thought there was no chance will be back the big
one right here, not gonna get there, and Baker is going to be
the winner. Yeah, and Baker knows it. Throws the towel down him.
Now all he's thinking isn't going to stay behind the file. He's seen
the building savoring this victory. Oh for five to the top spot that he
here two years ago. Outstanding performance, just not outstanding enough. Mark Baker
obviously enjoying the fruits of his labor. The Baker has fouled before, as
he did at the Firestone last year. He stayed behind the line though,
leaves only the Tampa and that's just enough. He has no problem, Baker,
a possible two seventy nine games in the driver's seat, just has to
pick up his bone ball, all right? Or Steve wonderlike back of a
game two thirty here in Portland, Oregon, that's the winner or the winner,
Mark Baker, it's a big two fifty five to Steve Wonder Las two
thirty. How's a big expanse here filled with people haven't been here since eighty
two of PBA event, and they welcomed everyone back and especially the winner,
Mark Banker from California. Before we bring in Ark Baker and man, what
a highlight package that was. And I can't wait to talk about that Walter
Ray match. But our co hosts are here. Let's start off with our
first co host, the man with the shiniest mask and bowling. He is
the resident doctor of Straight Up five casually late as always, Doctor Rochow,
what's going on out? How am I late? Just just how my late?
Though? For real? How my lead? Well? I mean your
agel some timeless so I guess. I guess you're not late. That very
sexy hand next to you is the man with the name of the Marquis.
He's number seven in the program, number one in your hearts. Mister Johnny
Petrachlia Junior. What's going on? JP? You know, just another fantastic
Wednesday here with you gentlemen rocking my Bill O'Neill fever hat this week. I
hope you guys enjoy it. I like it. Hell yeah, you guys
are on opposite side. It's going to mess me up. I know it's
bothering me too. Can we flip that? Well, then we can't see.
Man. What's weird is because now it reachs forward to me. You're
going to see leto if it's the wrong way. What's up, Zell.
Good to see you as you can switch chairs. Pleasure to be here playing
Ocho fans in the chat. I understand why. It's all right. It's
the peak seven to seventy six the other night, just you know, throwing
a round sphericle bowling ball that played well, yes, yeah, talk about
serious serious tear here, Ocho. Like, I don't think you've shot under
seven to fifteen like the last month, right, that's not true. Seriously,
some times I watched your bowl, You're threw six in there. I
threw a six to eighty in there. But it's like I said that,
I I that blue ball, the spherical one. I analyzed it and it
was working perfectly with my ball rep which, by the way, again,
I'm going to keep talking about my hat because I do have Bill O'Neal fever
and love to see him make yet another first cut this week. But thanks
to Eric Knaowski for this awesome hat. What perfect timing for me to not
only get a new hat from a good friend, but to also rocket during
Bill O'Neil's fantastic tear at the start of this season, So thanks Eric.
I absolutely agree he is an early front runner for Player of the Year already,
which actually it's not even that long with a seasons, so I mean
we're we're almost halfway through, so yeah, Bill's on a tear. But
tonight isn't about Bill. It is about our special guest. He is considered
one of the top bowllying coaches in the entire world who had a pretty decent
PBA career as well. Let's not make him wait any longer, please,
welcome to the show, mister Mark Baker. Good evening, Mark you guys,
thank you for joining us tonight. How are you, my friend?
I'm doing excellent, see you, sir, Johnny started off. I know
you got plenty of questions. Well, first I'll start it off simply by
simply by saying, thank you so much for being here, Bakes. I
mean, your time is as valuable as anybody is, and the fact that
you go out of your way to join us here and spend an hour,
hour and a half with us is really really awesome. So thank you extremely
from the bottom of all of our hearts a for being here. I'm going
to dive right in, and it's it's no secret your knowledge of the game.
You're literally one of the most renowned coaches in all of the world and
have been a long time. You've and you just continue to build on your
legacy for not only everything you know, but the the people that you have
behind you, that that that are under your tutor, your tutelage. I
just want to know when did you decide to sway your When did you decide
to sway from actually competitive bowling into the world of helping everybody that was that
was a pretty easy decision. I hurt my back in the December of ninety
I had a real good year in ninety and then I picked up a trash
can lid in the backyard of my house and I knew something wasn't right.
I had an MRI done about a couple weeks later, and I had major
back surgery on February fourth of ninety one, which in effect into my bowling
career. So the coaching didn't take the coaching I did. I I dabbled
in the coaching. People wanted lessons, I'd give them a lesson. I'd
never schedule the next one. I didn't really want to do it. I
didn't think I was a very good coach, and people kept calling me and
kept calling me, and I tried to coach in the a nineties. I
had some personal issues I needed to take care of. Tried it again about
fifteen years ago, and it's worked out pretty good ever since. It was
never a life calling, but now that I've done it for this long,
this is definitely what I've been meant to do. That I obviously speaking from
a first hand experience, see the see the way you work and the things
that you do and it's a fantastic And was I muted the whole time?
No, no, no, you're good. You're good. I've seen it
firsthand, the commitment that you have, and it's pretty it's fantastic appreciation.
So yeah, you were at probably what my camp bakes. You were the
solid so you were there, so you got to see it in action.
How we try to make everything run. It's crazy, and we got it
all done. It was always good and good events. Where next ding?
You know, April twenty third's the next camp. So by forty second camp,
Wow, my goodness, forty second camp and it's it's crazy. Your
your camps sell out as as fast as Taylor Swift tickets. I would not
I don't think I would equate those. It's always a little work. I
think I'm at four thirty. I lost one or two. I think I'm
at thirty four right now, which is a good number. Thirty six is
a sellout. She is a joggernaut, that's uh. I'm not a Taylor
Swift type music type person, but you have to tip your cap to her.
She works hard, obviously understand social media better than anybody of all time.
And you know, the kids love her. So you got to tip
your cat. Anybody's made a billion dollars doing anything pretty impressive, damn right,
And you know what that kind of sorry, that kind of feeds to
my next question because you know, like like her and other Titans, you
know, it's it's the progression. It's it's the continuation of building on something
off of other things. So let's talk about aside from the career of Mark
Baker, aside from the from Camp Bakes, let's talk about your newest pregression
in what you're doing with video series. What's going on there? Well,
you know, I have this very cool place, like coach called the Westpac
Training Center. I got a little private two lane center and after about six
months of working here, I got to see the game from a completely different
standpoint where I'm watching people, you know, the camera set up on strike
seeker, and I get spect on every shot the player's coming at me with
a camera. I'm seeing a front view, and I just thought, you
know, I did a DVD. I did a book twelve years ago or
thirteen years ago, and I did a DVD and I swore off I would
never do anything again because those things are in labor. Love you really don't
make any money, and it takes a year of your life, and then
all people do is take shots at you. I'm like, but two things.
I had a very unique view, and I really want to do one
more thing. And I really thought that two handers deserve their own instructional video.
I've done the two of the two headed camps in Las Vegas. I've
had a chance to work with VI and True and Chris Sloan and Anthony Simonson,
and it's those two handed bowlers are that they're fanatical, and I thought,
there has to be a video for these kids. We can't just throw
them to the wolves because some of the stuff on YouTube, me being nice
is crap. It's just terrible. So let's be honest. So I decided
to do something. I put my money where my mouth was, and fortunately
I landed on two pretty good models. I got Anthony Simonson and I got
Jason Belmany, without a doubt, the two best who ever lived the two
handed So we all came together, we put a lot of work into it
and it came out unbelievably well. It's a pleasure to watch, and it's
cool you talking about the two handers. Other than what they see in front
of them, guys like a Simon or abelmore Ra Kyle. They don't have
any literature or like any previous books written about what they do. Like it's
like when you know the old school mentality of say, my dad, you
know, you got to make sure your shoulders are square perpendicular to the foul
line, follow through towards your target, keep the coup of your elbow facing
forward. I mean, even going back to your book, I remember one
of my favorite pages in your book was I think it was like page seven
or eight where you had eight completely different bowlers in the exact same spot at
the completion of their pivot stuff going into their slide. I think Carolyn dorn
Balader was in there and let them Manicelli just to name a couple of people
in there. But it's crazy that all the other elements don't necessarily apply anymore.
You know, we see Zach Wilkins just because I saw him shot three
hundred today, you know his follow through goes way further left across his body
than even say I'm Fagan's. And you know a long time ago that was
like a big no no. And the same thing with say Yesper's third and
fourth steps leading into his slide, like there really is no true way to
get to the line at all. We can go as far back as looking
at somebody like Mike Lickstein, but they're all in that same spot at the
at the completion of the swing. So my question to you when it comes
to the two handers is do you see some similarities there with the bigtime compared
to a tradition? So I have you know Simonson and Belmo. Everybdy tells
me how different they are, but he will look at my video from the
front from their third step on, they're identical. I mean they are mirror
images of each other. So my premise was, how can these two guys
have such a great record in majors because majors aren't about reverie. Majors aren't
about who can hook at the most. Majors are about who's the most accurate.
Because majors tend to be brutally tough, and that stuff they bowl in
the US Open now is just nasty. Every day it's worse. And then
you know the who leads it, Belmo and Simo one two. So when
I got to bring him into the training center, and I also I did
a one headed video. I brought in Danie mc keeying, Chris Prather,
and Dave Housted, so I had no slouches involved. I mean, is
were all everybody has. I think we had twenty eight majors between all the
players. But when you measured who was the most accurate, Belmo and Simo
were not by far. They they had better numbers. Here's how good Belmo
was. I show this thing called the baker Box. I wanted three shots
from every pro, so fifteen shots to hit this certain zone. Belmo's we
had to use his three worst shots, so he hit six one and forty
five feet, six four forty five feet and six point seven at forty five
feet. Because I showed the other ten they were all six point four forty
five feet, I would have looked like we were. It would have looked
like I just used the same video over and over. So I actually used
three of Jason's bad ones and it was still the three best ones. So
you don't win fifteen majors because your rev rae's high. Everybody has a high
reverrae. Now that's that's not a that's not a thing. I mean the
average reve rate on tour is just through the roof an average revere when I
can watch my son bull JBT and JT's through the roof, so I wanted
to show, Yes, they both both complete different from the side, but
when he gets to the third step, how they bleed off to the left
and their pivost step replaces it, and then then their slides off their pivot
step. When I was showing Jason, I was drawn lines through his eyes
from his third step through a slide. His head doesn't move lateral on an
inch, so your swing lines up off off your you know, your shoulder
swing, so his head's not moving, so his hands are going the same
place, So I measure their timing was exactly the same. They dropped their
hips exactly the same. The biggest difference is Simonson just tilts really early and
Jason tilts after his swing goes back. After that happens, they're kind of
the same guy. Yes, Anthony's lower and he has more neeban and more
tilt, but other than that, they do a lot of things the same
as they have a different style. Have you noticed anything mechanically that I don't
want to say isn't sound because we always talk about this how you know.
Look, you said you had back surgery in ninety one. I'm an anatomy
guy clearly who doesn't a mask and having anatomy degree. But when, uh,
we we talked to Belmo a couple of weeks ago, and we were
talking about how like we don't know the longevity of the two hander because we
don't know I mean the mechanics. If anything, they're using their bigger muscles,
which means they're probably more stable than the one handed guys. And there's
less torque on the pelvis, less torque on the si joints, less less
torque on the plant leg even when you when you stop or or slide or
so and Belmo and I'm sure you probably have some some little injuries, you're
not none. And I was like, Jesus, you're forty years old,
you don't have any. So I'm curious if you noticed anything mechanical that you
could pinpoint and say, well, in twenty years, that could be.
But again, we're dealing with the two best two handed bowlers too, so
tough to kind of say, oh, yeah, I mean, I mean
you can only go by what Jason had the longest run and mean, yeah,
he doesn't. It doesn't seem to. It's when you I spent so
much time studying the two handers to do the video. I mean literally,
you know, fifty hours of just watching them, trying to find what was
unique about him and what was the same, And after a while, Jason's
just fundamentally sound. That's all I can come up with. Looks effortless.
It's like a Mariano rivera fastball. It looks so effortless that it's like a
normal thing, like him just walking to go to the couch and he just
throws a bullet ball with it. I think the term is what efficiency of
motion? There you go. So if you actually take Barnes and you do
you slow Chris down from the side, and you take Jason, and you
just account for a second arm. They're actually their third steps and how their
ball swings, and Jason's actually kind of gets the swinging a little bit late
for a two hander. Jason and Barnes have a lot of things in common.
So I look at like Jason just became the one, the two in
version of Chris Barnes, who was the most fundamentally sound bowler I ever had
had the opportunity to work with and the pleasure to work with. So Jason
does Simo's unique. Jason's just fundamentally sounds. So when I coach my son
Gage, I really do look at Need myself very tall, so I really
do look at Jason. I try to. I try to get my son
to mimic his footwork, his swinging, his timing. I mean Jason,
I mean his record is really good. I mean I bowled on tour for
living. I know how it is. I'll put it this way. When
they did their videos here, we just put them on specto. I put
tape on the lane. Throw between the tapes, put the eight and nine
as many times as you can row, and Jason and Simonson, at separate
times, kind of got into their own contest to throw the most strikes.
When Jason got to like fifteen or sixteen strikes, he said, hey,
mate, how many do you need? Oh? I said, oh,
I was done at five. I just want to see all one. You
can do this, and he just looked over and he said, you got
the tape in the right place today, I can do this forever. And
Dave Houston leaned over and said, I've never said that so and then Simon
come in. He did basically the same thing. And I remember Dave saying,
I'm so happy I don't bowl against these two guys for a living now
because they were they were really impressive in person. So as of as of
injuries, just seems to pick it up, walk up, and throw it.
