Bowling, The Wright Way - September 17, 1997 by Don Wright
Inflated Averages - Stop The Insanity!

Fellow scribe John Jowdy recently wrote a column in which he said he was perplexed and asked the following question "are bowlers really 30 pins better than they were 20 years ago?" He followed that question with "At what point are scores too high? Have we let this madness go on too long? And, finally, When does it stop?"

Is this the same Jowdy who once wrote that equipment is not the reason for high scoring, bowlers are more intelligent now? But, that was back when he was a paid employee of Columbia 300.

Bowling is broke and nobody wants to tell the Emperor he's naked. Bowling has been broke so long I personally don't believe it can be fixed. The System of Bowling was supposed to do that some five or six years ago, remember? Today the System of Bowling follows people around, listens to what those people have to say, but offer no explanation on what their "task force" is going to suggest, recommend, or do.

Bowling has to decide on whether it wants respectability as a competitive sport, or simply remain a recreational game the whole family can enjoy.

High scores, inflated averages and even bigger egos are the result of soft lane conditions, exotic ball drilling, pins that fall over if you breathe hard and organizations who refuse to police themselves and establish standards.

I'm told that proprietors are losing business and bowling in declining. If that's true, why is AMF buying bowling centers that now total 112 in the U.S. and six in Britain. With 343 centers they have three times their nearest competitor. Or, how about the AMF center in a Dallas suburb that told a ten team league they were too small for their 40-plus lane center and they were going to drop their league. There were no other leagues waiting in the wings and I don't think they could have mustered 50 open bowlers to bowl three games each and spend the same amount of money in the snack bar and lounge over a 36 week period. Yet, I hear proprietors and managers say they are afraid they will lose bowlers if they put out a more difficult shot.

I'm a "cyber-geek" and love to get on bulletin boards on the computer and get good debates going. I posed the question about bowlings integrity and with very rare exceptions found the majority of the bowlers want a tougher condition, truer averages, and offered some suggestions.

Here are a few:

• Put out a more difficult shot for scratch and classic leagues.
• Have a softer shot for beginner leagues, youth leagues and physically challenged.
• Have a heavier pin, or lower the center of mass.
• Make better use of the re-rating rule as it pertains to averages.
• Clearly define amateur and professional.
• Establish controls over equipment with primary emphasis on bowling balls and drilling.

These are just a few of the comments from bowlers from around the world, not just the U.S..

To steal a phrase "somebody stop the insanity!" Saying that bowling is broke isn't what the vast majority of writers want to hear. Of course they are the same writers that think baseball went to hell when the Dodgers left Brooklyn, nobody was better than Rocky Marciano and we could all sip nickel beer while arguing about it.

Bob Cosgrove, a past president of the Bowling Writers Association of America (BWAA) stood before the integers and said that bowling was broke and to this day takes a public flogging from his colleagues.

Now that Jowdy, the past president of the BWAA, has used such terms as "the serious scoring madness began in 1989," and "however, if there is any solace to be found in this absurdity..." I wonder if he will receive the same flogging.

Personally, I feel the BWAA is remiss by covering bowling through rose colored glasses. It's time they stood up and said "we're mad as hell and we're not gonna take it any more."

I'm prepared for my flogging.

See you on the lanes.