Fishing Report

Ever feel like staying home instead of going to the bowling alley to bowl? Well, with the bowling video game produced by Wii Sports you can do just that.

Friday's night's pair of bracket championship in this year's College World Series couldn't have been any more different. The Louisiana State Tigers pounded the Arkansas Razorbacks 14-5, while the Texas Longhorns used a dramatic walk-off home run in the bottom of the ninth to oust the Arizona State Sun Devils.

Bowl America Burke and Bowl America Chantilly were the two bowling centers that hosted the 64th Annual Championship Tournament sponsored by the Nation's Capital Area United States Bowling Congress Association, otherwise known as the NCAUSBCA.

Last Thursday night, the NBA received a ratings share of more than 12 in the Washington area as the Los Angeles Lakers moved to within one win of claiming their 15th NBA title. It is not secret, the NBA is alive and well.

They're everywhere. They're in the fields, they're in the highways, they're at airports, they occupy our rivers and ponds and they are certainly at all the golf courses. They are resident Canada geese: Those black and white eating machines that never leave home. If my observations are correct, this is another bumper crop.

Fishing Report

Does the front office of the Pittsburgh Pirates have a clue? At one point last year the Pi-rates' outfield consisted of Jason Bay, Xavier Nady and Nate McLouth.

Another nice croaker, tugging for all he was worth. In a short while he would join about three dozen other "hardheads" in our ice chest. A fish fry was in the making.

Fishing report

Like fine vintage wine, Emma Hendrickson from Morris Plains, N.J. has aged beautifully. Prince William County bowlers, especially seniors, should take note of this: In April, at 100 years old, Emma bowled in the 2009 United States Bowling Congress (USBC) women's championships, marking the 50th year in a row she has bowled in that tournament.

Don't look now, but he's back. Former Sacramento Kings and Washington Wizards head coach Eddie Jordan is back in the NBA.

Nearly every fisherman I have ever talked with has expressed an interest in fly-fishing.

We now have a pair of NBA playoff series worth watching. Both the Cleveland Cavaliers and the Orlando Magic, as well as the Los Angeles Lakers and Denver Nuggets, are tied 1-1 in their re-spective best-of-seven series.

You will not find too many instances where a hall of famer in one sport is inducted into the hall of fame of another sport. The International Bowling Museum and Hall of Fame announced last week that Lynn Swann will be the third inductee into the Bowling Hall of Fame Celebrities Exhibit and the first to be in-ducted into the brand new museum to be completed in early 2010.

On Friday night, former World Wrestling Entertainment superstar Bobby Lashley moved his record to 3-0 in mixed martial arts with a 24-second win over veteran Mike Cook.

Once in a while someone comes along whose very presence has a positive effect on everyone around. Such a man was Ted Gruszkowski, affectionately called "Crazy Ted" not because he was crazy loco but because he was crazy about bowling. On a rainy evening last week, the Wednesday Night Moonshiner's League paid tribute to Ted and unveiled a Memorial Podium in his honor.

Manny Ramirez of the Los Angeles Dodgers was suspended 50 games by Major League Baseball for the use of a drug banned by the league's substance abuse policy. Also on Thursday, Manny, being Manny, said he had did not take steroids and was prescribed medication by a doctor that contained the banned substance. When he received the medication, he and the doctor believed it was OK to use.

They call me Big Daddy. My twin grandsons, that is, and I treasure that name. Grandparents-to-be will eventually discover that whatever word or garbled sound assigned to you by your first grand-child will become the most important description of your being for the rest of your life. And when grandsons come to town, no matter what they call you, it's time to go fishing.

Fishing Report

Youth bowlers from Prince William County did very well in the 46th Annual Nation's Capital Area United States Bowling Congress Association youth division championship tournament, which was bowled during February and March. Dozens of young bowlers from Virginia, Maryland and the District of Columbia competed in this premier youth bowling tournament.

Everyone seems to want to go before Congress these days and whine about something. This week, college football and the absolute joke known as the Bowl Championship Series was on the front burner. Given all the world problems facing our new administration, is college football something we should be grappling with on Capitol Hill?

At the first light of morning, birds begin to communicate. Their lovely warbles and chirps are cer-tainly soothing to human ears, but bird-talk serves a more important purpose: to determine the whereabouts of fellow birds. If a pair of doves loses contact while flying to the roost, for example, they call to each other the next morning, when all is quiet in the woods. "I'm over here," one will coo to the other. It's the same with turkeys.

Fishing Report

Old timers in Prince William County will remember back in the 1950s and 1960s when bowling balls were made of hard rubber and bowling lanes were made from maple and pine wood. As the coatings applied to wood lanes changed from softer lacquer to a harder urethane in the early 1970s, plastic balls became the balls of choice. Subsequent changes such as urethane and later "reactive" resin or composite "particle" bowling balls made the bowling balls react stronger and hit the pins harder.

If you have young children between the ages of 5-18, you spent the weekend at a youth league baseball game. In the last couple of weeks, youth baseball leagues have started, as well as youth softball leagues.

Newly-crowned Professional Bowlers Association Player of the Year Wes Malott, of Pflugerville, Texas, steps back into the spotlight Wednesday night in a head-to-head battle as professional bowling returns to prime time in the first "King of Bowling" telecast. A five-week series of one-hour "King of Bowling" telecasts will air on ESPN2 at 9 p.m. each Wednesday night through May 20.

In less than a week the NFL Draft will be held and the No. 1 pick is all but set in stone—at least that's what we have been led to believe.

In golf, Easter Sunday belonged to Argentinean golfer Angel Cabrera, who won the Masters at Augusta National. But in bowling, the weekend belonged to the ladies.  Several Prince William County women bowlers finished in the money in the 2009 Nation's Capital Area women's championship tournament; the University of Nebraska won the NCAA Women's bowling championship and Carolyn Dorin-Ballard won the Professional Bowlers Association's inaugural Women's Series Showdown.

It appears the Washington Nationals are on their way to another season of 100 losses.