Bowling Comparisons and Reminiscing

[The Maven]

I see one of the problems is that bowling is a different game from what it was. We have two totally separate different games; one in the 70’s and before, and the other, the 80’s and beyond. The time frame is flexible as to exactly when, and where in the country. Many judgments are tried to be made comparing them; it’s not going to happen or make sense.
Bowling is a “score conscience” game similar to golf. Golf put a frying pan on the end of the shaft to help you drive the ball better, and made huge sweet spots on the irons to cut down on the errant shots. All of this was done for the average golfer to increase his/her scoring and the games popularity. The perfect game would be an 18, but I think we are about 30 to 40 years away from that.
Unfortunately, in bowling the ultimate score is a 300 or how many 300s in a row you can bowl, which has become so common-place in achieving that it is ridiculous. We are comparing that to the pre-70 era.
We would rejoice and dance in the isles if we had a 2 to 3 board area to work with and that was if you were lined up properly and threw the ball well and adjusted as the lanes broke down, and if they were oiled at all. Today it seems like keeping it right/left of center and max revolutions is all that’s needed to be a star. When us oldsters see terms like spare-percentage, we fall down laughing. The game has become not whether or not you hit the pocket, but whether or not you carry. It seems like half the bowlers are driving semis to bring enough balls to choose from. Because of the lane conditioning and equipment the game has become a “strikes only” game; spares are much an afterthought.
The other night I went out and watched the top travel scratch leagues in our area play. In all reality it looked like one of the better handicap beer leagues from yesteryear or that someone turned an asylum loose on the lanes. Very few in the league had consistent mechanics; the emphasis was on hurling the ball with as many revolutions as possible in the “general direction” of the pins. Because of the extreme number of boards crossed and wild shots, the many errant shots left some of the most interesting spare shots imaginable. Looking at their league sheet and seeing the number of 300’s bowled, it occurred to me that if they had bowled in my day, it would have taken 2 of them added together to get to 300.
In all reality, doctored’ conditions have always been with us to increase scoring, but their occurrence was rare and usually for special occasions and/or tournaments. Both shellac and lacquer would wear down leaving a general track toward the pocket. A lot of the early high scorers would throw spinners that would generally stay in the track and hook into the pocket. With proper oiling in conjunction with the track one could, what we call “Block” the lanes where the scratch bowler could kick the ball into the pocket. With the advent of synthetic finishes and lanes, the oiling would control where the shot was.
Different parts of the country would have their general “lane condition” which would be the most commonplace to be found. Scores would vary throughout the country depending on the conditions found.
I grew up on military bases throughout the world and learned to bowl on their lanes. I didn’t know any better, but the conditions I learned on could be described as absolutely brutal. My original house was 12 lanes in a Quonset hut with open windows down the sides in the summer to keep it cooler. The color of the lanes was dark brown. Every morning an old maintenance man would have a spray can of oil and start at the pin deck and walk backwards spraying the lanes; that was the daily ritual.
I developed a unique style of bowling; as back then, the general approach was to watch others and copy what you liked. My heels overhung the back of the approach; I took 4 giant steps; at the top of my backswing the ball was above my head; when I released the ball, my heel was more pointed towards the pins than the toe. Something like today’s bowlers only with less revolutions. I was 15 when I started and was the top Junior with my 158 average.
The military Special Services for the moral and well being of the servicemen and their families schedule appearances of celebrated stars in the sports world. For the bowlers a name star would put on an exhibition and bowl a match against the top Junior bowler. I got to bowl against Buzz Fazio, who I did not like. He gave off the attitude that he was “Mr. Big” and was also trying to tell me what I was doing wrong. Hey, I was the top Junior……who was this Buzz Fazio?
A couple of months later at another base I got to bowl against another touring star. He had an impact on me and to this day, I consider him as one of the most gracious and caring bowlers of all time. You could feel in his attitude that you getting better was important to him. It wasn’t an ego thing, he actually wanted you to improve and what he showed and said to me made a difference. He was Andy Varipapa and he is gone now, but will forever be in the memory of mine and many others.
At the age of 16 I went into the adult leagues and improved. At 18 in another location, I bowled in the Carling Black Label League where 1st place was 5 new 1967 Pontiac Firebird cars. That was my first scratch league. (I did not get a car)
To give you an idea of how the game has changed, I have posted a picture of an award my 1st bowling association presented to a bowler that tossed a 210 or higher game in sanctioned competition.
BowlTrophy.jpg

[Aslan]

There's no WAY I'm reading that!!

Mudpuppy...LOOK!! Look what Maven did!!!

