Mookie Betts is throwing strikes at the World Series… of bowling
Mookie Betts finally reached a World Series. It’s just not the one that Red Sox fans hoped to see him in this year. Boston’s 23-year-old center fielder made his professional bowling debut Tuesday in the PBA World Series of Bowling in Reno, Nev.
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Betts, a standout bowler during high school in Tennessee, rolled a high score of 249 in one game in his first day. His other scores were 224, 140, 245, 180, 168, 194, 213 and 154. This gave him a 196.33 average that was deemed “respectable’’ by PBA.com and left him in 212th place out of 244 bowlers through nine games.
[fragment number=1]Watch here as he records his fifth in a streak of six straight strikes:
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“It was fun. It was tough, something to get used to,’’ Betts said, via PBA.com. “But I crossed with some cool guys (2013 PBA Rookie of the Year EJ Tackett of Huntington, Ind.; 2015 Rookie of the Year candidate AJ Johnson of Oswego, Ill., and PBA50 Tour veteran Ray Cobb of Highland, Calif.) and they made it easy for me. It was a little more laid back than I thought it would be because of the guys I bowled with.’’
At Nashville Overton High School, Betts set Tennessee high school records with a 290 game and a 827 series. He has also bowled a pair of certified 300 games. That gives him more perfect games than anyone on the Red Sox pitching staff.
According to the Boston Herald, Betts thought he wouldn’t try his hand at professional bowling until after his baseball career ended. That timeline was sped up when the PBA invited him earlier this year to its World Series.
Betts has through Friday — a total of four rounds of nine games each — to make it into the top 25 percent of the field. Qualifiers will advance to the PBA World Championship cashers’ round on Saturday.
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15 reasons to love Mookie Betts
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