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Literally, this is what our economy has come to.

We are turning Cashman into a bowling alley, and are paying for the honor.

Cashman Center is a relatively unknown place amongst Las Vegas tourists. Hell, you can barely even see  the place from the road.  It’s not a very prominent stadium at all.  If you blink, you’ll miss it.

Located just north of Downtown, this mid-sized stadium and events center has played host to the AAA minor league teams of the San Diego Padres and the Los Angeles Dodgers.

This month, it is going to play host to a most unlikely event.

Bowling.

Yeah, that bowling.  The one where you knock down a bunch of pins with a huge ball.

For the past forty five days, they have been building a sixty lane,  $10 Million bowling alley at Cashman.

Apparently, Las Vegas is hosting an event called the “106th Annual U.S. Bowling Congress Open Championships”.

Bowling has a Congress?

I can’t wait until the Beer Pong Parliament is elected.

Anyway 85,000 bowlers are expected to descend upon Vegas and compete for a $7 Million prize fund.

The most unusual thing about this event, is that it will last for approximately 5 months, at which point the ten million dollar “bowling palace” (where the Bowling Queen lives)  will be torn down.  The bowling palace and bleachers will feature a 400ft long LED scoreboard, and the entire thing was built in only 45 days.

Yes, they built a $10 million venue that would only be usable for five freaking months.  With that money, they could feed everyone in Bangladesh for the rest of their natural lives, or pay the medical bills of three Americans for a month.

The bowling event begins this Saturday, February 21st, and is expected to draw 250,000 spectators before it wraps up on July 24th.  The event will run for 154 consecutive days, and almost a million games will be bowled.

In order to get this event, Las Vegas had to agree to pay the “Bowling Congress” one million dollars, and provide use of the Cashman Center for free.  What a bargain.

The city expects the event to be a huge tourist draw for Downtown Las Vegas, and for once, I agree with the hype.

Let’s face it, bowlers are probably the perfect clientele for Downtown.  I have yet to see a metrosexual bowler with an obsession for interior color schemes, and most bowlers generally don’t seem to mind cigarette smoke.

Hell, the Gold Spike is nicer than most bowling alleys I have been to.

I’ve watched bowling a couple of times on ESPN, and it’s hard for me to really get into the game from a spectator’s point of view.  It’s like one of those carnival games where you have to knock all the bottles off of the plate.  I might be able to watch people do it once or twice, but I can not for the life of me imagine sitting in the bleachers and watching it all day.

I also don’t understand how “professional” bowlers don’t get a strike every time.   I mean, I’ve bowled myself, and I can get strikes.

Once when I was visiting San Fransisco, we decided to take a ride down PCH.  We stopped in this little town called “Pacifica”, and they just happened to have a bowling alley.    On a whim, we decided to bowl a game.

Somehow, some way, I caught fire.  I had not bowled for a long time, but I ended up getting a score of just above 200.  I rolled a strike or spare every frame.  Sure, it was a fluke, but it made me wonder why every pro bowler didn’t roll a perfect game every time.

You would think that with years and years of training, and all of that repetition, you would learn the  exact speed and trajectory to knock all of the pins down every time.  It’s not like someone plays defense in bowling.  It’s the same exact scenario each and every time.  There is no variability to it.  If you turn a running back loose on a football field, set up no defense, and tell him to score a touchdown … he will succeed 100% of the time.

Because I can roll strikes, it annoys me when Professional bowlers don’t.

Then again, many NBA players have worse free-throw averages than I do, so there must be far more skill to the bowling thing than meets the eye.

While I may not be the biggest fan of bowling, I am glad to see the Cashman being used during this down time.  I am not sure how this event is going to co-exist with baseball when the season opens on April 17th though.

Maybe they can combine the two games into some kind of super-sport where humans play the role of pins and try to hit the ball back at the bowler with a giant stick.  The giant stick could be called a “bat”, or something similar.

Anyway, if you are one of those people who like to whack sticks with your giant balls, then for the next several months … The Cashman Center is where you want to be.

Remember, if you take a wrong turn and two guys in a white Honda Civic try to steal your camera, be sure to tell them that Rex is looking for them.

I still intend to get that apology.

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