"This thing is surprisingly accurate, so you really can't move your hand very much, it has to be straight," he said, going through a practice roll.
Before settling into position, O'Malley looked up to ask:
"Do you all bet on this?" he asked, smiling.
Silence.
It's just as well for O'Malley that no wagering was involved. The coaching appeared not to help, as he sent another dribbler into the corner. But on the second roll, O'Malley got the hang of it, rolling the ball at a brisk pace, although it still wasn't enough for a spare.
Toward the end of the game, sensing victory wasn't to be his after yet another Mumford strike, O'Malley took some coaching and announced, rather dramatically: "I know when I'm beat, but I'm gonna do this one more time."
The audience fell into a hush.
O'Malley focused, spending a few more seconds aiming the ball with the controls, which showed up on screen as a red arrow that pointed to the pins on the right side of the lane. A brief pause for concentration, and he stepped into the roll, sending the ball straight into the middle pin.
"Strike!" the screen read.
O'Malley, though the loser, sent both hands into the air to loud whoops and chants of "There it is! There it is!"
He exchanged high-fives with Smith, who had only landed a spare during his turns, and went about gabbing and posing for pictures in his shirt, which he seemed all too eager to remove.
Despite his loss, many thought O'Malley had shown himself to be, well, rather winning.
"He needed a little practice, but he was OK," said Eileen Behringer, who moved to Charlestown in 2005 from Linthicum Heights. "I thought it was nice he brought himself down to that level to do that."
bradley.olson@baltsun.com