Okay, congrats on being wordier than me...and side hint..."paragraphs". You'd be surprised how MORE readable it is with spaces. Mudpuppy will still hate it...but...better.

I'll just add to this topic that it IS frustrating to me that the game HAS changed so much. It really saddens me to think that a guy like Don Carter or Earl Anthony would probably not make the Tour using todays equipment/conditions/techniques. Maybe they would...maybe their "accuracy" and "consistency" would still make them elite...but I just have a sneaking suspicion they'd be house pros somewhere...owning a pro shop rather than bowling legends.

Technology has changed a lot of sports...but usually it just makes the game faster or enhances the athlete. So a guy like Sandy Koufax or Gayle Sayers...they'd still be elite...just statistically "better" because of the changes in conditioning and technology. But it seems different with bowling. It seems like the entire sport is just different. The old tried and true methods, taught for generations, are now not only outdated, but frowned upon. Thats very "odd" for a sport. Imagine if you had a little league ball player and you told him when batting to "keep his eye on the ball" and his coach comes over and says, "actually....we now teach hitters to not look at the ball and instead stare at the sun when hitting." It's like, "What?!" Welcome to bowling 2015!

[circlecity]

I think the old pros like Carter and Anthony would do just fine with the new equipment. After reading some of these "good ol' days" posts here and on other forums I'm glad I missed that era of bowling. Sounds crappy. I'm 45 years old just to get a time frame when I started. I actually bowled with Mike White as a junior but he is I believe 5 years older than me.

[Aslan]

I actually bowled with Mike White as a junior but he is I believe 5 years older than me.

Oh. Well congratulations on your 70th birthday. How are the golden years treating ya?

[swingset]

Technology has changed a lot of sports...but usually it just makes the game faster or enhances the athlete. So a guy like Sandy Koufax or Gayle Sayers...they'd still be elite...just statistically "better" because of the changes in conditioning and technology. But it seems different with bowling. It seems like the entire sport is just different. The old tried and true methods, taught for generations, are now not only outdated, but frowned upon. Thats very "odd" for a sport. Imagine if you had a little league ball player and you told him when batting to "keep his eye on the ball" and his coach comes over and says, "actually....we now teach hitters to not look at the ball and instead stare at the sun when hitting." It's like, "What?!" Welcome to bowling 2015!

I'm not sure I'd say that traditional bowling methods are frowned upon, only by a segment of bowlers....plenty of people still bowl in the "old style" and do very well with it, women especially are still by and large playing "yesterday's game". You can even compete with those methods - sometimes they're actually a benefit. Sure, the modern release and equipment has exploited the conditions to make an advantage, but only for some players...and the techniques that are frowned upon (like square hips/shoulders) are frowned upon in some cases for a very pure reason - we know more about body mechanics and repeatability than bowlers used to.

Bowling isn't much different than a lot of sports that have progressed, to be honest. It was ALWAYS an equipment game, that makes it very different from basketball or soccer, but an elite bowler of the 70's could still be top shelf now for the same reasons OJ Simpson would still be a great back if he were 20 right now....conditioning, knowledge, experience. Maybe Dick Weber couldn't step onto the lanes and compete out of the gate, but with a cursory knowledge of the changes, they'd adapt and be very good....probably scary good.

I think a lot of games have changed in not only terms of equipment but how the game is played. Football sure has, when I was playing for Carnegie Mellon in 1989, if you'd have showed me Oregon's tapes from last year I'd have thought I was watching a different sport....we had nothing like their spread, speed, conditioning or anything like that. But, then neither did our opponents.

And, like I say over and over again, this is a game against opponents. As long as we're all on the same wood with the same round things, the game is not broken.

[RobLV1]

At the risk of raising the ire of some who shall remain unnamed, I think that we have not two, but three different games. Prior to the eighties, bowlers threw full rollers, looking for the thinnest tracks as an indication of the most consistent releases. Nest, in the eighties, Mark Roth came along and started ripping the cover off the ball to get it to hook. Timing got late. Footwork became a race to the foul line, and torn up thumbs became the badges of honor of the power players. Finally, in the ninties, reactive resin balls with dynamic cores changed everything again. Balls began to hook all by themselves with no help at all from the bowler, in fact, today, the more help we try to give the ball to get it to hook, the less it hooks.

Bowling, like every other sport on the planet has changed and will continue to do so. It's not better. It's not worse. It's just different. In fact, I'm will to go out on a limb here and say that Jason Belmonte has introduced the fourth different game. Time will tell.

