You might have heard about bowling sport leagues. But if you're like me, "sport league" makes no sense on name alone. Aren't all bowling leagues sport leagues? Bowling is a sport, so what's the difference?

There's a huge difference, despite the confusing name. A sport league is a league in which regular bowling shlubs can try their skills on PBA oil patterns (namely the chameleon, scorpion, viper, shark and cheetah). Usually, this doesn't work out well when it comes to scoring.

In most house leagues, bowlers show up and bowl on house oil patterns, usually with handicaps. But in most sport leagues, not only do these bowlers have to deal with much tougher oil, but handicaps are thrown out. Nothing to save you here. You bowl better than your opponent or you lose.

Even though my average is significantly lower in sport leagues, I love them for a variety of reasons.

Match Play
Me against someone else. No handicaps to get in our way, no teammates to inspire or hinder us. Just one-on-one bowling. I have to earn the win.

Oil Patterns
Even though it makes bowling much more difficult, it also teaches more about bowling than you can ever learn from a house league. You learn to read how the ball reacts to oil, how you react to oil, which adjustments to make, and generally makes you a smarter bowler. Take that knowledge to a regular house league, and your average will be significantly higher.

"Best" Bowlers in the Area
Sport leagues draw in the guys who dominate their house leagues and develop egos. They average anything from 190-220 and expect to do the same on the PBA oil. Throw a chameleon pattern in front of them, and suddenly that 220 is their high game for the season rather than their average. Most of the bowlers in these leagues are looking for a fun challenge, but watching the few who think they're pro-caliber bowlers struggle is part of the fun.

If you've never joined a sport league, I recommend it. You get to see how you'd really perform on the same conditions as the pros, which will likely be a blow to your ego, but it's worth it. The knowledge you gain trying to negotiate the oil will definitely make you a better bowler. To put it another way, the small blow to the ego you'll suffer in the sport league will result in a huge increase in your ego when you go back to a house league and exhibit absolute dominance.

Yes, these were pro bowlers. Yesterday's telecast of the Chameleon Championship made viewers think one of two things. Either, "I can bowl a 180, therefore I can be a pro bowler," or, hopefully, "Maybe the oil really is different for the pros than for me."

As Sean Rash said early in his semi-final match against Ronnie Russell, he didn't know yet if the oil was to blame or if he and Russell simply couldn't get out of their own ways. Based on how the bowling looked throughout the rest of that match and the other matches, the oil was definitely not making things easy.

Russell edged Rash 172-170 before ESPN (probably rightfully so) heavily edited the Amleto Monacelli/Bill O'Neill, won by O'Neill. Monacelli was dealing with strained tendons in his bowling arm, and didn't stand much of a chance, throwing a 142.

The final featured two men, O'Neill and Russell, each looking for his first title. Again, the bowling wasn't pretty, but O'Neill came away with the win thanks to the very important ability to close frames.

Even though these were pro bowlers, it looked like league night at the local bowling center. Decent shots, bad shots, horrible shots, splits, missed spares, and the occasional great shot.

As play-by-play man Rob Stone said during the men's final, "The chameleon has gotten into their heads." He was right.

So what do we take from this? Joy that the pros struggle too? Or sadness that the pros aren't perfect? Do low scores like this actually raise the respect level for pro bowlers, as they deserve?

This is what I take from it: a complete shift in the sentiment of this blog so we can end on a high note. In the women's final, Shannon Pluhowsky's 268 defeated Carolyn Dorin-Ballard's 206. Not everyone had a tough day.

It was March of 2007. The final night of bowling in my Trios league. My team was bowling for the championship against another team led by a legend named Mark.

Mark was the anchor of his team, and the last of the six total bowlers to throw in the first frame. He approached the lane, threw his ball, and fell. Not just any old fall, but a hard fall. A scary fall. He landed on his face, busting open his nose.

Hilarious? Yes. Tom Bergeron has plenty of video footage of why people falling on their faces is hilarious. But we calmed the laughter when we saw the pouring of blood all over the approach.

Everyone was concerned. His wife, who was watching, ran to get some bowling-alley napkins for the blood cleanup. She and his teammates suggested he stop bowling. He was woozy, could barely stand, and had blood dripping non-stop from his nose.

My team was patient, not knowing what to do. We wanted the championship, obviously, but not that way. We wanted to beat Mark at bowling, not at not falling. Well, actually, both. After about 20 minutes of waiting, Mark, then sporting a bloody napkin protruding from his nose, said it's time to bowl.

We were all nervous every time he stepped toward the lane, as he seemed to be losing equilibrium at an alarming rate. But this was the championship. If you knew Mark, you knew one of the most important things in life was winning this recreational bowling league championship (especially since he'd won it the year before and was going for back-to-back championships, as he pointed out all season long).

By the end of the night, Mark had thrown 30 frames of bowling. One of those involved a horrible fall, and the other 29 were in spite of the massive toll the fall took on his body.

And he won. He bowled a great series and led his team to victory. My team was disappointed, but our disappointment quickly faded away when we realized the greatness we just witnessed. If anything can compare to Kirk Gibson's hobbling mess of a body hitting the pinch-hit home run in the 1988 World Series, it's Mark's performance in the local bowling alley.

Even more impressive is what we found out later. Not only did Mark break his nose, which was evident from the beginning, but he also broke his slide ankle and his bowling wrist. The guy bowled 29 frames on a broken ankle, with a broken wrist, in a huge state of confusion, and won the championship.

Congratulations, Mark.

In yesterday's PBA telecast on ESPN, we saw the finals of the Viper Championship, taped during the World Series of Bowling in August. Liz Johnson defeated Lynda Barnes to win the women's event, and Rhino Page took out Ryan Ciminelli in the men's final.

This wasn't nearly as entertaining as the documentary-style show we got for the Cheetah Championship last week, but I guess if we got that every week, it would lose its luster. However, bowling is definitely better on TV this year than last year.

What this tournament really means to me is a chance to showcase how bowling scoring can be unfair. In the men's final, Page struck in the first, then threw a nine/spare in the second. Ciminelli opened with a turkey, then threw a nine/spare in the fourth.

Both men then went on to do nothing but strike until Ciminelli threw another nine spare in the ninth. And again in the tenth before throwing another nine on his last ball.

But let's erase all that. Let's say Ciminelli struck out after the fourth, and Page struck out after the second.

In that case, both bowlers would have thrown 11 strikes and one nine/spare. Seems the same, but it's not. Page would've won, since he failed to strike earlier.

Because Page threw a 9 and a spare in the second frame, the 9 never factored into his score (except as part of the spare). Since he was coming off a strike, his score for the first frame was 20. Striking out would've earned him a score of 280.

Since Ciminelli struck until the fourth frame, his 9 would've been added to his second frame. This meant his maximum score would've been 279. Even though both guys could've bowled identical games, the order of the striking and sparing would've given Page the win.

Of course, none of this happened, as Page won the match by a score of 268-246. But what ifs are often more intriguing than the truth. What do you think? Is it fair to bowl just as well as your opponent and lose by one pin? Or is it even considered "just as well," since you both know going in how the scores will work out?