What ball?!?!?!

[santos314]

I was watching some PBA on YouTube from the late eighties. Why did they never talk about what ball the pros used? Where they not allowed to? During one game they said " Marshal's using the black ball & Mark's using the red ball". LOL

[RobLV1]

I was watching some PBA on YouTube from the late eighties. Why did they never talk about what ball the pros used? Where they not allowed to? During one game they said " Marshal's using the black ball & Mark's using the red ball". LOL

Back in the eighties, balls didn't have cores. They only difference between them was the cover material (and there was very little difference from one company to another) and the surface. It's only in modern bowling that we've all become ball crazy; we rely on the ball to do what we can't learn to do with our hands!

[santos314]

Back in the eighties, balls didn't have cores. They only difference between them was the cover material (and there was very little difference from one company to another) and the surface. It's only in modern bowling that we've all become ball crazy; we rely on the ball to do what we can't learn to do with our hands!

Wow, I didn't realize that. It makes sense. You ain't kidding, if you get ball "x" you can be a pro! LOL

[bowl1820]

Wow, I didn't realize that. It makes sense. You ain't kidding, if you get ball "x" you can be a pro! LOL

Back in the 80's Balls did have "Cores", That's when they started coming out with dynamic cores and Urethane covers. Faball back in the early 80's was the first company to come out with one and started the trend. It was a two piece "core" ball called The Black Hammer.


Quoting Bowling This Month:
"Bowling balls have experienced significant technological evolution from the 1980s until the present time, both in terms of their external coverstocks and their internal cores. On the outside, polyurethane coverstocks came into popularity in the early 1980s. These covers produced significantly more friction with the lane surface than the polyester and rubber balls that came before them. This allowed bowlers to generate more hook on the lane and more entry angle into the pins than they were able to with anything prior.

Around this same time, manufacturers began experimenting with advanced cores, or weight blocks. These newer advanced cores were dynamically imbalanced and they also played a significant role in increasing the amount of hook that bowlers could generate (much more on this later)."


Something to consider also is that at that time, The ball logos weren't strategically placed on the ball so as to be easily visible to the viewers as they are now. So unless the commentators could see the name or knew ahead time what ball the the player was using...............

[santos314]

Back in the 80's Balls did have "Cores", That's when they started coming out with dynamic cores and Urethane covers. Faball back in the early 80's was the first company to come out with one and started the trend. It was a two piece "core" ball called The Black Hammer.


Quoting Bowling This Month:
"Bowling balls have experienced significant technological evolution from the 1980s until the present time, both in terms of their external coverstocks and their internal cores. On the outside, polyurethane coverstocks came into popularity in the early 1980s. These covers produced significantly more friction with the lane surface than the polyester and rubber balls that came before them. This allowed bowlers to generate more hook on the lane and more entry angle into the pins than they were able to with anything prior.

Around this same time, manufacturers began experimenting with advanced cores, or weight blocks. These newer advanced cores were dynamically imbalanced and they also played a significant role in increasing the amount of hook that bowlers could generate (much more on this later)."


Something to consider also is that at that time, The ball logos weren't strategically placed on the ball so as to be easily visible to the viewers as they are now. So unless the commentators could see the name or knew ahead time what ball the the player was using...............

Funny you mentioned the Black Hammer, that was my first real ball back in '89/'90. Didn't know anything about it but I was 20 and it looked cool! ...LOL ....that was still my favorite ball of all time.

[Stormed1]

AMF with the Angle was the first company I know of that started putting a logo where the camera would pick the name up

[santos314]

AMF with the Angle was the first company I know of that started putting a logo where the camera would pick the name up

Yeah, I kept looking for the logo as they bowled, the only one perfectly visible was Monacelli's Black Rhino. I just found it interesting that would talk about someone switching a ball but not naming the ball.