Bowling Video--Chris Schenkel's Tearful Final PBA Telecast

Billy Hardwick's Son "Hates" Modern Bowling

After the recent Mark Roth Plastic Ball Championship, I wrote here that I would rather see bowlers required in all elite level tournaments to use bowling balls with polyester coverstocks and simple layouts so that the sport would downplay the importance of bowling ball technology and return to emphasizing a bowler's physical and mental skills. It seems that Chris Hardwick, the multi-talented son of bowling legend Billy Hardwick, agrees and would like to see bowlers at all levels subject to the same restrictions.

Hardwick, who writes articles for Wired magazine, penned a provocative article in Oct, 2008 that is fun and interesting reading. In Technology's Gutterball: New Gear Makes Bowling Too Easy, Chris, who was named after famed bowling announcer Chris Schenkel, writes about growing up on course to become the "Tiger Woods of bowling (but with a hilariously lower salary)" until Dungeons and Dragons and videogames altered his destiny. However, he says that he remains "a careful observer of the game" and that he 'hates' what he sees.

He hates the fact that modern reactive resin and other high tech bowling balls have made 300 games and high averages pretty much meaningless:

These new balls and surfaces mean more strikes, which means higher scores and more perfect games. By some counts, amateur bowlers can average 40 pins higher per game than a professional bowler did 40 years ago — and that's not because of some recently evolved mutation in the human bowling gene. Look, we all want to excel at bowling. How else would we attract potential sex partners? Not to go all Harrison Bergeron on you, but when everyone bowls perfect games, then no one bowls a perfect game. Sure, other sports have tech. A titanium shaft and weighted clubhead will let you hit 300-yard drives until your spine unhinges, but they'll still slice. With bowling, the equation is simpler. More tech equals more strikes.

Hardwick later, with tongue probably only halfway in cheek, writes this about the USBC's proposal to limit the porousness of bowling balls after April, 2009:

As a purist of the sport, I'm grateful for the change. We should have to earn our marks the way our daddies (or, at least, mine) did: with hard rubber balls on wood, a hot lamp over the scoring table burning our hands and faces, and watered-down American beer lubricating each frame until we go home smelling like an ashtray in a chemical plant. "Keep yer got-damn science off mah balls!" we'll cry, and life will be good and pure and true.

Call me the old fuddy-duddy that I am, but I agree with Hardwick, except for the hot lamps and cigarette smoke.

Chris' dad Billy in a 1969 Miller High Life beer commercial.

Bowling History Captured on Video

I've been watching bowling since the late 1950's, and I started bowling not long after that. I've seen a lot of great bowling on TV and in person, and I've bowled a few decent games and series myself. And as I keep posting to this blog and working to take my own game to a higher level before it's too late, I find myself becoming more and more interested in the history of this wonderful sport.

So, I was delighted to find the six videos below on YouTube. They are from a program titled Bowling, the Perfect Game--Classic Moments in Bowling History hosted by Chris Schenkel and Nelson Burton Jr that aired in 1991. Somehow, I managed to miss it, but through the magic of YouTube, you and I are able to see it now. And it's definitely a case of better late than never. Or better again and again than only once.

The program covers the entire history of modern tenpin bowling in America going back to even before the founding of the American Bowling Congress in 1895 and features rare footage of early stars and styles. It covers the history of bowling lanes, surface coatings, pinsetters, and bowling balls. It shows highlights from televised bowling matches and tournaments. And it teaches things about the history of the sport that you probably didn't know unless you're a REAL old-timer or bowling history fanatic.

For instance, I never knew that long before Jack Biondolillo bowled the first 300 on the PBA telecasts on ABC in 1967, Ed Lubanski bowled two consecutive 300's on TV sometime in what appears to have been the 1950's. There's footage of that in the program (see video #2). I also didn't know that bowling balls had only two holes and that people bowled with just their thumb and middle finger until sometime around the late 40's or early 50's.

This program, via the six videos below, is a priceless treasure trove of information and viewing pleasure for the bowling fan, so take your shoes off, kick back, and enjoy.

Rob Stone "Rips" Jack Jurek

Love him or hate him, ESPN's bowling announcer Rob Stone sure makes an impression.

I started out not liking him at all because he seemed to know nothing about bowling and tried to fill the void with silly wisecracks. But he's grown on me over time as he's learned more about the game and developed a nice rapport with analyst Randy Pedersen.

I still long for the good old days of Chris Schenkel (although, to be honest, he didn't seem to know any more than Rob Stone about bowling, even after decades of covering the sport) or, better still, Denny Schriner, the bowling announcer par excellence. But I no longer want Rob Stone thrown off the telecast the way I did at first.

I'm amused by the love it or hate it reaction that bowlers seem to have to his coining the irreverent term "hambone" for four strikes in a row and to how it's caught on. It has even inspired About.com's bowling writer to post a series of recommended names in his blog for other strike strings.

Bowling "purists" seem to hate the expression, and the less serious seem to love and embrace it. I guess I'm one of the relatively rare individuals closer to the purist end of the spectrum who, while I won't use the term myself, don't mind other people using it. It's too silly for me, but it doesn't bother me a bit if others want to be silly.

Yet, I think the most amusing thing Rob Stone has come up with is the moniker he pinned on Jack Jurek. When Jurek appeared a few weeks ago on the telecast, Stone began calling him Jack "The Ripper" Jurek, and I don't think I've laughed as hard in years as I did when I heard that.

Now I don't know Jack Jurek personally, and I haven't even seen him bowl that many times on TV, but the overwhelming impression I've nevertheless formed of him and his game is that they're about as far away from "ripping" anyone or anything as anyone or anything could be. During Jurek's appearance in the final match of the USBC Masters in 2006, Randy Pederse said, "You look up 'nice guy' in a dictionary, there's a picture of Jack." And that's how he comes across to me.
What's more, unlike power players such as Robert Smith, Sean Rash, Jason Belmonte, and Tommy Jones. Jurek is a much more diminutive stroker of the old school variety. He's a very capable bowler, but his ball seems to nudge the pins over more than it rips them off the deck.

So, Jack "The Ripper" Jurek sounds about as playfully ridiculous as would Mike "The Ripper" Aulby or, for that matter, Wally "The Beast" Cox. Come to think of it, Aulby and Jurek kind of resemble one another in appearance and in the softness, albeit an effective one, of their games. Neither looks like he would or could so much as rip a fly apart much less rip apart pin racks. If you're going to call someone "The Ripper," how about Rudy "The Ripper" Kasimakis for the burly cranker with the intimidating demeanor and pin crushing power?

But Kasimakis' first name isn't Jack, and calling HIM "The Ripper" wouldn't have the delightful irony that leaves me in stitches every time I hear it that Jack "The Ripper" Jurek does. Does Rob Stone appreciate the incongruity of his creation? I don't know. I don't suppose it matters to those of us who do. Does Jack Jurek like his new nickname? I don't know the answer to that either. But I don't suppose there's anything he can do about it even if he doesn't like it. It's going to stick with him for the rest of his life, so he might as well join the rest of us and laugh out loud about it.