[The Maven]

A few corrections here, Mark Roth came on the tour in 1970 and was a star of the 70’s.
The torn up thumbs, including among some of the professionals, came from poorly fitted balls. The approach to drilling except for the knowledgeable shops or drillers was to drill all holes to center. I used to have an early release, sometimes in my backswing, because the blood lubricated the hole. I would go to the dispensary and get a free bottle of collodium (like New Skin) and cotton to make patches.
In the late 60’s when I took my mangled appendage to Gary Wilson at Bach Bowling Supply, he fitted me with a ball and explained why I was having problems (my thumb was extremely stiff and needed one-half reverse and quarter away); I never again had hand problems and in later years when running a few pro shops, proper fitting was most important in drilling a ball.
I had started with a full-roller, and even had a AMF Magic Circle that never wavered going down the lane, but later in the mid 70’s changed to a cranking three-quarter Yellow Dot. The main reason was going from bowling in parking lot conditions to oiled prepared shots, synthetic lanes and finishes. It took me a whole summer league to make the change starting with a three-quarter grip and finishing back to fingertip.

[Mike White]

At the risk of raising the ire of some who shall remain unnamed, I think that we have not two, but three different games. Prior to the eighties, bowlers threw full rollers, looking for the thinnest tracks as an indication of the most consistent releases. Nest, in the eighties, Mark Roth came along and started ripping the cover off the ball to get it to hook. Timing got late. Footwork became a race to the foul line, and torn up thumbs became the badges of honor of the power players. Finally, in the ninties, reactive resin balls with dynamic cores changed everything again. Balls began to hook all by themselves with no help at all from the bowler, in fact, today, the more help we try to give the ball to get it to hook, the less it hooks.

Bowling, like every other sport on the planet has changed and will continue to do so. It's not better. It's not worse. It's just different. In fact, I'm will to go out on a limb here and say that Jason Belmonte has introduced the fourth different game. Time will tell.

No ire, just a little fact checking.

Mark Roth joined the PBA in 1970, started on the national tour in 1972, won his first title in 1975, and was Player of the Year in 1977, 1978, 1979, and 1984.

The 80's brought in urethane balls. AMF had the Angle, Faball had the Hammer, and Brunswick had the Edge.

I remember one person who had the Edge. A guy who with plastic balls, never managed to get the ball to stop skidding before the pins, now had to deal with this thing called roll-out. He bowled in the 6 o'clock league, and at the end of the night was swearing the lane had too much oil on it. Then I came in at the 9 o'clock league, on the same pair, and hooked it a bunch with a black diamond ball.

Bowling balls, don't hook by themselves. If you don't put it into the ball, you're not going to get it back out.

And with the modern bowling ball the more you try to hook it, the more it will hook, under the assumption you actually know how to hook a ball.

I threw my Mastermind on the same line I throw my Polar Ice (17 at the arrows out to 5 at 45 feet, then back to the pocket) but it wouldn't go out past 9 board. At 39 feet (end of the pattern) the ball turned left and was in the gutter at 50 feet.

Other than the 2 hands, Belmonte's game isn't different than what some of us had back in the 80's.

Speed + RPM equal hook. More speed means more energy delivered to the pins. With the modern bowling ball, and enough lane oil to keep it under control, very large amounts of energy can be delivered.

Every time an "amazing" messenger flies across the lane to take out the 10 pin, it was a poor shot (light pocket) with enough energy to sail the head pin off the wall.

Back in the 80's, messengers weren't as commons now, because they were the result of errant shots getting lucky, not something you intended to do.

[Aslan]

I just saw a Brunswick Black Diamond in anole leather bag at Goodwill for $9.99.

It had "Mike" already etched into it in case you're interested Mr. White. It's at the Goodwill across from Chapparal300.

[rv driver]

I had one ball. One. A rubber bowling ball. An AMF S3D Classic, drilled straight up just below the three blue dots. I threw strikes with it off about the 10th-12th board. I picked up lots of spares with it, too. I carried just over a 200 average with that ball on wood lanes oiled traditionally. As long as I hit my mark I'd throw a great game -- early in the day, at the end of the night -- didn't make any difference.

Back then, you didn't worry about "patterns breaking down." You worried about your swing and your release. You didn't waste time "selecting balls" from the "arsenal." Only the bestest bowlers even had "arsenals." That meant 2 balls, not 3, 4, or five. A soft rubber ball and a hard rubber ball -- or a rubber and a urethane. And almost no one was throwing fingertip.

A good bowler was good because he could pick up spares -- not because he could consistently throw near-perfect games.

The whole approach to the equipment and the pins has changed. Not passing judgment. If the approach nets more perfect games, so much the better, as far as I'm concerned; that is, after all, the object of the game, yes? But it does put me back at the bottom of the learning curve which, at my age, really, really sucks.