He seems to be the most natural of all of them. Jason,
like you said, he's never said he's never had an injury. I know
they've had some world series where guys get tired at the end. Jason's like,
if you want to do this again, let's go. So as of
now, I don't really I don't seem to have any injuries with two hnders.
But it hasn't been around long enough, you know, like like you
know, look at me. I was thirty one years old. I was
a pretty good athlete at one time, and because of my my over extended
to push away and I really leaned on it and driving what the doctor thought
was just driving too many miles at the time, just sitting there and that
you know, you're in the band, you know, driving My back got
bad and I was a pretty good athlete, so I only made it,
you know, nine years. I think the biggest advantage going for the guys
at bowl for tour in s a's compared to my era, they don't really
bowl very much. They're not putting in you know, I put in a
thousand games a year on tour, probably a thousand games of practice bold regionals
and PCBs, and you know I was putting in two three thousand games a
year on the right way more than I did too. They're not bowling as
many tournaments, and they don't bowl that stretch where I would leave home at
the end of January, come home at the end of April. They're not
doing that three four months at a time, ten weeks in the summer,
seven weeks in the fall. I have both about thirty one to thirty two
every year. So I think because they're not as many games that they might
that might help them, that might help them not get injured. That's what
I was just gonna say. Because you're Robos, I'll send it to you.
Just want to close with this. I mean, your shortest format tournament
during your your tenure on tour was forty two games. Shortest ever. You
guys are bowling forty two games, forty eight games, or fifty six games
in the case of the US Open, and that was but if you made
the show, now you got enough time to drive to the next stop before
the pro am. I mean, I mean obviously you know I watched my
dad do it as well. In the same time, it's you really got
to give kudos to guys like yourself and guys that have figured out a way
to manage their lives according to that life. And not to take anything away
from the guys out to now, these guys nowadays are ten times even more
advanced, you know, mentally, you know they got all the all,
the all thing makes today's player better than my player. I didn't have mean
a nineteen eighty five. I was high average on tour. I'd say the
thirty weeks I bowled, I threw a black angle twenty six and it was
the same one, three sst two to two eight, no grips, some
sleeve, no extra hole, same ball. I would walk out the bowl
with the ball on my shoulder and a towel. What land am I on
tonight? Boys, Let's get after it. And I made twenty three finals
that year, and I was the first guy ever to be high average with
the most games bowled Walterray after that annihilated that record, but nobody most guys
that went high average at that time were was Mark Marshall. Nur won at
like eleven years in a row, and I'd beat I spared in the tenth
the last game of the show and the title match to beat Marshall by point
zero one for high average. So I threw one ball pretty much all year.
Now they don't throw one ball three games. So the managing equipment and
you know, I tried to explain to my you know, the people that
bowl, like, yeah, we went from first arrow to fifth arrow every
tournament and if you bowl a squad or B squad, you got the end
of a in at night, you would be a fifth arrow. These guys
do it in three games, which we took six twelve, so twenty four
games for our guys to get from between first second arrow and then you were
piping it off fifth arrow with the yellow out of the with the blue dot
the last couple of games of qualifying. These guys do that in a round.
So we didn't make the moves as fast, and we did switch ball,
we didn't have as many options to switch balls. I mean, I
was going to go for my black angle to my yellow out to my white
dot. I had negative leverage and I had three quarter's finger and three quarters
top, so I had like two layouts the same ball over and over.
These guys are magicians with the bowling balls. So I think that makes I
think that gives them the nod because the physical games are physical games. I
don't think ours are better and worse in the day. You let Don Johnson
loose as nineteen now and give Don Johnson two years, he'd be in the
top twenty money winners. Just Dick Weber. I mean, the guys that
were talented, it didn't matter what area. And you put Jason Molmony and
Chris Barnes back in the sixties, they'd have figured it out. Yeah,
we've had that discussion many times on the show about which era was better,
who would have been better, you know, with what conditions, with what
equipment, And I mean it pretty much just cancels out. I mean,
you're going to have the best of the best no matter what area you're in.
They just adapt to whatever. You know, the trend is, you
know, whether it's equipment or or lane's you know, going for wood is
synthetic from your thing to resin so many different variables and factors. The best
are always going to figure it out, and as we're seeing this year,
it's it's always the same guys on top. I did want to ask you,
from a coaching standpoint, when you look at somebody like Kyle Trupe,
who is a two hander and has a little bit of a different style than
Simon and bellmo one thing, I realize that he doesn't have a very high
follow through. He just kind of just puts the ball out there. Just
from a coach's standpoint, do you think that's I mean, obviously it's right
for him, but would you would you kind of try to tweak his fall
through? No, because if you ever, I mean, if you walk
up and you mess around from behind and you just grab Kyle, you better
be ready. He is super strong because of his strength. I think if
he had the full fall through, his Kyle strength is that ability to really
change speeds and go dead straight like in the US so many one he got
left through a shiny ball, slowed it down, had tremendous touch. I
think his short fall through allows him to really manipulate his rotations or tilts,
whatever you want to call it how he gets the ball to shape on the
back. I think his shorter abbreviated fall through. He's got so much touch
there and he's so strong he doesn't need to get us far through it because
he's really got his legs underneath them. Kyle's really strong. So everybody has
their own style. What I would say is Kyle and Vi are more like
one handers at both two handed right for Jason is the ultimate two hander,
and Simo is just Simon was just a little bit of a you know,
he's he's just he's p Webber, right right. Thanks. I want to
feed off that because that was a great point, Rob, because you're talking
about Kyle's strength when you grab him from behind. So for those of our
viewers that that don't know Mark or I've never seen Mark, Mark is a
stud. He's a tall anymore. By Mark's an old dude. Now I'm
turning sixty three next month. Man, you don't have to be modest,
not here. But because this is a dead serious question Mark that I have
for you as a fan and a spectator of your game. For as big
and strong and tall as you are, you had a very short backswing comparatively
speaking, was that. Because of that, my backswing was a little higher
when I went on tour, but my batsman got shorter when I first went
on tour because my ball wouldn't hook. I mean, it was just where
I grew up as with a tunnel oil. They had you know, mixed
vaseline in there, so I always had a kind of a short swing.
I went on tour and the lanes were so hard I had to slow my
ball down. Got through it really hard when I came on tour, but
my ball wouldn't hook at the right place. So you know, we didn't
really use brake point then, so I had to abbreviate slow my feed down,
get my swing shorter, and I had had a lot more rotation because
we bowled on such trash would we bowled in places where the Syracuse where you
weren't playing out because you played out, your ball hit the nails by first
arrow and the ball would chunk. So hey, we couldn't play first arrow.
Now I get to play fit therero I finished sixth there, but you
literally couldn't play parts of the lane because the nails were sticking up. We
didn't bowl in any palaces. We bowled in some real shitholes. So are
the heads hooked so much on tour that I had to change my I had
to tuck my pinky. You know, Roth was, you know, the
master, I don't know. I took my pinky. I had to slow
it down. I had to get way more around it just to compete on
tour because they hooked so much. So my swing got shorter. But then
I got right, could really load up with my right leg and get my
elbow to bend before it became a thing, and I could really get up
on my wrist and just create a different release than what everybody told me was.
I had a different reason everybody else. To me, it was just
me throwing the ball. Like Ozio is always ennambor with how I threw it.
How do you do that? I don't know. It just rolls up
and rolls off. So I never thought about my hand. I was just
trying to get the ball to the front and get it to hit. So
I think it was just more of a product of the environment because they were
so the lanes were really hard on tour. Their scores were so low compared
to now. High average now is around two twenty eight. When I was
high average on Tour. I was to thirteen. They were dirt every week,
I mean one hundred and eighty over. You made the finals every week
average shoo ten. You were bowling forty two games, And like you said
earlier, you just didn't have all the tools, like if the lane sucked,
you couldn't go drills afresh. You know, after that movie in twenty
Minutes and Lichi's polishing machine, there weren't a lot of options, But there
were a lot of options after I moved this way, I'm leaving a bucket.
Well, it were like when you read older Riverside, I shoot three
hundred the first game of B Squad, I come down the low end I
got. You know, mister, I am following Houston. How's this fair?
They hook a little bit, like how much he goes a little bit?
I just shot three hundred. I give it a quick five and three
left. I got one on the left, so then I shoot. I
won ninety ninety one ninety, and then I threw when I one of my
best fines ever. I got a lot of fines. I bowled a six
three hundred four straight one nineties. I bowled the last game at Riverside Bowlington
Riverside VCR. I shoot two ninety nine with seven Brooklyn's. On the twelve
shot, I stoned a six pin and label the ball return. I was
working on like the last five shots, I ran out the brooklyn they were
so bad. I stoned six that still got fined. That's fantastic, you
know, would have happened. Happily paid that fine for that one. Here's
how man finds. I got. How many fines could you have? Your
dad bowled on tour? He was on the tour committee. How many finds
were you allowed to have on tour before you got suspended. I don't know
the answer to this. You could have three in the calendar year. Oh
geez. I hold on tour for nine years. I had twenty seven fine,
perfect game. But what I would do was suit because I am invariably
one of the guys on the term committee. Spigner or Ellenburger would come up,
Hey, by the way, you're you're off, you know, probation
the next the next nine count, I would light the bar return up to
get myself back on probation because that way I'd calm down and bowl good.
So I pretty much kept myself. You keep myself that's amazing. My mom
would get these, you know, these registered letters in the mail. Hey,
what's this one about? Just pay the fine mom I got. I
earned them all. That's one of the best stories I've ever heard. I
had no idea that that's tell. It's just I mean, I played,
so there's a reason behind it. I was a jock, and I was
a pretty damn good high school basketball player. And by the time I was
a seventh eighth grader, I was averaging twenty five to thirty points again my
entire life. So the other team is gonna stop me. Well, I'm
super intense. I'm sixty three. I'm still intense. So when I came
out to play, their job was to stop me by any means possible.
So I had some games where I got thirty five points, where I scored
twenty free throws. I was lit up, bloody nose, bloody elbow.
I loved every minute of it. So I was super intense, ready to
drop out a drop of a hat. So I come on tour and all
of a sudden, you can't get mad. I'm like, wait a minute,
when when Kevin McHale gets tackled by kurrambus in the finals and he turns
around and f bombs him. Tommy Hyson is going, that's the guy I
want on my team. I'm like, yeah, that's how sports works.
When you get mad, you get pissed, you throw an F bomb,
and then you're good Bowling. Bowling did not appreciate that I have. I
didn't know how to control my temper. I was a kid. I didn't
get to go to I didn't go to college. I went right on tour
At nineteen, I wasn't very mature. So as I've gotten older, I've
gotten better at that. But uh yeah, the guys now are are very
very mellow. They don't really do anything. We had some crazy hot heeads.
It was, you know, we had some legendary guys. But that's
that's the difference. In the eras Now what we did would be would be
so frowned upon. And all I ever say is, yeah, you make
fun of my era, and you guys will say that, I mean,
not the players, to the fans. You guys are this. You should
never get mad. All I know is we charge money to come into a
tournament, and we were standing room only. That's exactly you go. Look
at those shows you show and I make there weren't any open seats. They
weren't given away the free seats. We drew a crowd. We may have
been a little bit over the top, but you knew how you knew where
we stood. That's true, That's true. I grew up in Bradley Bowling
wins a locks. I'm originally from Connecticut and in Tennessee. Now. My
mom worked there at Bradley, and I would go when the pros had come
in and it was just, yeah, you're right. It was just a
sea of people. I mean it was packed, not just for TV day,
but I mean the whole the entire week of qualifying and yeah, you
really don't get that anymore. Nuts. Yeah, it was a different era
of bowling was you know, Dave Houston I talked daily. We wish we
knew. We wish in the eighties we knew how good we had it.
Right. We were always complaining about the prize fun. We know, there's
always something to bitch about. Every pro bowler is a good at complaining.
That's never changed in history. I wish we'd have known how good we had
it. I would enjoyed it more. We mean, it was every week
it was sold out pretty much every week, I mean especially when you got
around the mid at Midwest or back East. I mean there was nothing.
I mean I maybe one of my first finals, like eighty two, I
made it in Long Island and I'm from California and about ten guys from New
York are Long Island made the finals and the fans were sitting like behind you
or you sit there at the what was the name of the bowl alley,
Long Island, a little place where you could, oh garden the Garden City
Bowl or Garden City. You know, if you drove a small car,
you could lose your car in the potholes in the parking lot that place.
Yeah, for one hundred and fifty bucks a night, bed bugs for free.
So when you bowl that finals, the people would sit right behind you
and mf you in your ear between frames. If you were beating the Long
Island guy, that was like the greatest week ever. I beat Most,
I beat Janello, I beat BERARTI I beat Roth, I mighty beat your
dad. I bowl, I bolt Sammy Z. I mean I both all
the guys. You suck Baker, You're gonna miss an x ten pin.
I thought that was the greatest, the greatest event ever, and the crowd
was just letting me have it every frame as I sat there, So you
couldn't beat that. Or like when you bowl Milwaukee, you could sit in
the set tea in Milwaukee on the lanes and actually order a beer for the
bartender because the bar was on the lanes. So we had some we had
some good stops. You know, Belmo had some comments when we had him
on the show about your generation, and I kind of want to get your
opinion of this. He was very critical of how good they had it back
then, because you did mention that you guys didn't know how how good you
had it. He doesn't think that the previous generation were good stewards of the
sport because now they have to fight for for TV rights, they have to
fight for advertising, and and they don't. They didn't have a top show
on Saturday leading into wide worlds of sports. Do you agree with that?
I heard his interview and Jason is very eloquent and Jason's points when you know,
Dave use Night talked about it. We talked like, wow, we
never that never even crept into our minds. You know why I never ever
had access to the commissioner of the PBA tour. The only time Joan Nora
talked to me, he was mad at me. Yes, no, it
was not my friend Joe didn't there there was no cell phone. You were
going to text Tom Clark and say, hey, what's going on with this?
