(from funnynamesblog.com)
With bowling leagues starting the ball rolling for the new season this past week, I thought an investigation into the alleys of the sport’s past was a good place to start for my monthly contribution this time around at BoFN.
Yes, I’m among the throng who got back to the lanes last week. A card-carrying member of the USBC, for which I pulled an extra $20 out of my pocket for the honor. And, yes, I do consider this a sport. Not the way I perform it, perhaps, with my average that ended at 163, near the bottom of my 12-team league last year. Also, I do not own a button-down bowling shirt of the kind you see if you’ve stopped on a bowling tournament on TV.
Which I did every week as a kid, with my parents, watching guys named Earl Anthony and Johnny Petraglia and Dick Weber rolling strike after strike. No, those aren’t funny names. The announcer on ABC, though, was Chris Schenkel, and he also used to make a commercial that merely supported “the great taste of beer in a bottle,” …
Click here to read the rest of the story at the Blog of Funny Names.
Mark Bialczak 
I am not a good bowler or golfer but I enjoy how you add details to make it interesting and dare I say this? 🙂 educational!!
I liked going to see grandies bowl with the special rigging that allows them to direct their ball down a hill. I am sure you used this with Elisabeth while young. Have fun and happy bowling, Mark!
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What we used when Elisabeth was a tyke was the bumpers in the gutters, Robin. They hadn’t yet invented the downhill ball launcher, I don’t think! We had fun as she learned, and then we went without the bumpers. 🙂
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Bro Mark, at last we found one I’ve done myself. Not well, but I’ve bowled, and had my ball in every gutter in the alley–all during the same game. I have real talent there. I’m a one spare wonder, but since it was in the lane next to the one I was bowling in it didn’t seem to count for some reason. I really thought they should give me an “A: for effort. We didn’t know about my crooked eye thing yet.
Enjoy your season this year. Other than all my gutter balls and getting that one spare, my most vivid memory is the pain in my shoulder. It just started again when I thought about those memories of bowlingl
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The Crooked Eye can’t help, sis Angie. Keep your mind out of the gutter, will ‘ya? Hahaha.
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But that would take most of the fun out of life bro Mark.
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I too remember watching bowling tournaments on TV when I was young Mark. I had a colleague when I was in my thirties who could have been a professional bowler – except he enjoyed his adult beverages too much., He bowled for a local league and he invited us (his office colleagues – 4 of us) to come and watch a tournament game. Unreal. Like you said Mark, they just bowl strike after strike after strike. It is a game of nerves to see who will flinch first. The first one who bowls a spare instead of a strike, loses. No way I could take that kind of pressure. Whew.
I know you enjoy your league and it sounds like fun – a group of friends who get together and compete.I could have fun at that.
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You could have fun at our league, Paul. There are some very good bowlers, yes, but the handicap system gives us lower-scoring fellas a chance when we have a good week. 🙂
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We’re already three weeks into my league. We started a week early since we’ll fall victim to the Christmas/New Years double whammy midseason. The good news is I’ve been bowling pretty good. The bad news is that it sucks to have an overinflated average early in the season…
I miss watching Chris describe the action on the PBA Tour after my Saturday morning youth league when I was a kid. Bowling is one of the few sports I can totally watch on TV without getting bored…
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Watching that Saturday show with Chris was one of the few things that I could do as a kid with both my father and mother without it ending up badly somehow, Bill, because we all three were bowlers and were calmed by the man’s voice?
Yeah, congrats on the good start, and good luck keeping the average up the rest of the year. 😮
At our banquet last year, everybody voted to bowl two Sundays as extra instead of starting early. Get this, though. I found out from our team captain that at the league meeting, they voted to eliminate the banquet this year and put the cash into the prize fund. Pushed by the best teams, obviously. Us high-handicappers who loved the big meal and get the lower-percentage payout for our annual second-division finishes, not so much.
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Those bullies! That should just be more incentive to beat the tar out of them during the season. When I was on a bottom feeder team, sticking it to the alpha teams was a rare, but quite fulfilling treat… especially if said team had at least one crybaby who always got upset if someone with a pitiful average had a great night.
We have no banquet… (sniff)
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Most of the guys in our league are really good sports, so I don’t gloat too much when we roll over our heads. A few, though, don’t believe their eyes when I roll my sporadic 630. I just say, you shoulda seen my 450 last week.
I’m going to miss the unlimited shrimp and prime rib. Sigh.
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