The description the team makes is misleading. Here is what happens. Watch the tapes slowly, frame by frame. The ball comes in slightly high flush. It hits the headpin which deflects into the 2 pin. The ball then collides with the 3 pin and deflects back left. The head pin, upon colliding with the 2 flies backwards with the base of the pin kicked out toward the 5. The base of the headpin hits the five, just before the ball gets there, beginning the process of knocking the five down. Because the headpin is still basically headed back and left, it deflects around the 8 pin.
Now, the ball continues to move into the pit. It is on the right side of the center of the five pin, which is moving right, into the ball's path (in the old days, with plastic or today with a flat ball, you might still leave a 5-8 because the ball would deflect or the ball would kick the five in front of the
. The ball hits the five (and the headpin in one instance), pushing the 5 slightly to the left, but to the right of the eight, and the ball is ultimately what pushes the five into the pit before rolling past and slightly to the right of the 8, after the ball has been at least partially deflected by the five pin.
What does this mean? It means that a true solid 8 is not just an overtracking or strong ball, it is also a ball that has the misfortune of hitting the five at just the wrong angle and time to push it just to the right of the 8 -- which is likewise caused by the relatively bad break of the 1 deflecting in such a way as to have the base kick out to the right while the basic trajectory of the pin is to the left.
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"Now lets see you do something really tough. Like getting up."Edited on 3/15/2006 1:17 AM