I want to talk to you. They would say, you know,
let your ball be your guide. You're on late six. If you say
anything else, we're going to kick you off the tour. So in our
defense, we were never allowed to see the books. We were never allowed
to talk to anybody in charge. All they told us every year when I
bowled on tour, you're lucky. You bowl for what you look for?
Shut up in bowl. We had no access to the to the office.
We mean, we had no I mean, we had no access to anything.
So it was definitely that the tour was run by this group of akron
and we were lucky to be on tour and if you don't like it,
go home, because we got we got hundreds of guys that want it.
I hear what Jason said, his point of view, It completely caught me
off guard. I went, I never even thought of that stuff, because
if people in charge, there was no communication, Like they have these these
meetings where these guys come in and they every year in Man, they have
a three or four hour spirited meeting up there in the in the up in
the mezzanine, and I get to hear, you know, some of the
scuttle bubble goes on, like wow, least Tom Clark will actually take your
call and Tom Clark will actually listen. We as now just me personally.
I never had access to anyone on tour, so I mean I hear what
he says, and he makes complete sense. It was good that it was
packed, but I was from a guy's in the California who saw things a
little different than the guys. I just didn't understand, like, well,
why could we be syndicated. I didn't understand why we didn't have more more
because I'm Hollywood's here, I can look at the ratings. I know who
makes the most money. Our ratings were high. But we you know,
the guy that ran, the guy that the tour was negotiating with ABC and
he worked. So it was kind of weird how that all worked, and
we just were given what we were given, so bankes. I guess my
question is, since those are two complete opposite ends of the spectrum. Do
you have a preference? Again, I said this at the top of the
show. You're a progressive, forward thinker, so you strike me as the
kind of person that will at least you know, like way way both sides
before you make a decision. So my question is which one do you think
is better for the PBA, the access to the commissioner or the do what
you're told and to Nora? Oh no, they hadn't made with us.
They could do what you're told because of what the tour was doing. No,
I wish we would have had more access and we could have helped.
God, how could you not market Marshall Homan and he was worth a price
of a mission when Pete was young, he was worth it. I mean,
we had guys that were fun. We have the way rock stars and
they were legit rock stars in the end. Really weird when you When I
room with Mark Roth for about one year, Dave Eustad's wife came on tour,
so I had a new roommate. I had Roth. No matter where
we went to dinner, they were grabbing him by the hand. Look at
his thumb. Mark Roth. We could not go anywhere without everybody in the
building know who Mark Roth was a legitimate rock star. I put that in
his post when he passed away. He was a myth, he was a
legend. He was a real rock star. And he never wanted it.
He never asked for it. He hated it when you grabbed his hand.
He didn't want to sign autographs. But he was larger than life and we
didn't really do much with that. My biggest complaint back then and now whatever
was so Jason's right. But here's in our defense. One year, Houston
and I qualify one two at the play at the Nationals, but they call
the players Championship. Now Toledo qualify one two tiny little players. Parking lot,
Dave and I come walking in, are driving in with the in my
car. You know you got to show your pass to get a parking spot.
Sorry, all the spots are gone. I'm like, well, they
can't be gone. There's twenty four spots and I'm one and he's two,
and we're here right Sorry. You can go park down Old Road about two
miles. Pay five dollars to take the bus back. So we do that.
We get to the lanes. Of course, we're late for roll call
Dave's not gonna say much. He didn't we you win those naggi ards by
keeping your mouth shut. Me not too many naggy votes, Markus Scutts,
because all the guys that worked for the PBA took them. That's the tour
I bowled on, So no misconstrue what was going on. Jason's right,
we should have had more say so. We didn't realize how good we had
it. We should have owned bowling centers. All those things were brought up
about guys, but nothing ever. We were never allowed, We never really
needed in the Eddie Elias never came to the meeting. The only guy that
mattered was Eddie Elias. He was the smart one. He is who he
knew all the money was. Aunt Nora would not be considered a very good
commissioner. That's I'm sorry. The guys are not there, passed away.
I really shouldn't be saying that. You're bringing up some You know that that
big bruise on my forehead went away twenty years ago from banging against the wall
complaining about this. But that was the difference. We were. We were
just a number. I bowled on tour for nine years. I was in
the top twenty money winners. I think seven years a row or pretty close
to it. And when I had my back get hurt and I couldn't bowl
on tour, and then I said, hey, maybe I could bold a
firestone. I had surgery. You know, I missed all of the winter
ninety one and I'm going to bowl a firestone. If I can't boil the
firestone. I get a check. You know what they said, we don't
trust you, baker. Get a note from your doctor. Prove you're actually
hurt. If you give us a note, we'll cut you the check.
If we don't get the note from the doctor. Like, I'm not in
third grade. I didn't miss because of the flu. Yeah right, you
didn't just skip class one day. You please. I don't have a living
I'm staying at home with that had major back surgery joint and you give me
a give me a piece of paper saying you're hurt from your doctor when the
surgery was, and we'll cut you a check for the fifteen hundred last spot.
Wow, So that's how much access I had now, I was obviously
you get me going. I had no problem speaking my mind. Sure,
And that wasn't very well that was not like at all, So I get
what he's saying, and in hindsight, he's one hundred percent correct. It
was great. We didn't know how to. We didn't know how to I
mean some of the some of the lawsuit stuff where the players sued, the
tour and all that. I mean, we had some guys Joe Hutchinson and
Charlie Tapp. They would have been as good as you could get doing a
clinic. Two guys that enjoy each other's company, as funny as like Joe
Hutchinson's one level below Robin Williams. That's how fast Joe was. But if
we were within five hundred miles in an event, you couldn't do a clinic.
Like but it's on Sunday, there's no TV show, we're not bowling,
you can't do a clinic. So there were a lot of things that
restricted us from expanding. Like what Sean rash does now is amazing. I've
done clinics, I've traveled. Sean is nuts how much he's willing to travel
to do clinics, and it's great for the game. What Sean does is
amazing. He gets Danielle and gets Ryan Simonelli and he gets some other people
to go Stephanie's valla. They go with him. It's amazing all over the
world where Shan will go to do a clinic and from what I hear,
they do a numble great job. We weren't allowed to do that, so
that there's some difference, is what we just were restricting what we could do.
When you want to make a living soon later, you keep your mouth
shut. You guys were just cattle, it seems like. And then if
you didn't like, if someone will replace you, you know, somebody who
can give more milk, basically, like that's just kind of you know,
I'm sure there were guys that had a much better relationship with with the home
office. I'll take it. I'll take it in general, like obviously you
you had a you know, you had your reputation. Sounds like, well,
so banks, I'm pretty quick. I wanted to know that I lose
my train and thought fast. So I want to spit a couple of things,
uh, based off everything you just said. Uh. Number one,
you were talking about the rock stars of your era. And one of my
personal fondest memories, which I haven't really shared with a lot of people,
was good old kyro Leer Lanes here in North Brunswick. The former owner of
the property was Lee Livingston. Obviously you definitely remember Lee. I mean I
never walked here there talk about it. You never did? That, wasn't
that? Never? I quit And my last year was ninety oh ninety Well
the first the inaugural year of Dad's JP opened, that's right. Shit.
Well, anyway, the the former owner of that land love bowling like there's
no tomorrow. Lee Livingston, God bless him, fed the homeless every single
weekend, not nothing but great things. The inaugural year of the JP open
in nineteen ninety one, they did a little peace where they're talking to her
and they actually show a clip of me hitting a whiffleball with Mark Roth catching
and Dad pitching. Well, that particular week, Lee Livingston sent myself,
Dad and Roth to the box at Shay Stadium, which was halfway between home
plate and first base, just above the dugout, about four rows back box
seats, and I remember distinctly sitting in the front with Dad and Roth was
behind Dad in the box and the line of people coming from the mesodine level
to get both of their autographs. Now, granted this is nineteen ninety one.
This is like after Post and everybody knew who they were, you know,
and just kind of remember Mark Roth saig my dad saying John, I'm
real sorry, I have to help these people, and Mark saying, here
we go again, like he was so youth. They were both so used
to it. It's it's crazy like to hear it from somebody like you,
and I was so I wanted to bring up that awesome uh. Mark took
me to my first March hockey game. We went and watched the New York
Rangers play the Chicago Blackhawks in Chicago. I had never been to a hockey
game, and so I was cheering for both teams. I didn't know.
You weren't supposed to cheer from LA. Everybody cheers for the opposite team,
you know, right, you know, when the Yankees come to Anaheim,
more people are cheering for the Yankees and they are for the Angels. I
never been to hockey games. I've seen on TV. It didn't make any
sense. So we're sitting there. So the first two goals were scored by
the Blackhawk. Now, when you're at a hockey game, you can actually
see what icing is like. Oh, Okay, that makes sense, but
you can see the play developing, the guy pass and then that guy experience
such a different person. But then then the Rangers score and I go ballistic
and Rosss like grabbed me, sit down. I'm like, no, that
was The Rangers come back and beat him three two. There the crowds get
ready. He went for all wanting autographs from Mark, and they're trying to
kill us because I kept searing for the Rangers. I didn't know you couldn't
cheer for the opposite team. So when we were there the first two periods
and Mark might have signed five hundred autographs, they just lined up. It
was like eighty four when Mark was in his prime. He just signed him
all. I mean, Harry were like, they're just knocking to that's Mark
Rocca. His bowling was, you know, so big back then. But
Mark, he was the real deal. Mark. My comparison to that is
when when I was when I was married to to my my ex who I
hope she's doing great. She We went to school in Youngstown, Ohio,
which was an hour from Cleveland and an hour from Pittsburgh. And my dad
is close with Bill Cower and his best man at his wedding was Jim Mueller,
the old announcer for the Browns. God rest his soul. So we
always rooted for the Jets, the Browns, and the So when I first
got to Youngstown, Ohio, and my former father in law says, so,
who's your football team? And I said the Jets, but I rooted
for the Browns and the Steelers. He practically threw me out of the He
threw me out of the house. But you're not allowed to do that here,
dude. That's serious. Like, I know, if you're a Red
Sox fan, you don't like a Yankees or vice versa. But I didn't
know that when I got there. So that's funny that you brought that up,
rob What do you do? It was a great time on tour,
and I listened to Jason's interview you guys, I was like, Wow,
Jason sees the world different than every other. I think Jason has a unique
look at bowling because of where he came from and how he got on tour
and obviously the two handed thing and some of the you know, the garbage
that he had to deal with for such a long time. So I think
Jason's take is very unique. He's I don't think he's wrong, but it's
he. I wish we had a guy like Jason on tour when Eyebolt and
he had, you know, he was the biggest, And if we had
Jason's stature a tour, he was whining player the year every year, and
he'd revolutionized the game and he made bowling even bigger than it was. And
if Jason would have had access to the people that ran it, then the
bowling he might have enough game to change some of the things and bring things
up. Things he brought up none of us ever thought about and just never
thought about it, so it all made sense. He's a great ambassador for
the sport and the PBA is lucky to have him right now for as long
as he as it remains, because that you know, as you know he
said in the show, he doesn't want to bowl forever. He doesn't see
himself going on the PBA fifty Tour and and you know, just because he
doesn't want to be away from home that much. And honestly, he has
nothing left to prove anyway, but he does have a lot. He had
a lot of great ideas that we didn't even think of about. Yeah,
he's really unique. Jason thinks different. I mean, maybe that's coming from
a different country or not growing up from when I The little that I know
about Jason that he didn't have ESPN, he didn't know who some of the
players were, so he didn't grow up and enamored with I grew up not
really even bowling. I just kept scoring, but oh my god on Saturday.
Because my dad was a huge Barrier, sure fan. So when Barry
was on TV, that was it. I was so naive when I watched
TV in the day. If Mark Marshall or Earl wasn't on, I didn't
watch the rest when they announced the top five, and then the top five
would be these five guys, like, oh, this is a bad week.
The good guys aren't on TV. I didn't. They made so many
shows that pretty much one of the three made it every single week. So
I didn't. I wasn't. I grew up loving bowling, even though I
wasn't much of a bowler then. So Jason has a different take. It's
very unique, but he's done something. But you know, as a guy
that coaches for a living, that has thirty forty percent of my customers are
two handed, you know, I have to tip my cap to Jason.
I think he I think it the way the sport was going before COVID.
He really kept it going there for a while because if you look at the
high school and the junior and the college thing, the two ended things are
real deal. And that's all attributed to Jason. Obviously O Schoo and now
Anthony and some other ones. But Jason definitely deserves his kudos for keeping our
sport going. It wasn't doing well for a while. No, you're absolutely
right about that. And he was I don't want to say a breath of
fresh air, but I mean he was so unique and did it so well
so fast. I think people were just enamored with him. And uh and
he's he's a true star. I mean they are either enamored or they they
didn't like you know, they we they wear pants with circles through two handers.
That's exactly right there. Yeah, yeah, that used to cost me
two fifty So yeah, I mean it's uh, where's Joe Antenora. That's
a fine man. That was. I didn't do good with him, I
was, I was always in trouble. Got one year, I got here's
a good Here's what I got. Here's what I got fined for. Do
you know that back in the day, they had a service that would clip
out all the interviews any pro bowler did in any newspaper in the United States
and it got sent to the office. I got fine one hundred bucks for
this bow in Vegas, second stop of the tour, and had some really
good years. They asked me what was my goals that year as a pro
bowler. I said, the same goal I have every year. I want
to make more money than Curtis Strange's Caddy, the guy I printed that cost
me a hundred But you're not wrong. Curtis Strange is making over a million
year. Caddy got Jim for song one hundred thousand on tour. You're a
top ten money winners. I thought it was a legitimate goals I have.
