Unfortunately, Belmonte’s 300 wasn’t the biggest “news” to come from the show this week. ESPN chose to magnify Josh Blanchard’s “incident” during the first match. Blanchard had his ball stick on his thumb as he approached the foul line. Because of this, it carried him across, where he slipped on the lane. Throughout the day, ESPN has revisited this event several times, on shows such as Pardon the Interruption, Around the Horn, and even SportsCenter. Am I alone where I think that this is ridiculous of ESPN? You have a guy do something that requires and extreme amount of talent, something that’s only been done 20 other times, meanwhile you focus on the poor aspects of the game. ESPN’s representation of our sport has amazed me. They treat our sport like we’re just a bunch of fat drunks, while they promote other “sports” like poker. While I’ve seen the Blanchard clip (embarrassingly titled “Epic Bowling Fail”)  repeated over and over again on their network, I have yet to see one clip of Jason Belmonte’s 300 game. As far as I’m concerned, I think it’s about time the PBA packs its bags and finds a new network that will respect our sport, give it the coverage it deserves, and look to do more promotion of the sport than just sucking every dollar it can out of what it thinks their viewers need to see.

That’s just my 2 cents. If you have any other thoughts, I would love to hear them.

Walter Ray Williams, Jr. is currently in second with 3339. Others in the top 5 include Mike Fagan (3320), Wayne Garber (3293), and Brian Ziesig (3241).  The field will now be cut to the top 32, with the cut score at 3035 (+235, 216.79 Average).

Scores have been pretty high so far for this event, with only one bowler averaging under 200.  This event is being bowled on a modified version of the PBA Shark pattern.  This pattern is the same length, but has a lighter volume of oil.  This volume makes up for the weaker surface of the polyester bowling balls.

Several U.S. bowlers had good showings at this event.  Mike Fagan finished 5th, while Norm Duke finished 7th.  Finnish bowlers Osku Palermaa and Kimmo Lehtonen finished 6th and 8th in the tournament.  Congratulations to Rob Thurlby!

This is Mike Fagan’s first individual PBA Tour title.  He has one doubles title, in the 2007-2008 PBA Exempt Doubles tournament with his teammate Danny Wiseman.  Fagan came close to winning this same tournament last year, but fell just short, losing to Norm Duke in the championship match.  The Chris Paul PBA Celebrity SNL Invitational will be taking place next week.

Mike Fagan used an Ebonite The Mission to win the tournament.  See the rest of his equipment and the other pros’ equipment at my InTheBag page for the Dick Weber Open.

The TV Finals will consist of stepladder matches, starting with O’Neill taking on Shafer, with the winner going on to bowl against Pete Weber.  The show will be aired live on ESPN2 at 1:00, rather than ESPN this week.  This tournament is being bowled on the 39 foot Dick Weber Open pattern, which was designed to force bowlers into making constant moves because of ongoing lane transitions.

Over on the women’s side things weren’t quite as close.  Brenda Edwards finished with a 36-game score of 7890 (+690, 219.1 Average) to make the team for her third time.  Edwards led the field by 169 pins with Kendra Gaines finishing in second.  This years team will include Edwards (1st), Gaines (2nd), Emily Maier (3rd), Tennelle Milligan (Selection), and Diandra Asbaty (Selection).

Heading into the Team USA Trials, 13 players had already secured spots by virtue of their selection earlier this year. Walter Ray Williams Jr., Chris Barnes, Wes Malott, Tommy Jones, Patrick Allen, Rhino Page and Bill O’Neill make up the remainder of the men’s team. On the women’s side, Stefanie Nation, Shannon O’Keefe, Shannon Pluhowsky, Liz Johnson, Kelly Kulick and Carolyn Dorin-Ballard were selected.

The full results can be found on bowl.com

Patrick Allen led all bowlers for the week, finishing in first after 48 games, with a total score of 12,308 (+2708, 247.67 Average).  The cut to the top 6 was 12,138 (+2538, 243.5 Average).  In the round of 4 (Bowlers #3 – #6), Walter Ray Williams, Jr. defeated Mike Machuga, 257-244, and Mike Scroggins defeated Michael Fagan, 218-183.  Scroggins went on to bowl against tournament leader Patrick Allen.  Scroggins won the match, 227-215.  In the other semifinal match, Wayne Garber took on Walter Ray Williams, Jr.  The two tied with a score of 237.  Garber won the rolloff with a score of 19 to Williams’ 17.

Scroggins and Garber went on to face each other in the finals.  Scroggins started the game off great and didn’t look back.  He ran the front nine strikes and had a nine-spare-nine in the tenth for a 278 game to beat Garber’s 229 Game.  Congratulations to Mike Scroggins!

See which equipment the bowlers were using at MyBowlingBlog.com/InTheBag.