The Retro/Salad days of bowling

[bowl1820]

Looking at posts at time's you see people talking about how today's conditions and equipment have changed the game and they wax romantic about bowling days past,

"Back in my day the game had integrity! you needed skill to do well! if you had 200 ave you were a god of the lanes!".

When I look at bowling's glory days. I think of the other thing's that are missing and I would like to see back.

Like real team shirts (the old retro style) with everyone's name embroidered on them from sponsors.
( plus seeing the "girls" wearing skirts when they bowled)

The team spirit there was, where the members encouraged each other, they practiced together and bowled as a team. Having tryout's to make it on to one of the top teams.

(There was a episode of "All in the family" where archie was all excited that he is considered for membership on a championship bowling team the Cannonballers, after waiting six years for a opening on the team. and he is asked to try out for it.)

How everyone looked forward to the big league championship at the end of the season and everyone came to watch who won and got the trophy they displayed in the trophy case at the lanes and the award banquets where they handed out the awards.

Bowling to day is still fun and I look forward to bowling night. But once in a while you think about the old days. The wife hands you that fresh ironed shirt with your name on it and you grab your ball. You head down to the lanes to bowl and have that big hamburger and fries with that slice of pickle and cherry coke. Then after bowling you and rest of your team stop for a cold one and talk smack about the other team and how you beat them or how they took you to school on the lanes.

[Iceman]

Now this does bring back memories, I am 38 - so I was not a fellow member, but this is exactly what I meant about growing up with my dad - going with him and hearing all this. I so much wanted to be a part in it - these days, it's so sad seeing how much the game itself is tainted with the wall shots and high performance balls. I would love to relive those days, but not as a youth - try my current skills on what was the "flat patterns" with white dots and yellow dots.

Play off the corner and go straighter. I still have one of my dad's bowling shirts, it's blue and brown, I guess this was color coordinated back in those days with orange lettering and the company sponsor was Earl's Gas Station.

[bowl1820]

Well I'm 48 and most of this stuff was gone when I started bowling. We had awards banquets and the one house gave you a $100 for shooting a 300 game That was like in the early 90's.

The best bowling shirt I saw was one a man wore from when he was on league at the Rhein-Main airbase in germany. The shirt was blue with white pleats and had award patches designed like military stripes/chevrons (in other words they looked like Sgt. stripes). Plus a patch for "The Six Pack Club" for getting six strikes in a row.

"how much the game itself is tainted with the wall shots and high performance balls" right there that's what I'm talking about. That's what most see when they see posts talking about days gone by.

But they (not meaning you iceman) conveniently forget those were also the days of hand oiling (remember the fly sprayer?) and they inspected the shot after honors scores were shot and how many got denied because the shot was out of spec.

or the wooden lanes and how they developed a "TRACK" which would help guide a ball to the pocket.
(the track was a groove wore into the wooden lanes about around the 8-10 boards. From everyone playing the same line, that lead to the strike pocket. hence the term "Playing the track")

That's not to say that it didn't take skill's back in the day. You still had to be accurate, it took some work to put a "hook" on a ball and you had to pickup your spares.

[Jord_84]

I keep telling my husband that if we took over the bowling alley someday.....I'm going to remodel everything to look retro. I think it'd be a great way to bring in business. People would come to reminisce.

[jaws1945]

When they still had the national bowling museum in St. Louis( I heard it was moved to Texas), I toured it a few years ago. They had retro lanes that went back to pre-automatic pinsetters and showed the progression of the game and equipment. It was quite an exhibit, and really enjoyed it.

[Iceman]

"how much the game itself is tainted with the wall shots and high performance balls" right there that's what I'm talking about. That's what most see when they see posts talking about days gone by.

This wall shot didn't exist back then, so you had to be accurate and maintain speed. No High Performance balls, wasn't it white dots or simply plastic?

But they (not meaning you iceman) conveniently forget those were also the days of hand oiling (remember the fly sprayer?) and they inspected the shot after honors scores were shot and how many got denied because the shot was out of spec. I remember this and I'm sure people over 30 have heard this, I think this should be taught to the younger generation so they understand the history and how "easy" ahem, they have it.

They don't have time today to travel around and inspect all the 300's (they used to close the lanes off and weigh the ball too). I remember my dad getting mad, cause he couldn't take his ball home one evening. He was afraid someone would take it. lol

[bowl1820]

"This wall shot didn't exist back then, so you had to be accurate and maintain speed. No High Performance balls, wasn't it white dots or simply plastic?"

the wall shot as it is referred to today wasn't there, but they had their own soft shots.
( it's called a wall shot because the ball skids through the oil then hits the dry and looks like it's hitting a wall and bouncing off it.)

Back in the day instead of the balls bouncing off the dry outside boards, they would ride the oil line created by a high volume oil in the center of the lane and the dry outside to the pocket.

The christmas tree pattern is a good example of this. When put down it formed a oil line that helped guide the ball straight toward the pocket. This was the basic THS pattern for the time. Now there was a time when the christmas tree was a illegal shot.

"wasn't it white dots or simply plastic?" white dots are plastic balls.

the basic genesis of bowling balls was ( for modern balls) Rubber then Polyester(akalastic) followed by urethane then reactive urethane(aka:Reactive Resin) then particles.

The wall shot as we know it now didn't really start showing up till the urethane/ reactive era of balls.

One of the real difference's between today's and yesterdays equipment meaning balls. Is the the time taken for the ball to transition through the different stages of the shot.

There are three stages a ball goes through when traveling down the lane SKID-HOOK-ROLL.

In the the past the balls would skid through the heads and then begin the hooking stage which took a moment then went into the roll. You could easily watch the these stages as the ball when down the lane.

In today's equipment the hook phase is almost instantaneous, that's why you have such a sharp breaking balls and this helped the birth of the wall shot.

My mention of inspecting the shot back then. was to say you didn't hear of the reasons they turned down a lot of honor scores. which a lot were do to the shot being made easy for high scoring.