I have an off topic question because I'm curious, and I'm sure half of
our viewers are too. Whenever we have the best in the world at their
craft, which obviously aside from bowling, is your ability to teach bowlers.
Who was your like? Who coached you? I always I always ask people.
I asked Fred Borden and Jerry Edwards the same thing when I used to
take lessons from them an acron, Who do you model your teaching after?
If anybody, I can't really say it's it's it's gonna sound odd, but
well, the first person I really didn't model an inning after with John Wooden.
I'm a big UCLA guy. John Wooden was the man. Anybody under
the age of fifty doesn't know who that is, Joel John Wooden. He
was pretty legendary in his day, you know, before the March madness took
over. So John had I mean, mister coach would and had some very
specific ways of coaching. But a lot of my coaching was based based on
me seeing other coaches do things that I didn't like. Now, I was
very fortunate in playing sports. My dad was a great coach, unbelievably good
coach. It's not what he did. He was, you know, a
professional banker and did very well for himself. Well, my dad was a
good coach. Tough on me, but he was an excellent coach. I
had a coach in high school. I did a clinic on how to hit
a baseball, how to shoot a jump shot. I had coaches that just
would tell me to do stuff, and I was the kid that wouldn't do
it. And I had some coaches like, you're five to three as a
freshman in high school basketball, you want to be a good player. If
you don't change the angle of your form on how to shoot a jump shot,
you're never going to get it off. He spent an hour with me
showing me how to do it, and like a light bulbling off. A
guy showed me how to hit an off speed pitch by watching the seams of
a baseball when I was a junior. If it's a curve, we didn't
throw sliders. If it's a curve, the ball is going to spin this
way, then your shoulder has to stay tuck longer. All of a sudden,
you threw a curve at me, I was going to hit it.
So I got coached by people who had always explained to me why they wanted
me to change before I changed. So I've always tried to implement that because
I took lessons from golf instructors and it was always so bad. They this
kind of made fun of me because I wasn't any good. I was very
fortunate to be a pretty good bowler for you know, quite a few years.
I was never the man, but man, I bowled against the man
plenty of times, so I saw what it took. I'm like, how
I bold is irrelevant to coaching. I got to find a way to communicate
better to the customer. And like I said, the kind of an odd
thing is I've had such a varied group of people I've coached and some super
super super successful people. I actually learned more from the customers I have than
anybody else. How they become millionaires? How you know these people are?
You know, I'm very lucky. I have a lot of people that do
well, and you listen to them talk and like, okay, that's how
you should talk to somebody. That's how they want the information given. So
I was really good at trying to figure out how to have eight different vocabularies.
So I would do a within five minutes, I'm doing a bowling EyeQ
test, a physical eye test, and how athletic are you? Then I
give you my number, and whatever your number is, I change more vocabulary
to match that number. And that just makes fun, huh. And you
do it with every single like you're constantly on the move with like even your
clinics thirty different personalities or even one on ones. You're you have to kind
of like enter their world in order to understand. You know why, you
know, you know why. There's one specific reason why they're the one paying.
It's not my money. I'm not the one throwing the ball. What
they think matters more than what I know. What they feel is more important
than what I know. It's not so much how smart am I as a
coach. Oh, you know, if that's there you need you have to
have enough game to get the person to call you. But once they call
you and they stepped through my door of my car, they're in. They're
not in charge. I'm definitely in charge. You've been to my camps.
I don't. I don't I'm in charge. But what they think and feel
and say do matter. And it really helped me to stop bowling. When
I quit bowling completely, I became a much better coach because my ego got
out of it. Once my ego got out of it. If you took
a lesson on Tuesday and I shot seven to ninety in league, I was
in a good mood. If you took a league on lesson on Tuesday and
I shot six fifty I was a jerk. I was still trying to be
that guy, and I wasn't that guy. That guy left a long time
ago. But so once I stopped coaching, I started listening better. And
the one thing I think coach you should learn. I'm not trying to coach
anybody because all the coaches do a different doing a lot of virtual lessons.
Since COVID, bowlers are amazing on telling you what they do wrong. Bowlers
understand their games so well, if you just what are we want to work
on today? My timing on every third shot, I'm early, and I
measure them and I get these verds like they're exactly right. My release isn't
consistent. I miss every third shot on the bottom, you're right. So
if you actually address what they want for when the lesson goes better and number
two so I kind of I never have a game plan. I do not
believe in that when you walk in the door, we're gonna work on whatever
you want. Golf coaches, Today, we're gonna putt. No, I
want to hit on. I hit my wedge bed. Nope, today's a
putting lesson. It's my money. Why come I can't kick what I want
to do. So I've always tried to really listen to other person, and
I've gotten better at as i've gotten older, because I'm still super intense,
but I kind of dig what I do and I get you know, I
get really good results. But I learned as much from the customer now as
I do from anybody else. John Wooden, I would say, I've studied
all the coaches. I've got hundreds of mems in my phone looking at quotes
talking about stuff I really like to do. That was a coach at Alabama.
I thought he was I thought he was pretty special. He could adjust
to anything. So my son gets tired of hearing all the quotes. But
you know, I look at everybody in every endeavor, not bowling, just
every sport, every walk of life. Why is this person successful at whatever
they do? And I try to steal something from that? Hell yeah,
why was Why was Bobby Knight so successful? Because obviously you can have explosive
personality. He had an explosive I'm not well true, true, he's a
little bit over the top of what do you think Bobby Bobby had in a
certain era. Bobby and I couldn't Bobby and I couldn't coach day one.
Now the players speak back. That was back in my era we didn't talk
back to our parents. So like now, if I go to Starbucks and
a thirteen year oldkid from junior highs dropping f bombs and I say, you
know, watch your language. If you you're not my dad. In my
day, that person would have landed. But if anyain of that day,
I would never done it because if the word got back to my dad that
I had told an adult off, I wouldn't be doing his interview. If
I did, I'd be talking with a lisp. I guarantee you that he
would have let me. I mean the lot of my Somebody telling my dad
I did something wrong put the fear in God in me. So it's a
different Bobby Knight could not coach today, but it wouldn't work. He wouldn't
get through to the player because of just the change in society. Social media
has changed everything. Social media, I mean the access to people. You
know, it's hard. It's it's harder to like to sell this video.
It's much harder because I'm competing against YouTube, and YouTube has one important thing.
It's free. Doesn't matter if the contents that he good or not it's
free and there's a lot of it and you can keep watching three four hours.
My charge seventy five dollars. How dare he charge money? Well,
I mean that the players didn't come here for free. I didn't rent the
place out for free. The guy that did the editing wasn't free, the
cameraman wasn't free. So you're trying to recoup some of your your your cost
and trying to make something pretty cool. But the whole world's changed. The
social media Bobby Knight at that time could get plus Bobby Knight had. If
Bobby Knight didn't have results, he'd have been blown out of the water.
Every five years he kept winning a title. They're gonna looking up way and
then he by then the players knew what he was right, and I knew
what they were getting in you or you want to it to be your friend.
I mean, when you get done at the end of day, you
know what they're asking about. I was on the seventy six team that went
undefeated, and they wear that ring proudly, and all the stuff Bobby did
behind it, they let that slide. If you win, things get to
be you know, washed on the you know, under the car still gets
a pass sometimes, and he went and choked a guy on the field for
trying out loud. Yeah, So I mean, it's it's a different world
how that. I mean, like the big thing with the tight End for
the Chiefs when he lost on the coach and everybody's getting mad at him.
I'm like, hey, what I mean he became like my favorite player,
And then Randy Reid said, he laughed, he goes, he makes me
young. So they don't know, they don't people make all these judgments now,
and they don't know the relationship between that coach and that tight end.
They might have had something. He said, Hey, if we get complacent,
I need you to light everybody up. That's your job. I mean,
you watch what Herb Brooks did in the Olympics. Hey, the guy's
hurt. Can you get hurt any worse? No, he's basically as hurt
as he can hurt. Watch he went and lit that guy up, and
that's true stuff. And a team came back and played and he did it
on purpose because that guy had enough game to take the heat. Today is
a little different world. So what Travis did, everybody's going crazy. I'm
like, yeah, but he was right, they were flat. They weren't
flat. They won, you know, hopefully. You know Reed's got some
thick skin by now. So I mean, but according to social media,
he should be kicked out of football. So I'm an old fart that doesn't
get it. I don't get it. I'm not you know, and I
don't have sensitive feelings. My poor son has to put up with me.
I'm tough, but I also want results and I know what what's right,
what's wrong. So you go from there. But social media is, ah,
it's a wild animal, isn't it tell you what? Mark Baker's Twitter
and everybody in the chat. Let's go see see how he likes, how
he would, how he did in the interview for now. I mean,
that's just, you know, it is what it is. I am who
I am. I'm lucky that i've been. I'm the same guy every day.
One thing I do like that I'm blessing too. That's good for you
man. One thing I do like when people come to my camp. I've
had a man from Rafee come from Mexico and he said that the reason why
he liked camp was my book and my DVD and how I coach in person
I'm the same guy every day, so I really do work on being This
isn't me getting wound up. This is just Wednesday. I'm always slightly wound
up, so that's who I am. I'm old enough now that I really
don't care when anybody thinks you know what they're going to do to you,
I don't care. I know, I know, I know. I'm in
clean and sober for a long time, twenty three years clean and sober.
I'm a good guy now, but before I had issues, So now I'm
pretty scored away that way. So I'm never I'm never saying anything mean to
anybody. I'm not trying to be mean to anybody. But I got my
own opinion, and I'm allowed to have it. That's part of being American.
You're allowed to have your own damn opinion. You don't get to give
me my opinion. That's just how this works, whether you think is right
or wrong. I'm allowed to have mine too, as well as you're allowed
to have yours. And yours isn't better because you got more feelings. Now,
I know that's going to piss some people off, but sooner life you
got to stand up tips I'm trying to show because they don't have the mental
capacity to do what you're doing. It's the same like I love Arnold Schwartzeger
and his number one thing in life is consistency. If you're consistent, you
trump everything. If you're they know, my son, and why everybody loves
you is because you're like that, Like Rafe said from Mexico, you are
consistent, You're always there and they always know exactly what they're getting. What
you do, you know, it is what it is. So it's it's
I I shouldn't have said all ye, that's the problem. Now I think
I shouldn't have said those things. That's what sorry won't do. What I
try to show my son is the one thing. And I've coached some some
you know, people that are almost billionaires. I know one guy in the
valley I coach, Harry. What does that guy do for a living?
I think he kind of owns the stock market? This guy, you know,
this guy is when he starts talking about what he does, I'm like,
you do what? I mean? So bright? So what the one
common thing of all the people I've coached. I coached Mookie Betts in here.
I've coached a lot of successful people, Chris Barnes, they just outwork
everybody. So I knew when Dave Hughes said, and I talked today,
when I quit my job to become a coach again, he goes, this
time, when you coach, you have to promise me you're going to coach
more than anybody else if you put in more hours. The way Dave put
it was so basically, if you do more sit ups everybody else, you'll
have the stronger stomach. So you have to find a way to get to
more people than anybody else that's ever coached. And I've and I've tried my
best. I'm not sure if I'm you know, we don't keep track.
But if you want to take a swing at my numbers, you better you
better get ready. I did over. I work with over two thousand people
fourteen straight years before COVID, so I was getting after with Barry and I
were doing the clinics. So I thought the only way to become a good
coach was to coach a ton. How many people can I see? I
want to coach, and til there's no style, I can't help because in
the beginning, with somebody having unque style, I'd be Texan Barry, you
got to come down lane thirty one. You've never seen this before. I
have no idea what to do. Well, I don't say that anymore.
I've gotten past that. So my idea for me to be comfortable and me
to be helpful to people, I had to sort of my brain to be
calm. I had to outwork everybody. There are other other better coaches,
I'm sure they are. Are there more technical people? Way more do they
know more about bullying balls? Way more do I get out worked? I'm
not sure about that one. Banks. I have two quick questions for you.
They're both kind of broad, but I again curiosity number one. When
somebody pays you for say an hour or two hour lesson, and thirty to
forty minutes through you start to show them, say that your first or second
tiper of something, and their answer is, well, no, I can't
do that. My body won't allow me to do that. What do you
do? That's my first question, and because I'm assuming with the thousands you've
coached, you've run into that a few times. And my second question,
and I don't want to shun anybody here, and there may not be a
definitive answer, but who is the most talented player you've ever worked with.
So the first question, I've never had that problem. I'm good. I
will never ask you to do something. Remember this coaching is about me,
not about me telling you what's right. Coaching is about me telling you what
you can do. That's why I'm so good with seniors. I mean,
you're seventy five. There are certain things you can and can't do. I
have one who I had a doctor another and y'all, I coach a lot
of the success I've had. Doctor Weissen here today, he's like, I'm
down to one sixty. We worked on a few things. We moved him
up, got rid of his knee band, stood him taller, got his
law longer, and he threw like a first four bagger of the twenties.
So I don't let that happen. What you talked about, I can't do
that because I'm not asking him to do something they can't do. Hey,
Mark, real quick, did your injury kind of that unfortunately created an injury?
Like? Did that make you more aware of somebody's mechanics so they don't
injure themselves or making them first question I asked, as anybody, any part
of your body hurt. There you go, I was a job. I'm
just going to bowl through the pain. I'm just gonna suck down enough to
leave the bowl. Not a good move. So yeah, that was I'm
very sensitive. I'll guarantee you had Kane radiating pain radio legs and it was
you. I'm sure it's L five S one, L four L five somewhere
around there the sitting. I guess that's what my laminectomy was, exactly in
those two spots. One hundred percent. Ladies and gentlemen are resident doctor.
That's it. That's why he said he was a king of anatomy. He
got it right exactly. So I try not just not just a pretty face.
