Three strikes in a row.
What’s that called?
In baseball it’s referred to as a strikeout, and in bowling its called a turkey, unless it happens in the 10th frame. Then, coincidentally enough, it’s called a strikeout.
Two different sports: One is played outdoors (excluding stadiums with domes or retractable roofs), the other is an indoor game (excluding its lawn variation).
Yet, both types of strikeouts are significant parts of the respective games. Both can be beneficial and can end those games on a high note (as long as you’re not on the batter’s team in the baseball version).
To prevent any confusion in this column, I am going to call the prestigious bowling strikeout a “turkey-10.”
So without further adieu, I have a major announcement to make.
Ladies and gentleman, last weekend I became the proud new bowler of a turkey-10.
With that said, I have a major revelation
to present.
A turkey-10 is not a guarantee to a dramatic and victorious finish.
When all was said and done at the conclusion of my game on lane 13, the turkey-10 did not help me one bit. I lost the game. I played like crap for the first eight frames and only converted three spares. So after I accomplished this major feat, only a small amount of my pride was restored.
Even before I stepped onto the lane for my 10th frame, I predicted that I would get a turkey-10, sort of like how Babe Ruth supposedly once pointed out a homerun before digging into the batter’s box. And I was doing it in bowling’s version of the bottom of the ninth inning.
I really felt that if I could string together a turkey-10, I could win the game. But my deficit was too large, and I didn’t know how to keep score because I belong to a generation raised on cosmic bowling, fancy on-screen animations and automated scoring.
The mix of numbers, slashes and Xs makes no sense to me.
I figured that my trio of strikes would make my score explode like a seagull in an Alka-Seltzer factory.
See, in the 10th frame, a turkey is only worth 30 pins compared to the 60-plus points it could have been worth earlier in the game.
If I read the scoring rules correctly, a strike counts the 10 pins you knock down plus the amount of pins that fall in the next two frames you bowl. So kids, make sure you put a turkey together in the earlier frames, because even if you throw consecutive gutter balls after that, you’re still assured 60 points.
Unfortunately for yours truly and others looking to make a comeback down the stretch, the 10th frame has no frames following it.
Isn’t that a load of turkey-sh**?

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