By Brendan - guest columnist to wiggleboner69.com
Imagine being a friend to an athlete so talented, so explosive the he garnered blue chip status, becoming one of the top student athletes in the nation. Imagine being able to ride that athletes coattails, to brag to all of your friends that your best friend is a division one athlete destined to go pro, make millions and destroy numerous records. Now imagine that that friend is….a bowler, a kid who insists he masturbated at 4, a kid who at age 13 bowled a 300, at age 18 puked in the Pike family wagon and at age 23 is going bald. For anonymity sake we’ll just call him Mick. Mick was like Neon Boudeau from “Blue Chips” and undiscovered raw talent who would revolutionize the sport of bowling with his ribbed mustard yellow turtle neck sweater, and me and Zach would’ve been the founding members of his posse.
Never have I seen Zach laugh as much as he did when Mick told us one summer day that he had to “ run for bowling practice” while wearing a skin tight Mets jersey, because that’s his “ favorite team” although he cant name more than two players. He was then subsequently harassed by some Royals fans. If you know Mick, you can’t picture him running even with all the wait he has lost.
Not only was Mick a great bowler, I emphasize was, but he looked the part. Until he became a slave to the Fourth Reich, known as the Atkins diet, Mick had a mighty gut that would’ve made The Dude green with jealousy. Our little Micky was a top five bowler after his freshman year and subsequently took a nose dive because “It used to be about the bowling, now it’s about the money”. Like a Scott Norwood kick ( sorry Zach it’s a good analogy) Micks bowling collegiate bowling career sailed wide of the mark, instead Mick reveled in his new found hatred of the Chiefs, calling Zach while dropping a deuce and insisting that he was “down with brothers” who lived on his floor in the dorms.
Zach and I had many discussions trying to compare Mick to a fallen college athlete. Former Notre Dame QB and Titans third stringer Ron Powlus was a good choice, but Mick didn’t suffer numerous injuries….he just plain gave up. So maybe he was more of an Andre Ware.
The kicker to it all happened in the spring of 2002, the bowling championships; the March madness of college bowling was going to be held in Buffalo. Mick was the captain of this team in his senior season trying for one final title; he was like Shane Battier in his final year and Duke, minus the religion major. Mick would’ve had a raucous SUNY crowd cheering him on, but “his team sucked”, apparently in college bowling there is an ‘I’ in team. Mick was becoming your typical Terrell Owens-bowling pre-Madonna. And despite the insistence by me and Zach that Mick go pro, simply so we could say we knew a pro bowler Mick refused. Just picture Zach starting brawls with other bowling posses in tropical locations like Cleveland or Portland, and Mick being lamented in the press for running with a bad crowd, he could’ve been Allen Iverson in rented shoes.
How could you refuse traveling to such exotic places as Grand Rapids or Wichita Falls? Appearing on ESPN 2 every Sunday at 3 am, making the cover of EA Sports PBA 2004? The possibilities would’ve been endless. So here I present what could have happened had Mick become a pro bowler.
May 2002- Mick would’ve been the number one draft pick in the PBA, if they have a draft, just picture Mick walking up to the podium in all his glory wearing a nice argyle sweater and giving the commish the “wink and guns” as he posed in his new bowling uniform, then signing a lucrative endorsement deal with Dr. Scholls bowling shoe inserts.
June 2002- January 2003- Mick demolishes all previous rookie records and poses for the cover of Time and SI in the same week with the cover story “Mick : Bowling Over America”.
January 2003-December 2003- Mick continues to terrorize the PBA and gets caught in gentlemen’s club outside of Reno with Tom Arnold and the lesser of the two Hilton sisters.
Early 2004- Mick becomes the first cover boy for EA Sports PBA Thunder 2004.several months later Mick graces the cover of the underground smash hit EA Sports PBA Street. In late 2004 Mick defeats the communist Cuban bowling team single handedly to win the Gold medal at the Athens Games…plans for a movie are immediately made, starring as Mick is that kid “ ralphy” from A Christmas Story.
2005- After signing with minor league sports agent Zach Pike, Mick inks a 3 year endorsement deal with British Knights for the whopping total of $67, 526; he missed out on the Nike deal because apparently Nike didn’t appreciate the subtle genius of the K-gun offense of the early nineties, something Zach just couldn’t tolerate for his number one client.
2006- Mick tears his ACL while “washing himself” in the shower and misses all the 2006 season, but he hosts ESPN 3’s Monday night bowling, but is subsequently fired for derogatory remarks towards female bowlers.
2007- In perhaps Mick’s finest moment, he stars in an animated movie along side the Smurfs, not the good ones like Hefty or Smurfette; instead he gets the baker guy and the scientist. Together the must save the world by bowling, and after Mick loses his arm he must bowl the final frame with his right hand!….the movie is an overnight success in Denmark.
2008-2012- Mick continues his domination and Agent Pike ups his cut to 20%, finally making enough money to get that long awaited door for his 1972 BMW.
2015- In a Barry Sanderesque move, Mick hangs up his alley shoes at the height of his game and retires to Kansas City to write his memoirs entitled “ Drill Your Own Balls: Life Lessons from the Legend of the Lanes”
My Own Feelings on this subject.
"Mick" who I will refer to as Nick Farsace should stop being a little pansy and try out for the PBA. What else is he going to do with his life? Sell household appliances in Kansas City. (Which by the way is an oxymoron) Stop being a bitch so you can go out and live every slobs dream. Just think of all the groupies he'd get traveling to such bustling metropolis' such as Grand Rapids Iowa, Lincoln Nebrasaka and probably somewhere in Wyoming. Most men would kill to play a game professionally and yet Nick sits on his ass while he could be living the high life
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