So your question is I don't really have that. And by the way,
at forty five minutes the it's the first five minutes. I know what
I'm doing right. It takes three suns. I've done this a lot.
I'm quick. I'm fast. You do those clinics with Barry, and you've
been to my camp. There are thirty six people wanting to get better,
and I do all the assessing. So I got to be quick. So
one thing that clinics did, it got me to be or I could help
between thirty and fifty people in two hours, So you have to be able
to assess it fast. So I came up with my own system. I'm
not saying my system is the right system. I'm saying it works for me.
It allows me to help bowlers. You know, I guess the easiest
way to put it. I see everybody as a jigsaw puzzle. Everybody's a
jigsaw puzzle. And how do you build a jig puzzle? Jigsaw puzzle?
There's four borders, top borders, consistency, bottom borders, timing, one
on the rights, balance one of left, sacricy. If I can fix
those four things because they all come for the what they all come for the
release. So my theory on the jigsaw puzzle the way social media telling me
all these drills and all these things about the release, release, release,
They're trying to build a jigsaw puzzle with the middle piece. First, how's
that work out? You can't build a jigsaw puzzle that way. I work
on the four things I am very good at, and when I get those
four, fixing the release not very hard. Wow. So your second question,
you're gonna get me in trouble. So the most talented player I ever
worked with. I don't want to, but I definitely want to know.
Man, there there there There's only because I know who you were worked with
and they're so goddamn many Mark Yeah, USA allowed me like em USA allowed
me access to probably the most talented person. I never got a chance to
work with Pete, but I got a chance to spend a little bit of
time with EJ. Tackett. That was special. He how I see a
lane and how I teach what I teach is basically watching him bowl in Hong
Kong the World Championships, how he saw the lane different than everybody else in
the world, and he ran the gold medal over like it was nothing.
And he sat down and explained to me how he did it, and it
made me see the lane different. So EJ. Tackett is is basically to
me, the my mount Rushmore releases was Don Johnson, Marshall Homan, A'manamnicelli,
and Tommy Jones. That was the four best releases I had ever seen,
and then then now there's a guy on top. I think Tackett has
the best one handed natural release talent wise I've ever seen in Pete's in there
somewhere. Most talent, It's it's a toss up, you know. Barnes
was the hardest worker I've ever worked with. I've never seenbody want it as
bad as Chris. But the most talented probably Tommy. Tommy's just Tommy's Tommy.
Man. It's like, hey, Tommy, on this shot, I
want you to slide on the wrong foot. You got to look out of
your left eye. You only breathed through your right nostril. It would take
him three shots to strike Biggs. I don't think this looks very good,
Tommy. This is the new style. We're all gonna bowl on the wrong
foot. Whatever you say, Biggs, Chris would say, what if I
use every other eye on every other step, and every other step I breathe
out of a different nostril? How about that? Chris is never satisfied.
So those are the guys that I thought were the most Bill O'Neil was very
easy to work with. I had great get right one with Mika. The
smartest guy I've ever coached, by far was Mike Fagan. Mike Fagan was
brilliant. He thought on a different plane than everybody else. AJ might be
as good as athlete as ever coached. Chris Viiz probably the strongest guy I've
ever coached. Oh, probably the hardest worker by far, would be a
toss up. I spent more time with Danielle McEwan and then it would be
Shannon O'Keefe. Those two people want it so bad it's scary. Those are
the two want it the most. Would be those two girls, Danielle and
Shannon. I would say those are the two that wanted the most. The
one time I ever spent a day with Danielle was in West Haverstraw. She
invited me up to the Stony Point area to go practice, and that's when
I definitely knew how shitty I was in comparison to people that work that hard.
It was a pleasure to watch her on the lanes and still to this
day. I mean, she's still one of my favorites. So that that's
a pretty good crew I just named. I mean, I've been very and
then I was just gonna say, but now doing the video, I never
coached, I mean, it was all, it was all what they call
it organic. I gave no instructions. You know, Jason and Simon and
Pray there. I don't really know those guys that, well, so what
are we doing? I said, well, there's tape on the lane.
Throw between the tape every shot and split the eight nine what ball? Don't
care where you want us to play wherever you want, That's all I said.
And then I never worked with Jason or Anthony at all, but watching
him in person, it was it was eye opening how good they were.
Pray there was super smooth Dave's. I never broke down Dave Houstad's game before
the entire time. We never talked about our games, we never worked with
each other, we never did any of that. We roomed together for nine
years. So breaking down Dave's game at sixty three, you see why he
won the US Open three times. I mean, it was amazing. How
it's like if you watch my video Pray, there is almost Dave Housteed.
Their games were scary, the same where their ball was in their third step,
how they both dropped their hips down the exactly the same time their timing
spot. So like Pray, they're trying to become the new Housteed, which
you could do worse than that. So they were all fun to work with.
But I would say, you know, Christen, you know here's a
good story for working hard. My son's trying to become a good bowler.
About a year ago. He's bowling okay, but you know it's it's hard
to find lanes. I'm talking about practicing more. Yeah, well, how
much practice? Dad? I said? It's like, let's give Uncle Chris
a call. So I called Chris. He answers, Hey, what's going
on? Hey, I want you to talk to Gauge. My son,
I said, Gage said, Uncle Chris, when did you decide to become
a pro bowler? And Chris said around twenty two to twenty three. I
wanted to make a living at bowling. He didn't join the tour for a
couple more years. He goes, but I knew I wanted to make a
living thrown a bowling ball. I didn't want to work for anybody. So
how much did you practice to get good? And Chris said, well,
you know, for a long time, between fifteen one hundred games a week
and my end And my son goes, wow, that's so cool. How
long did you do that for? And Chris said, well, on fifty
three, So for thirty straight years and my engagement, you've been practicing fifty
games a week for thirty years straight, and Chris went, well, they
just don't give you those titles. And my son went, you guys are
crazy. You're both crazy. I went, no, you want to get
good in something. And you guys all liked that. He has nineteen titles
and he's won the Triple Crown and it. You know, for a ten
years run he was as good Ashim Weyver Bold. But man, that stuff
doesn't just happen there. You know how many thousands of hours was He's down
there working on something to get better. And they everybody in every sport does
that. Danielle and Shannon. I don't know who works harder at it than
those two. So there's all that goes into it. It always comes down
to the same thing. When Eye bowled on tour, nobody practice more than
Ozio, nobody practice more than Patrick Allen. I mean, there's there's not
a lot of heat. There's only one Homan. Marshall didn't practice much.
Marshall was just Marshall. I mean, there's only one of those. So's
to get in that level of anything in life, whether it's coaching or bowling,
or becoming the best salesman at whatever you sell, the people that tend
to work the hardest tend to get the best results. It's like Kobe's shooting
free throws for twelve hours a day, you know what I mean, Kobe,
And then now that he you know, now I'm an LA guy,
and all these stories about Kobe and these godly practice sessions. That's how it
works. Yeah, same with andre Acacy and guys like that. I mean,
the best, they're always going to do what it takes to I mean,
obviously they have the talent to do it. But the difference is,
I don't think the best think we're going to do what it takes. They
actually like doing it. So when I coach these crazy amount of hours and
do these, in my mind, I got to x amount of lessons and
clinics and virtual to pay my family's bills. So there's that to come first.
I don't see it as a big number. I see it as that's
what keeps me sharp. I like is I have to work on my communication
skills every single day. I have to talk clearer. I talk much slower
than I ever did before, but I have to be able to communicate with
people that amazingly. At the training center at one hundred and forty an hour.
I get people to show up all the time without gear, no ball,
no shoes. You got to go buy a ball, and you gotta
go buy some shoes, take a lesson. So I get people from that
thing all the way to the tour players that have been here, so all
these different types. I have to constantly be working at my craft to get
better. I don't want to get where yet. I went to a camp
five years ago, and that's exactly the same. I take great pride in
always changing my powerpoints no matter what. When I get done, I'm like,
that wasn't right. That could be said better. So I'm always trying
to do it better because I got to keep finding new clients and I got
to keep bringing clients back. So I can't get boring. And I'm hyper.
So if I start saying the same thing over and over and over and
try nothing new, my effort won't be very good. So that's why I
did the one handed video. I came up with my own terms. Somebody's
ever talked about sequencing. I invented core management, the baker box, moving
the ear forward. I mean, if you buy the video and you watch
it like, those are terms that nobody else in bowlings ever used, and
I just giving a lot of lessons and explaining how I explain it. So
that's kind of what I like. I like, I want to see how
far I could push myself. And it's it's, you know, it's why
you're the best, because like you said, you range anywhere from a novice
player with no equipment to the greatest talents the sport has ever seen. It.
It's it's like it speaks volumes of the way you teach. And for
anybody listening, you know, aside from you know, there's great coaches all
over the world. Not going to say that, I'm not going to doubt
that or anything along those lines, but I will say when you have somebody
like this who's not only willing to go out of their way for the first
thing they say is to make sure that you're physically fit to do what he's
about to say, to allow himself to treat every bowler, whether they don't
have a new bowling ball or their own bowling ball, all the way to
the greatest talent the sports ever seen. That's what makes a world renowned coach.
And I'm pretty sure at this point in your life You've certainly recognized just
how badass you are for those reasons, aside from everything else. No,
I've got a great wife. She keeps me in check. I don't ever
see it that way. I don't ever part of it's coaching at a training
center. I mean I don't. I'm not in a bowling center. I
don't. I'm not talking to people as much. And then when I go
and when I go to bowling center now it's only to watch gage bowl and
I really go out of my way not to be that guy. I'm just
trying to be a dad. It's such a hard I feel so sorry for
my son sometimes. You know, he had a very good point. You
know this is this isn't easy with you sometimes and I said, yeah,
I get it, and he goes, No, Dad, if you go
watch a bowling tournament, there's a bunch of dads in there that think they
know bowling, and there none of them can bowl. You actually won on
tour. Okay, you got that. I was pretty good bowler one time
that none of the kids know. And he goes. Then all the dads
are trying to coach their kids and they don't know anything about bowling. Dad,
you're a pretty good coach. So you were a good bowler and you're
a good coach, and I picked bowling on it, and you should have
picked a different sport. You pick basketball and you pick bowling. I know
basically nothing about anything else in life, so it's got to be hard for
gauge. And I really go out of my way not to be him when
I'm there, and when I'm here, I don't ever see it. I
don't, you know. Barry Asher keeps me in check, Dave Houston keeps
me in check, Joe Hutch keys me in check. I don't really see
it that way. All I know is today I had six lessons and they
were really good lessons and all six of them re signed up. And Tomorrow
I have seven lessons, and Friday I have nine, and Saturday I have
nine. Sunday I have six, and I'm going to run those lessons over
like I've never done it before. If I do that, I got a
chance to see him again. And if I do that, I got a
chance to go to work next week. It's always, you know, the
clean and sober thing. It's one day at a time for me. It's
one lesson at a time. I have to give everything I got, every
lesson because you don't know if that's the person that's gonna take five hundred lessons
the next ten years. You don't know who that person is. So I
can't. I can't send it in. It's just not fair, and I
charge too much. I charge a lot of money, So I try.
You know, I have my bad days, but I really go out of
my way. Not None of that stuff matters to me. I just want
to really do well tomorrow. If I do well tomorrow, it's gonna give
me a chance to do well on Friday. Like I always think, every
camp is gonna be the one camp nobody gets better. That's my biggest fear.
I've done forty two. What if I get to Friday and nobody got
better. Then I get to Friday and better. But every camp I go
into it, I'm so worried that what if I lose it? What if
I don't have it no more? So I always worry about that because I'm
bowling. One day I didn't have it no more. One day I became
a really good league bowler, and that's it. It goes away. So
I'm always worried that coaching will go away if I don't keep pushing myself to
try to say a little different. Plus, it keeps it fun. I
mean, I'm been doing this for a while. I'm sixty three. My
son starts, you know, high school next year, so I'll be doing
this a few more years. You're how old I am? Sixty two,
I'll be sixty three. I'm sixty two, all right to fuck out it.
That's graduated in nineteen seventy nine. My first year on tour is a
I went on tour in eighty made a couple of finals. I went on
the Winter Tour in eighty one, got my ass handed to me. To
me, it was like Mark Roffett, come up one week, Hey kid,
I need a new car. Keep going for the earl. Hey I
need a new kitchen this week, keep going on tour. I'll tell you
what it was my first full year after listen, six sixty two year old
listen. I'm just going to announce this to everybody about being sober. If
you want to look that good at sixty two, like Mark Baker or Parker
Bone, stay sober. Parker stays sober. Little Parker just stays over the
whole time, the whole front. Yeah, i'd go you were like maybe
fifty two. Maybe, Oh no, I I I've actually my mind.
I'm being down still. I'm trying to ski back and forth really fast.
Right now you look better than me and I'm forty seven, So I mean,
oh yeah, I graduate high school seventy nine. I went on tour,
and I think eighty one was my first. My first year really on
tour was eighty two in my first full year, and then I in ninety
I was done. I pulled nine full years. Wow, that's if you
saw my father, it's jeans. It's just jeans. My dad, we
look eerily the same. He's got a he's eighty three, plays one hundred
rounds of golf a year, travels a lot, very you know, we
played the card games. He still wins all the card games, plays the
stock market, does all that. And my dad talks like I talk,
and we kind of look almost exactly the same same size. So a lot
of what is just jeans like, but there's there's plenty of gray on the
side that some mornings is pretty rough. But it is what it is.
Man, what are you gonna do? That's true? No, that is
true. Another guy from California that obviously is very well known and ardadly one
of the best players, if not the best ever, would be Walter Ray.
And obviously you got a chance to beat him. And now I believe
that was his first year on tour, and I think he had won the
tournament previous to that week, so he wasn't really in Walter mode yet.
But I mean, you could tell from the beginning that he was very good.
