By Ron Kantowski

Published Tuesday, Feb. 17, 2009 | 12:56 p.m.

Updated Tuesday, Feb. 17, 2009 | 10:29 p.m.

NOW:

I knew we were in trouble when I spotted two members of one of the other teams hauling in multiple bowling balls on pull carts before the media challenge at the USBC Open Championships at the Cashman Center bowling stadium. Even worse: They were drinking Budweiser out of those tall 16-ounce bottles with the red wrappers. You could tell these guys were serious bowlers.

I knew then that our Las Vegas Sun's team only chance was to con them into believing we were serious bowlers, too. But my plan went up in smoke when I couldn't come up with three Royal Order of Water Buffalo hats at short notice.

I noticed a guy crawling down the lanes on his hands and knees before knocking over the pins with his hand. My first thought: If that's not a foul, I might try it when our game started.

But first, we were treated to a sneak preview of Terry Fator's show at the Mirage. Fator is the ventriloquist who won the "American Idol Most Wanted Got Talent" reality show (or something like that). I have to admit it was pretty impressive when he made my bowling ball sing like Etta James.

I actually got drilled for that bowling bowl which isn't as painful as it sounds, although the technician at the Storm bowling ball booth had to hold my hand for a little longer than either one us would have liked. I had never been fitted for a bowling ball and kept turning my hand like Fernando Valenzuela trying to throw a screwball to the top of the Giants' batting order.

"What size?" he asked.

"XL," I said. I didn't know we also were getting one of those cool bowling shirts with the pins splattering on the back around letters that spelled "Ed's Conoco," which couldn't have sponsored every team in my old man's bowling league, although it sure seemed like it.

"No, what size ball?" he said.

I looked at him like he had just handed me my SAT test booklet. Although I'm sure he was disgusted by my ignorance and bowling naivety, he feigned a smile and said I looked like a 14, as in pounds.

So he drilled me for a 14. Although my thumb was getting stuck in the hole, I thought it would be better not to channel Walter Ray Williams or somebody like that and complain, because, after all, I was getting drilled for free.

I noticed that the box the ball came in said 14.5 as in pounds, and I thought maybe the .5 was like those amps in "Spinal Tap" that go to 11 -- a little something extra that would give me a small edge in the 10th frame of a tight match, if it came to that.

But the truth probably is that the extra .5 can be dangerous in the wrong hands, and that the Storm guy was just protecting me from myself.

Anyway, my Sun teammates -- Richard N. Velotta (he lets me call him Rick) and Ulf Buchholz -- and I were introduced to our guest pro, Carolyn Dorin-Ballard, who is from Exit 136 on the Garden State Parkway (a k a Linden, N.J.). We were allowed to roll one practice bowl. Mine wound up in the gutter, where it joined my head at long last.

Carolyn told me to aim for the third little arrow painted on Lane 36. Since she was a 20-time winner on the ladies tour before it folded and the Ballard part of her name is in honor of her husband Del, the bowling Hall-of-Famer, I thought she might have something there.

When the match started. I got to go first -- not because that was our best chance to win, but because Carolyn said we should just bowl in the order we were sitting.

I aimed for third arrow.

Every pin fell.

The last one, which might have been the seven, hesitated a bit before I did one of those elbow thrust, body English things the pros do on ESPN on Sunday morning. Then it capitulated like the others.

My one strike was one more than Carolyn rolled, I might add. But she brought a spare ball -- not an extra one, but a ball she uses only for making spares -- and so whereas she marked twice, I marked only once -- unless you count the smudge my street shoes left on Lane 36 before they brought out the rented shoes, which, I am happy to report, did not smell like Desenex.

Ulf, who was born in Germany, rolled a strike from the Munich side, which is usually called the Brooklyn side. I'm not sure how Rick did, because both times he was up, a guy wearing a giant bowling bowl mascot suit walked in front of me. But I don't think Rick did that well because our score was 127.

Some guy rolled three strikes in a row to lift his team to an exciting (at least that's what the announcer said) 1-pin victory. But he was wearing a bowling shirt and slacks that matched and had on one of those wrist brace thingees so maybe he wasn't really an advertising executive, but Carmen Salvino's brother-in-law.

He's just lucky the Storm guy didn't tell me about that extra .5.

THEN:

Since our bowling games have nothing in common, I asked Carolyn Dorin-Ballard about once being a waitress at Bennigan's tavern. Instead of having me arrested for stalking, she thought it was cool that somebody remembered.

I had interviewed her about 20 years ago at Sam's Town (when she looked almost identical to the way she looks now). She didn't remember our chat or, thankfully, that I had ordered the French Onion soup and was a lousy tipper.

It was probably because I had a mustache then, and more hair.