What were your thoughts about him early on? And how do you attribute
his success over such a long period of time. So I have I have
an amazing story. If you got five minutes, sure true story Walter.
The reason why Walter's so good for so long is easy. None of us
knew how bad Walter wanted it. I guarantee you wherever Walter is to it,
he's watching this. If they got a five gamer at ten o'clock at
night to some random bowling center in Florida, Walter's bowling, but Walter's bowling
to win. I've never seen a guy that likes winning more than Walter.
You got to give him that. He's I'm sixty two, Walter's probably sixty
four. I never seen a guy I want to win like he's won.
So I'm bowling. We're bowling in the Southern California. In nineteen eighty eighty
one, we both the Southern California Open, which was twelve teams, no
league rules because there he need work both any four you could just Mark Ross
sub, Dave houstit sub. It was the ultimate, the ultimate Open league.
He had to have one regular. You could have three subs every night,
including in the roll off. So it was a stud league. And
this guy John Keene wanted to get a guy that bowl on his team.
Hey, I got a guy. He's not really two hundred yet, but
he's really improved a lot. Do you guys mind if he bowls the league
and he's not quite there yet. So this guy was Walter Ay Williams.
And I'm like, I see the guy. I'm like, I read the
bowling paper. That's the guy that bowls the coffee club at Limbrook on Sundays
with the old ladies. Yeah, but he wins all the scratch sideplots.
I'll give him that. So he started bowling more, and he started bowling
more so that year, whatever year that was, For some reason, we
don't have a tournament on Labor Day weekend, Walter asked me, Bobby Fenton
and Ernie Harding to my good friends with the California Hey, I'm playing horseshoes
this weekend at the La County Fair. Do you guys want to come watch
me play horseshoes. I'm like, what are you talking about? He goes
just matter of factly, because Walter was, you know, Walter was Walter.
He goes, well, I'm the best horseshoe player in the world.
We're like, come on, you're like on the low man on the sheet
and league. Sure. Sure, So we go out on a Monday air
a Sunday to La County Fair and Pomona. There were a few beverages involved.
By noon, we were hammered. So we go find the horseshoe pit.
We come out there and we're allowed, where's Walter Ray? And we
want to see Walter Ray? And people said, you know dead Eye personally,
what you actually know dead Eye? Williams like, what are you talking
about? He's the greatest horseshoe player of all time. Like no, So
then he was seated like into the quarterfinals. We're out there and Walter comes
out and he walks down from one end to the other of the horseshoe pit.
He's got on the short open, the short opiece shorts, He's got
his wall in his front pocket, got the white sox on with the red
stripes to the knees. He walks down the middle of this horseshoe pit and
it was like Mark Roth, Marshall, Home and Earl Anthony were rolled into
one guy. The rout stop talking and we're looking around like what is going
on? And then he started throwing him and all three he was went,
oh no, if this guy ever figures out, he's going to beat us.
All hero these ringers like it. I mean, it was everybody was
at forty fIF percent. Walter sawing him at eighty five ninety and he's making
the ringer go on a certain way and he's spinning on whichever I mean.
And the thing was his last couple of steps and his fall through in a
little spin out didn't look that much different than his bowling game, and we
all went, oh no, he's eating something at forty feet within sixteenth of
an inch. Here figures us out. He's going to kill us. And
he turned into Waltery Wayams. Jude, Wow, you predicted the future.
Basically, are right there? Huh, getting right? I had no idea
he was going to be this good. He grew up with us, he
was there, he started winning regionals. Then he went on tour and he
made a couple of shows by eighty five, even on tour two or three
years. I think what Walter figured out quickly was he was the first guy
really to use a spare ball more anybody else. And when he bowled me
on the show, he was trying to really slow hook it. Walter came
on tour, he threw it really really slow and tried to hook the lane.
He hooked the way. He didn't watch that on a highlight. I'm
not doing anymore. I'm gonna start throwing a hard straight. But people forget
he lost to me that week, and a week or two later he won
in Baltimore throwing a hard straight, and he ended up being Player of the
Year that year, and the rest, they say is history. YEA,
his heart, he wants it more than anybody else I've ever met, and
I know some bowlers that really want it. Walter is another level of a
competitor, and he's super smart too. He's got multiple degrees of cal poly
I mean like he's a he's a brilliant. He probably could have been an
engineer in some field. No lack of intelligence for Walter. Just ask him.
I love. It's fantastic. He're my buddy, Walter. I can
say that I knew you. I knew you win. You mentioned actually before
we get to I want to ask you a question about EJ. But before
we get to him. Real quick, though, we watched during your highlight
package. Uh, you mentioned that was a bad ruling on the pin that
that fell, and ABC did a great job of showing a super slow mo
of it. I think gravity. I think gravity knocked it over. I
came down and it was it was a bad view. I've kind of struck
there. I had a shot to seventy. I wouldn't have missed, but
it was already kind of going before the miss year though. It wasn't like
it was up right. It was on it, you get it. That
was and you know, you know the anatomy of all of body, So
that was I don't know. I hadn't won it. A couple of years,
I made a bunch of shows. I had him on there. He
had nothing. I had a four backer. I had shot previously, I
just shot like seven seventy to front three. I was bowling so good.
That was. That was the best ever bowl. I carry that. I
don't to this day. I've never taken a run and dobe on an approach.
I never did it before. I never did it after. Obviously I
was an out of body experience. And then it, you know, I
end up winning the tournament. I parlayed that into second place with the Firestone
Tournament Champions. If I don't win that tournament, I don't get in the
Firestone. I won about forty grand that day, finished the second to home,
and so at least I took that. I took advantage of that win
and parlayed it into a good, pretty good event in the Firestone. Yeah,
I still think he got screwed over there. I don't care if it's
I don't know how many years, you know, thirty forty years ago.
Who cares that that that the pin centter never touched that pin. Yeah,
I'm to this day, I know if I carry that tu upin I'm off
the sheet for two seventy I'd have been There's nothing, There's no way I
would have missed. Hello was Harry Golden I just got lucky. Was Harry
Golden the one that made the ruling? I guess, yeah, Harry was
in charge, so he made the ruling. And they said that, you
know, it's if they rule the other way then then it's controversial. But
you still, you still knew you had you had uh Walter that day though,
I mean, you just that I wasn't gonna make any more spares.
That's true, that is that is very true. Just you know, one
of those days, you know, it just it's you know, I was
twenty was eighty six off twenty five. It's just going. So you know.
TV was always tricky because I'm going pretty fast as it is, yeah,
and TV was faster. So I had a hard time than my last
two times I vote for titles when I bowl thoz, Yet when I bow
wonder Lich, I shot to fifty both times. Once I got comfortable TV
and I knew how to slow it down and really just focus on the one
shot, then I stopped making shows. When I made a lot of shows,
I was just wanting to win so bad. I was looking at the
result so much because I was supposed to win, all this potential and all
that crazy stuff that I couldn't slow my brain down enough to bowl get on
TV. Then when I finally got pretty good at bowling on TV, I
stopped making TV shows. So what are you gonna do? It is what
it is. I won four times. That's not as good as I probably
should have, but you know, still four titles is more than most kit
So it was. I made twenty seven shows. It was a pretty good
career. Seventeen top five finishes. I mean that's that's twenty actually twenty seven,
twenty seven. Yeah, I made seventeen in about three years. I
had a pretty good run there in the mid eighties. Actually, yeah you
did. I was pretty I mean, I'll be and Roth and the one.
If you're talking about guys that don't get any credit for that era,
I think Houstad underrated. But the bowler who was probably the second or third,
if not the best bowler for the years I was on tour was Wayne
Webb. Wayne Webb was just a killer. You let that guy have a
sniff, you know. Pete was Pete. That was pretty easy to see,
like the first time you see pee bowl. Marshall was Marshall, and
Mark was Mark Alby was by far the best winner. We always talked about
if one guy had to throw a ball for your life and the only goal
was hitting the pocket, who would you pick. Everybody in the eighties would
have picked Mike Calby, right. He never it never looked different. He
always hit the pocket for the money. He never gave away any titles.
So the most clutch guy ever roled against, by far was Mike Alby.
He was I lost. I think I lost him enough on TV to h
I tell you this, this is the true story. I didn't get fine
for this. This is a true story. Bowling the Firestone in eighty eight.
I think I'm on the show. I'm fifth. If all be strikes
on the first shot in the tenth, he's second, and if he gets
ninety's fourth, he's Stone nine. I kicked the ball return because I knew
I had to bowl in the first match the next day, and I was
like ohing four or five on TV against him, So I went off.
When he got nine, I'd never get He laughed so hard he left the
Stone nine and I kicked the ball return. I was on the next pair.
He wasn't even bolving me because I knew the next day he was going
to send a limo to the hotel to make sure I wasn't late to be
on the show, to get my ass kicked. And the next day I
had spare Open, Double Open. He had the forensics and he just kept
looking at me, shaking his head like if I bowl you, I just
shoot to fifty. So all we had my number. He was the guy
that beat me the most. What happened to Marshall He had a a I
mean he had a really bad slump. That's all it was. Really Oh
it was reactor resident guys like me and Marshall. We were good when the
balls didn't hook. Ron Palombi, I mean we all didn't go in a
slump the same week. That's the serious guys. Ron Polombi, Tom Kritz,
Deave Ferraro, myself, Tony Westlake. I mean we were all pretty
good. Now. Then the reactor resin came out, and all of a
sudden, guys that we owned, literally owned, were beating us. Because
I could always make my ball hook. So when I caught a reactive resin,
I threw it really good, I big ford. Then I would move
in and catch it and hit the oil and I'd leave a bucket. So
everything I knew how to do was wrong. Then when I would miss five
right, think through it like shit, I would strike. So my feedback
was terrible, like, oh that was terrible. Whack just ripped it.
I'm like, how did that not? Flat ten? That was her?
I missed it on the bottom, so we didn't. So the reactive resin
you can think about Pete. He changed his entire game. Nobody was better
from out throwing it hard than Pete. What if PD come back? Nobody's
better at playing soft, throwing it from the left gut or to the right
gutter and back of the Pete he literally changed his entire game. He should
be in the Hall of Fame twice pre reactive after reactive, the most talented
guy that ever lived. Pete. Ever, EJ. Tackett's starting to make
in rows to that thing. And I don't need as much as EJ leads
week in week out. Make the scores high, make the scores low,
make it in, make it out. The dude just strikes. And I
was gonna ask him every single it's so amazing, and I was gonna ask
you about that. Mark just looking at him from from an analytical standpoint or
even a coaching standpoint, the things he can do with the bowling ball are
ridiculous. The fact that he gets five hundred plus reverie one handed. How
how how the thing his lower body? I mean, if you watch him
hit a golf ball, there's some similarities, but he I mean they talk
about it in golf a lot. If you watch EJ. He uses the
earth the best. He's he's driving out of his leg up like on a
golf swing, he catches it max his hand night here if you're you know,
if you're shooting in the sixties, like for a month, like he
tells me something like, yeah, how was August good? I did?
Had no scores with a seven in front? Because that mean I shot sixty
year better, sixty nine or better every round. If you got that kind
of hand eye coordination, that's kind of like Walter. So his hand eye
coordination hit a golf balls off the chart. So his ability to do things.
So he when I watched him bowl and I've talked to him, he's
he's got such unbelievable touch and he makes his ball kind of do the same
thing from the same place all the time. So I think he just knows
how to He's got about six different ways of doing it. He can roll
it, he can loft it, he can stay behind it, then he
gets around it, then he gets up in the air, then he really
gets around it. He's very very good at knowing which release to put on
it from where, And I think he doesn't get a credit for maybe if
Brett Speger should get the credit. He understands how to juggle his equipment pretty
damn well, because there doesn't seem to be a lot of weeks where he
doesn't bowl good. So I think he's he's this era's version of Pete Webber.
Yeah, no, I absolutely agree with that. And it's the best
release I've ever seen for a long period of time. He just keeps leading
tournaments. I mean, and you know I've been in person winning with world
championships. When he gets it, it's on. I mean, it's that.
So here's one for Reverie. How should you measure Reverie? I got
Specto. I got a different take on Reverie. So there's three numbers.
Let's say we're gonna use EJ. What's his reverree right around five to twenty?
Right? Yeah? What makes EJ special? The Spread release Spread,
The Spread forget the front number. The front numbers are relevant. It's the
spread. It's five twenty five, twenty five, twenty five, twenty five,
nineteen five, eighteen five, twenty five, twenty. His spread is
tighter than anybody else in the high revere. Because his spread is so tight,
he magnifies the front number because that spread so small. And he's got
a five in front. That's unique. What does the average bowler have?
Four eighty four forty four to twenty And guess what happens if EJ threw the
shot down there and the revue went to five sixty? What wouldes ball do?
It probably won't shoot, That wouldn't it. I was trying to give
it to these wash out It won't hook. Oh who your revere goes up?
Your ball doesn't hook? Says, I'm just using Specto numbers give I
give a thousand lessons a year on Specto and everybody has a revere. It
doesn't really matter what the number is. If your reve rate's three forty.
Frankie Lavoie was here at my training center. Well, the probably the best
session I ever had. Somebody hitting their target three forty three sixty every shot.
As soon as he hit three seventy five. He two pin or flat
ten every time. Wow. If his reverie went down to three thirty,
he went through the nose. Interesting, that's by Specto's numbers. Okay,
let me hear it on. Well, do you know you were talking golf
before? So is this almost like this is going to be a reach?
How the slower the swing speed, if your driver is a higher loft,
you'll actually hit it farther rather than having a lower loft. Because I'm not
a very good I don't know, because I feel like the way you're saying
it is almost in conjunction with that, because because what happens when your when
your reverie goes up, the ball doesn't slow down, right, so you're
pushing it through it rather than letting it know. I mean, every time
I'm here and I've had the best in the world, I've had Chris v
and aj and Barnes and Stu Danielle. You know, that's when Belmo is
here. His revere was right at five forty and I asked my guy that
was doing the Spectroo numbers, do we had Specto turned off the film,
like how are the numbers? He went like this, like are they that
bad? He goes, No, they're that good. How does he get
his break point? His revere to match every time? So that's like that's
the first time, Like what happened? He goes and every now and then
when the ones that come in light, his reverree goes up. We were
just reading the numbers. We weren't watching the ball. I'm just reading them,
like huh, And he goes in the one he threw, so the
one is revere got down to like in the five tens, he big forward,
Like that's completely backwards. When your reverree goes up, the ball has
to hook more. That's not how specto reads. So when you're watching tvve
now on watch them see who has the best spread. At least I said
what would have happened? Because I said he would have overcooked it? So
at least that was half right. I gonna say, is it like for
instance, when Chris Barnes leaves a two pin, was he like too clean
at the bottom? Did his different? So he missed it on the bottom
when he left the two pin. When we started working together, he would
get forward early and then he would come up in his in his because the
way his grip is the way he catches it in front of him. He
would catch it early and it would roll. It would get the ball to
roll sooner, and his core would stand up at forty feet and he would
get it. Because Chris is so acriate, his ball would get to the
spot where he wanted to hook. But because the corps stood up early what
I call corner management, and his ball would get there and it wouldn't hook.
So it's christ to do well. I hit my target. I just
stone hit my target. I'm gonna be a little bit right. I'm gonna
make sure I catch this one. They need big four because that one would
get on the lane. When the ball lands by the foul line, bad
things happen. If you want, like I have a my training center,
I have a Brunswick logo on one of my lanes. When the ball hits
out between twenty four and thirty six inches out, your hand has to be
behind it, and the ball farther hits out, the better you turn it.
Later, when the balls hit down, your hand has to be on
top of the ball to make the ball lamb by the foul line. So
if you they can imagine a ball that's a circle, you draw an imaginary
line north of south. If you throw it out, the cores on if
you're right hand and the cores on the right side. But if you make
the ball lamb by the foul line, your hand's on top. The core
has to lay down early before you see it, so the ball goes dead
left, or you get it to your spot, but the core laid down
on the wrong spot. There EJ. Tackett's ball, where's this cor land
best core management on? Sure? His ball always lays down from the spot.
That's why I'm in at the baker box. Everybody does about because bowlers
are trying to figure out breakpoint from the foul line. I'm trying to figure
out breakpoint from the pin's point of view. The pins are the same place
every bowing center in the world how they want to get hit. The USBC
did the study six degrees of entry angle. So I'm like, Okay,
where does EJ. Tackett and Jason Belmonti's ball's hook all the time. Let's
go the two best of all time right now, their ball's hooked predominantly in
the same zone. I can't make anybody in a world bowl like either one
of those guys. But if I get your ball to hook where their ball
hooks, the pins won't know the difference. Now I go about a little
different just because I have a unique setup and I get to see and on
the strike seecret, I get to see the ball go through the pins.
So when the ball goes through the pins, I get to watch all the
solid tens. I get to watch all the flat tens. I get to
watch all the strikes. Here's one for you. Here's when spending too much
time in a training center, when the guy's on tour, or anybody for
that matter. Today had a guy the Revere at one eighty and I proved
it. When you throw it really really good and the ball comes off five
six, seven and forty five feet and you split the eight nine, what
pin falls last? I'm gonna go with uh. When you split the eight
nine? What pin falls last? That's the I'm watching on TV this weekn
Now it helps that I have slow mo. So what are your guesses?
Come on, you got three guys, I'll give you two guesses. I'm
gonna I have the falls last. He's not saying which one gets last?
Which one ship? I'm gonna go the other, you're close, You're you're
going, you're going the right way, Come closer. I'm gonna say the
head head, then head didn't really the head falls last. The headpinn spins,
the ball paralyzes in the balls going through the pins, and then all
the nine pins are gone, and then the ball goes off the deck and
the pin last last. Watch simonbowl Wow all the time his headpin falls last.
I'm not saying it didn't move. It's moving back. It's in the
it's gonna fall. I've never I had one spin and stop yet close.
But if you I mean, I do it every day. People like which
pin falls last, it's always the head when you do it really really well,
because all it is is two triangles. The one, two, four,
seven, and three six ten hit it right, they just domino each
other. Then the balls get ever hit the five and there's the eight nine.
Those fall over and the pin. The headpin's still there. It kind
of fall, it kind of goes off where the eight pin is. It
spins off the deck. We see it every day watching on TV. Happened
last week a couple times. I was watching the I'm a you know,
I'm a bowling junkie. So I was watching the uh you know the bowl
TV see it every time. Now I get to do it in slow motion.
You got to train for it. But watch when you go bow league,
when you when you dead nut one son of a bitch. My headpin
fell last, but nobody ever looks for that. I feel like, Hi,
wow, that's my mind's blown. I thought the five chopping the ten
and ten would be the last one the fall or I thought the same stuff.
So we were here. One of the guys, you know, my
my, my guy, Anthony Santos is my project manager, went, do
you watch when Jason and Anthony's ball strike foot ball pins fall lest I'm like,
what's got to be the eight of the nine? He goes, now
it's the headpin, Like maybe my rack's bad. So I thought it was
my rack at my training center. So they left, so I try to
watch. Everybody came in. I'm like, that's the craziest thing I've ever
seen. Now, it doesn't happen every time you can hit flush and the
headpin goes left. But a lot of times when you throte really good,
when the pins look cool, the headpin spinning and it goes it's the last
one to lay down is how I should say it. I guess well,
no, I'm gonna watch powl TV tomorrow and I'm gonna tell you you're gonna
watch. Yeah, I am, I'm gonna I'm gonna pay attention to that.
That's I don't know the reason. I'm just telling you it's a cool
thing to look for. All I know is when people do that, invariably,
that's the shot they turn around and say, Coach, that's the one
I want to throw every time. And I'm going, hey, did you
know what pinfill last weak hes talking about? Like, watch the one you
like the best. That's the one common thing all all the people to come
here, all the different styles. So it's just a weird thing that when
you watch it, or the revery thing, it's about the spread. The
tighter you make your spread. If you're four twenty four, twenty four,
twenty four, twenty, you're gonna be a good bowler because that makes your
ball hook and slow down at the same place. And now bowling's all about
getting your ball to face up in the right place. The only way to
do it is have a consistent reverie. So the tighter the spread magnifies the
front number. Wow, you're four seventy five, seventy five or seventy five.
That's seventy five makes that four. Big jacket has been able to magnify
that five by a spread being so tight, and that's why you're one of
the best in the in the game. As far as coaching, Yeah,
I got a unique setup and I just like to study. If you get
all this data, you've got to do something with it. You got to
keep looking and trying to find different ways to and it keeps me. I'm
not bored. Yeah, it really is. It's badass, and it's thank
god we have somebody like you and and people like you that give that many
shits about the sport. It's absolutely fantastic rob it. I mean, it's
all about what the bowlers. It's all about how the bowlers react to it.
And they're like, wow, I said, yeah, you you use
the lane right, you threw it correctly, the sequencing, how you're the
ball, you're you know the lanes, the lanes built sixty feet. The
first forty five feet are just accuracy. The back fifteen feet's the shape.
So I look at your arm from your elbow to your fingertips of sixty feet.
Your form is way more important than your hand. Your form has it
the front target, and your hand hit it creates the back shape. So
the sequencing of your release has to match the sequencing the lane. That's the
way you have good ball shape. Everybody throws it good, nobody returns it
early. It says, oh I hate that one. No, we have
feel. So you've got to get that to come off your hand a sequencing
and then when your core lays down the right spot and goes to the pins
the right way, that's what happens. So everybody, everybody feels the first
one because they want to. There's two fields in bowling. When it comes
off your hand, oh that's good. And then when that ball at forty
five feel like somebody kicked it, that's the second field bowling, and invariably
that's the one you strike with. So that's my video on the one handers
is all about how to create the first feel, where to create the second
feel from because every great shot has two feels. That's you know, every
every show we learn something new, and it's just you've taught us many money
less it's it's amazing hot much we don't know about the sport, and we'd
love to have guys like you come on and break stuff down on a molecular
level, just just so you know, we can get a better understanding of
the sport that we love. And every and every coach sees it completely different.
Right, There's no two coaches that see it the same. We all
we're all trying to find a way to communicate to the people we coach to
get to get them better because my job is, you know a lot of
times, because I do charge a lot, Like today, I had a
guy came in. Guess what he said, I get it at least three
times a week. You're the last. You're it. If I don't get
better with you, I quit, I'm done. You charge, you know
you charge what you charge. I'm fine, I got that happens every day.
It's a big deal. Let's go. I'll have you fixed in fifteen
minutes. How do you know, because that's what I do. I mean,
and it's I've never been I've never been stuck. I've never like,
hey, here's your money back. And there's always a reason why things don't
go well. There's a reason why I guess that you know what I've never
had to ask a bowler to do because I probably because I charge so much.
I've never had to ask a bowler to try hard twenty five thousand lessons.
They all try hard. So if you're giving you your hundred percent effort,
to me, that means you don't throw bad shots. There's no such
thing as a bad shot. If one hundred percent effort, it may not
be the right effort at the right place, but it wasn't as bad as
when you don't try. If you don't try, I'm not your coach.
If you're gonna wine, I'm not your coach that way. And they're getting
what they paid for too. Like if you're you're you're definitely getting what you
pay for. Someone charges a dollar an hour. Clearly you're not getting the
best of the best. So I mean, I guess you know in this
my golf swing, I'm gonna dedicate. If I'm with a golf instructor that
say you're caliber, I'm gonna give them my all on every shot for sure.
That's gotta be one of the like like the quiet cool things about what
you've done with coaching is because you know the bowlers that come to you legitimately
they're all every single time. But you give me JP you work my camp.
Was there anybody there not into it? I mean they were. They
were every day I got on the microphone. That's enough, you've bowled too
much. Go home, go over. I've never seen a group of thirty
people and then they're asking me, Hey, if we want to come back
eight o'clock, how do we get into the to the how do we get
into the kingpin room? We want to go bowl at eight o'clock? Like,
the people are nuts. I look at pay for lineage. It's a
big number. Is I know how many games you bowlder? And this is
me. My average group isn't like a bunch of twenty year olds. Now,
the two anti camp, they were kids. My typical typical camp.
The aggregate average age is forty five sixty. They can't. They're just bowling
non stop all day, every day. They're fanatical. That's what's cool about
camp. But people like about it is if you come to the room,
there's thirty five other people in the group that love bowling as much as you,
and you've got seven coaches that love it as much as you do.
So that's kind of the cool thing of what my camp does. But I
get it. People try hard, so I've never had to ask anybody to
try hard. So if I thought of it that way, like if they're
giving me a one hundred percent effort and they're not giving the right result,
that just means we're not doing the right thing. It's not that they're throwing
I don't like the word bad. You didn't throw it bad. You didn't
throw it the way you You didn't get the result you wanted. Let's figure
out where it went wrong to get the right result. So that's a different
way of looking at it. I don't like saying they throw it bad because
they're trying so hard. That's true. You won't discourage anybody, especially when
they're you know, put somebody down with how you're handing you money. You're
telling them I'm stealing from his brain. And just in just a niety minutes,
we got to do around. We got to do it around to nationals,
just like Gulfinger knowledge of Yes, that's absolutely awesome. Rob book this
guy again. Oh guys, I'm you know, I'm I'm I'm good at
talking. I've been I've been around, I got a million of stories.
Not as many as your dad, but I gotta you're good at being you.
Is what it is. You're definitely good at being you. Hence the
the the essence of straight up five. We want like a real conversation and
a real personality and not I mean whatever. You know, I get it
that people have to like, uh, you know, be an ambassador sometimes,
but even like like we're saying, like beg, just let it loose,
cut it loose, and it was it was freaking wild. And that's
that's the idea of this show, the seriousness that was portray clearly, but
uh no, it was, uh this is this is super fun and uh
Jesus like I couln't even understand what he was saying, which makes it even
that way. Hours, fifty minutes just flew by, and there's so much
more we get into. Next time we have you on Mark, we'll we'll
we'll title it story Time with Mark, because I do want to hear your
your stories of of your time on the road. And that's it. We
we go every single one of them. I'm sorry, I keep looking on
They're always the same thing. I just kind of the bar returned and got
my way air. I'd say something I shouldn't say and just but I never
thought nothing of it, because as mad as I got, as soon as
I was done bowling, I was never upset, all right, I got
mad, what are you gonna do? Because in basketball, I mean I
was always I could get mad, get technical foul or whatever happened, But
then I had to run back and play defense. So all that anger was,
you know, spent somewhere else. So by the time the quarter was
over, the coach like, what were you mad about? What are you
talking about? I don't even know what you're talking about. Bowling was so
slow for me that I had nowhere for the energy to go. I didn't.
I didn't understand how to burn the energy. I was way too up
and down. But that's you know, that's part of why I probably reis
why I bowl good, because I was always in. I was always,
you know, I remember being done. How about bowling a lot? I
remember being done to the finals so many times? Twenty four games in match
play. I made a run Friday night, I get to like seventh,
and I looked at Houston. I'm like, why can't we bowl twenty four
more? Right now? Just twenty four games? No breaks, I'll run
them. I'll just I'll wear them out. These guys aren't basketball mean,
especially when I was my early twenties, I played basketball. We ran and
we ran and we ran. I never got tired, so I was always
wound up. So that was, you know, the hard part. The
fines were all. I should have got more I was. I was not.
I was nuts. Now, I mean, do you find that it's
impressive how the guys can keep their calm and their demeanor and like, I
mean, you know, each personality is different, like this may shine,
but I'm a little high strung myself, so I know, I know,
I'll let you drink that in for a second. But no, but like
I mean, it does it doesn't, Steve, are you like, man,
how did that guy not get pissed? He just rang ten ten times
in a row? Like God, he don't see him there either. But
if I could have, if I could go on tour now I heard,
you know. I went to Sports Iy College and my last year I was
actually doing early good. I think I cashed seventeen eighteen weeks in a row.
I got to Sports Eye College and she made huge in roads about why
I got upset and how I shouldn't be getting upset. But then I read
a thing. I'm a big nick Foaldo guy, So I was reading it
about Faldo, who actually had a temper. And so his big thing was
he got kicked out of a tournament. His dad made him stop. So
he's one of the old guys. Said, when you hit a shot,
no matter how good or how bad it is, before you react, take
three steps. And then once you've taken three steps, after he hit the
ball, if you want to get mad, get mad. And so I
did that when I started. You know, I started bowling more. When
I got done, I'm both my son. So now I throw a shot
and I leave a ringing ten, and I turn around and take the first
three steps back on the approach. By then I don't want to be mad.
So if I would have known that, because I would always react to
the situation, ringing ten, solidate, whatever the case may be. In
my I was, I was so quick to react. If I would have
taken the three steps, then I could have been closer to Dave. Dave
was like, this is my job. I threw it as good as I
could. I got nine. He would get nine, and immediately his brain
would flip. My job is now to make that spare. My job would
be the bitch and complain like I was the only person in history of the
solid ten. You know that kind of stuff when you're mature. If I
would have known how to take three steps and focus on the next shot,
I think my career would have been much better. It had been way more
boring. But you know, how to save a couple thousand of fines.
But yeah, I wish I could have gone back and do that different.
I'm not. I'm not proud of the fact that I did that. It's
a good story. It costs me a lot of money, not the fines
how to think. Yeah, but you're also I won't say job career,
but you kept a lot of mechanics, you know, working. Yeah,
I never really I never really did mean, I never did real I never
did real damage. I never broke anything like that. So no vent bolts
or nothing like that. No like cave. I mean, that's why I
would get probation with any game. I'd be back now with any game.
Mark you even said your probation was your three steps, because that was the
only way I knew I wouldn't go off. Because I don't have a job.
I mean nice, nice mental picture that was, Huh, if I
might, if I'm really in trouble, I won't get in trouble. What
do you mean? Hey, look man, some people collect stamps, so
look, you gotta do what you gotta do. Mark Baker, the all
time leading fine leader in the history of the people. No, there were
guys. I just I had a short career. I would imagine Marshall.
Marshall gave me a run. I bet he did. Marshall was worth the
price of admission. I'll tell you what though. He was fondable, like
Milwaukee the boe Milwaukee got in the first early eighties. Every day worked for
Miller got him for free or something. The bar it was a two sided
joint, and the bar a little bits on the lanes. There was free
beers involved. And Marshall was such a polarizing figure that when he would bowl
match play, when he would split, they would cheer. So most guys
would get pretty down. Not Marshall. Then the next game he'd go spare
six begger and he would stam at the foul I and yell, I don't
hear you now? He would yell at the crowd. Well, then you
had to make sure when you bowled Marshall, they had the little hangars where
the coats go. You had to make sure you kind of sat in that
little cubby hole, because sooner later in every round a beer come firing out
of the stands. At Marshall, you had to make sure you didn't get
wet Boone, Homan, Oh, Marshall, Marshall, Pete, maybe Tackett,
Belmont, Simo combined. Those are the guys Roth in his prime.
I would have paid money to come watch Marshall. I paid money to watch
Mark Roth winning. I watched him winning Norwalk. The most cool thing I
ever saw in my life was Mark was Mark Roth winning it in Norwalk for
three titles in a row. That's what got me into being a pro bowler.
Wow. I paid money to watch these guys both with two bays.
Norwalk has that funky fust, lays this way in the lanes this way,
and Mark hold. He bowled a legend from southern California named Bobby Fleegman for
the title and Mark Mark was up by one pin. There were no TV
shows. Mark's on the left flane. They get their four warm up balls
in each lane, and he has to finish on the right lane all four
shots and warm up miss the pocket. All four shots in the game miss
the pocket, strikes every shot on the left lane. Fleegman needs a double
to shut him out. I think I'm not quite hazy. Larry Gray would
know. I think Bobby got the first one, let the ten pin and
made it, and he thought he thought he won it to twenty one,
but he shut you twenty. So Mark hasn't struck on the right lane and
warm up more of the game. Now he needs three in the tenth to
shoot you twenty to tie the game. He's ahead by a pin to win.
He hasn't been close. He threw three of the fastest shots I've ever
seen thrown, and they each kip going farther than the lane and going faster,
And he just threw three shots, a real flush, and the whole
crowd just stopped talking. Oh and then the roof came him off standing ovation
I came home my mom, like, forget basketball, I just saw.
I just saw the coolest thing in sports to this day I've ever seen was
Mark Roth throwing three in the tenth and Nora walk to beat Bobby Fleiegmann.
So that will always be mind. It's that moment, man, it's that
moment. It's it's fun that you have that moment. So Rob taking away,
But the last question for me, did you ever expect somebody to throw
a gutter ball against you to lose? Never thought? I mean, Bob
was hooking the ga, he was playing the gutter he was. He was
hanging it on one too. Did he missed by one? Yeah? I
mean he came out I had that match one and he you know, he
had three in the tenth to make me mark, but he was he was
pretty much hanging it on one too. That one. He I think he
just you know, Bob, Bob didn't miss it at all. He pulled
the holes out of that one. And he came up just a little early
now that I watch the tape, right, he just got right aboard,
not any different when del through it, and they're just you know, when
you're playing one and you missed by one, it's a bad result. Bob
I was more yeah that he just piped it in there, and it was
like it took me a while to figure I'm like, I just I just
was too much of a kid. Like so he picks us up and he
strikes. He shoots one ninety. I'm shooting two twenty clean. Oh my
god, I've won. I kept doing the math, and the math kept
coming out way too good. The math kept coming out on my side.
I'm like, wait a minute, they're gonna give him shot over. I'm
doing this in my head like and then I'm like, oh god, I
won. And then the nice part when the show was over the first person
after Bob to congratulate me was Don Carter. Hey, kid, congratulations,
I'm glad you won your first dial at my house. Kind of hard to
beat that Don Carter class act. Great guy. Always asks us how do
he make the ball hook so much? My ball never hooked. Yeah,
you don't worry about it, Don, It worked out okay for you?
It worked out okay, Don, I've seen your house. I see,
yeah, you're okay. But he was always he was one of the older
guys that really liked how the younger guy's bold. Don couldn't have been a
nicer man. I got lucky. I hang out with Dick Weber, I
hung out with Earl I hung out with Don car These are the who's who
bullying. They were all great guys. They really really were. Now I
think like Norm Duke has turned into the the Dick Weber of this generation.
Yeah, agreed. Yeah, and he's got that much game. He earned
our re accolade he's ever got And Norm's just a good man, right absolutely.
Earl was my he was my idol growing up as a lefty. So
uh, I'd like to hear some Earl's stories. That's some we have you
on. But anything you want to plug Mark, I know, I put
the the link video would be great, guys. It's it's you know,
it's doing very well. It's you know, if you give it there's a
little preview if you give it a chance. I know, in this day
of free of YouTube, it cost a few bucks, but a lot went
into making this. This was a year of my life. The two ended
thing, especially for any two enters out there where there's not a lot there.
I mean, Jason Bellmaney is the best two enter ever lived. He
he he started. All his fundamentals are sound. If you start bowling like
Jason Belmany, you're going to be a really good bowler. And the one
handed one, I mean I did it for this. It's six minutes,
it's free. He just can click on and watch a senior section. But
Dave houstd that's that's gotten great results. And then Danielle and Chris and Dave
together on the one handed. Like I said, I tried to convince some
new terms, try to explain how to create those two feels a little different.
So I think both videos are unique in each other. And Curtis von
Krueger did the editing and Anthony Santos help me with it. We put our,
we put our, we put a lot of effort into this. The
pros couldn't have been better, from Jason and Anthony to Danielle. The pros
were magnificent for two days. They were all on top of it, professional,
beautifully done. So I'm very proud of the of the project. And
if you want to take a look, I appreciate it. I put the
link in the chat on YouTube and Facebook and you can go to Vimeo and
look up the games changed by Mark Baker. Also go to Mark Baker Bowling
dot com learn more about Camp Bakes And yeah, we appreciate you having on
here, Mark. Fantastic stories and some great lessons that you gave us.
Just shows how good you are and how much you love the sport. Watch
those right that hipin falls last We're gonna watch. We're definitely gonna watch.
Right there, Mark is also watching Simon. You'll see it a lot.
Mark was also gracious enough he's gonna give us a free code for his lesson
on Vimeo for either a one hander or two hander. Uh any anybody that
was here in the chat tonight on YouTube or Facebook or eligible, Johnny will
pick the winner tomorrow. We'll send you a message with the code and let
you know you one. So we do appreciate you very very kind of you
to do that. All right, guys, all right, have a great
night. Mark, thanks for coming on to the show, and we'll talk
to you soon. Thank you, Thanks Mark a great Thanks. Bro.
Wow, isn't it crazy to talk to that kind of a coach and like
like everybody knows what to say, what not to say, but the fact
that he goes out of his way to enter somebody else's world every single time
he steps up there twenty five hundred however many times a year he says he
doesn't or it's that is we need like at least fifty more people like that'll
save the sports, that'll save the skills just great. And even like the
comments now after after two small hours, you know, everybody wanting to that.
That that just it's why Mark Baker is who he is. That that's
all there is doing. I never have any you know, hopes of how
the show is going to go whenever we have somebody on and talk to somebody's
the first time. But it's just another banger dude. Every gets we have
on the show. It just shows you the quality of people not only that
you're associated with, are associated with the sport of bowling, and Mark is
one of those, and every show just they're all just real people, dude,
just like you, me and everybody watching. Like he was so constant,
like and when you know your ship with it's literally like talking to Tiger's
caddy. It's like it's it's you're you're talking to somebody who is literally the
guy that the best in the world go to for help. I've been thinking
about that. I mean, just that in itself is crazy, Like they
go to this guy for help and they pay a good amount of money,
which he said, He's like, I'm not gonna why am I gonna charge
a little bit? He's not people wasn't saying he charged. He's and that's
because he's the best at it. He's like the real Tomato ketchup. He's
the real to nothing but the best, to nothing but the best. Rob.
What's my Twitter? That doesn't do? You want a good job?
I do? No, No, I have somebody things peace you get if
you want to follow us on X or Twitter, whatever you want to call
it. Now you could follow me at rad rob Gaming. Doctor Ocho is
the d R o Cho and Johnny Jr. Is at j P j R
zero seven. You can also because my arms are better. They did they
fantastic? Johnny. I had a chance. He's the product yet, yes
I did. He's not at Liberty. All I did was I used the
crop preserver just to see if, if you know, my balls reacted the
wrong way, and they didn't. And they I think they smell nice.
You know, it's it's a step in the right direction. Smell. He
has. He hasn't been yoga. He hasn't done yoga enough to get that
kind of flexibility. So what's d DP yoga kicks in and remember March.
The week of March third will be announcing the winner of the free bowling ball
courtesy of your purchases at uh Manscape using the code for straight up five,
which is straight up there it is blow your screen off your balls for the
team. Let us know what his ball smell like. Oh, Baxter,
we wrap it up. I'm gonna drive an hour homes man. That sucks,
all right, guys, thanks for joining us tonight. Thanks again to
Mark Baker for having him on. We're gonna have him on in the future.
Scratch and Sniff. I love Mike McGlenn. He always he always lights
up the room. Ken Schneiders, thank you very much. Thank you,
thank you, thank you, Thank you. Chuck. No Impissole the Week.
This week, our show went a little bit too long, and we'll
have plenty to do next week. I think we we're gonna have three candidates
for the Empissole of the Week next week. Thank you. Now, Troy
a resident US Champion. Thanks Troy. Yeah, we got to get a
shirt. Just fuck docs them. We'll be back next week guys for episode
what we Do one O six And we still have a lot to talk about
in the world of the PBA. Right now. Uh, there's actually something
I want to get into A report by wriggles today of how horrible Bullerro is
at promoting anything. Uh and and oh hold on, hold on, wait,
wait, wait before we go, before we go, hold on,
where's my picture? I want to show you something. I want to show
Mark this, but I completely forgot. Uh hang on, is you eating
Popeyes with like Louisiana Cat? Such an asshole? O Joe? Here.
I want to look at Mark Baker stats on PBA dot com. Nothing.
Apparently he's sixty two and he's a right hander. That's that's all that's reported.
He did well, he did say he wond so they probably took that
picture in nineteen eighty two and kept it. He literally had probably show that's
a good point, that's a very good point. But they won't show his
face. That's yeah, he'd be a lot wider, he'd be more,
a little more lower tapered, a little more like more like you know,
ej. But anyway, all right, come on, I gotta drive home.
All we got to go, guys, we'll see next week. Thanks
for being here. Good Night, everybody, Fuck you, Doc Sullivan,
tank you, Mark Baker. Good night, everybody, see a peaks,
see a balls route, good night. Thanks for listening to this edition of
Straight Up Five with Johnny Petreklia Junior. You can follow the show on Twitter
at straight Up five Pod, Follow Johnny Junior at jp j R zero seven,
Follow rad Rob at Rad Rob Gaming, and follow Doctor Ocho at d
D r oho. Got a question for Johnny, Send your questions to Straight
Up five Podcast at gmail dot com. We'll see you next time for another
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Rob Radio Network