The year was 1914, and Brunswick was proud of its Mineralite bowling ball. The vermillion-colored ball was made of hard rubber. The company guaranteed it would not chip or lose its shape for three years.
Still, the $20 price tag was pretty steep for a ball in 1914. Something had to be done to convince bowlers to part with that much cash. That spring a Brunswick manager named Dell Heneman came up with a novel promotion. Why not send a Mineralite around the world?
Travel was hard a century ago. Cars and planes were primitive, and most people spent their entire life within fifty miles of the place where they were born. Go around the world? Now that was something to talk about!
The logistics weren’t as difficult as they might seem. This was the heyday of the British Empire, and there were YMCAs in most of the British colonies. Brunswick would simply ship the ball from one YMCA to another, using the Wells Fargo Express Company. Regular reports would be sent back, and bowlers could track the ball as it made its journey.
The saga began on May 28, 1914, when Brunswick Mineralite #391914 left the company offices in Chicago. It arrived in San Francisco two days later. There was a match at the local YMCA, then the ball was sent back across the country to New York. After a match there, the traveling Mineralite was put on a ship and brought to London. Another ceremony, and another match. The next scheduled stop was the International Bowling Tournament in Berlin.
Now things got complicated. While the ball was on its way to Berlin, war broke out between Germany and Britain—a little scrap called World War I. The Mineralite arrived, and German customs was suspicious. Nobody had ever seen a big, American-style bowling ball. They thought it might be a bomb. So the Germans sent the ball back. Somehow it wound up in Paris. After sitting around there for a few months, the French returned it to London.
The original plan had been to send the ball from Berlin to Vienna, then to Rome for a hoped-for blessing from the Pope, and from Rome to Bombay. Since that wasn’t going to work, the Brits put the ball on a ship and sent it directly to India. It reached Bombay in November.
After yet another YMCA ceremony, the Mineralite was loaded onto a ship headed for Australia. On the way, the ship sank. Oh, well . . . But wait! The first reports were wrong! The ball had missed the boat and was still safe in Bombay!
Now the Mineralite was really put on board a ship, and made its way to Sydney without incident. From Sydney it sailed across the Pacific to San Diego, where the ball was exhibited at the California Pacific Exposition. Finally, in June 1915, after thirteen months and 35,000 miles on the road and over the sea, Mineralite #391914 arrived back in San Francisco. There it was proudly displayed at the Brunswick booth of the Panama Pacific World’s Fair.
Funny thing. After the fair closed, and all that trouble, Brunswick lost the ball. It was missing for nineteen years. But in 1934, someone found #391914 tucked away in a warehouse. Think of the final scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark.
In Chicago, there was another world’s fair that year, the Century of Progress Exposition. Brunswick trotted out the lost-and-found Mineralite, and once more put it on display. Stories in the papers related the amazing adventures of the world-touring bowling ball. Then the Chicago fair closed. And once again, the ball disappeared.
Where is it today? Nobody seems to know. But if you’re poking around in the attic, and come across Great-grandpa’s old Mineralite, and it’s marked #391914, hold on to it. You have a piece of history.
First published in BOWLERS JOURNAL INTERNATIONAL in August 2010. For this story and 89 more, buy a copy of my book THE BOWLING CHRONICLES. Available on Amazon, or from McFarland Publishing for bulk orders. A better league prize than another trophy!
To many people this time of year brings back cherished memories of the magic Christmases of childhood. But I always remember the Chicago Classic League, and its annual visit to Habetler Bowl.
The time was the early 1960s. The PBA Tour was on the rise, and the Classic League had passed its peak. Yet the league still loomed large on Chicago’s bowling scene. It had a history. Twice a week, our four daily newspapers carried the scores of the Classic’s two divisions.
And there were the bowlers! The league boasted many of the legends we had grown up watching on TV—Joe Norris, Paul Krumske, Harry Lippe, Eddie Kawolics, and more. Those demigods would be performing on the same lanes as our Saturday morning junior league.
The Classic came to our house the last Tuesday before Christmas. That date was important, for with school on vacation, it was easier to talk parents into letting us stay out to watch a 9:15 league. Our proprietor, Rudy Habetler, was a former president of the Classic. I like to think he secured that special date so his junior bowlers could attend the session.
The publicity blitz began around Thanksgiving. Large posters were hung on the Habetler Bowl walls proclaiming that the Classic League was coming. The message was echoed on the outside signboard for the enlightenment and edification of the motorists along Northwest Highway. Around the middle of December, the Classic League Yearbooks appeared. These were digest-size booklets crammed with pictures, statistics, and schedules, and we eagerly scooped them up.
The big night finally arrived. Portable grandstands had been set up behind the last eight lanes, and spectators began filling them as early as 8 o’clock—which produced some nervousness among the 150-average bowlers in the early league who suddenly had an audience. Then, a little before 9, the Classic Leaguers began drifting in.
Everything about them said class. They were freshly barbered, spoke in low voices, and smoked seven-inch cigars. They carried leather bowling bags and wore silky shirts with the finest embroidery. When they took to the lanes to warm up, even the bottom-rungers managed to get a devastating curve out of a hard-rubber ball with no apparent effort.
Don Eberl (1941-1998)
Each year there seemed to be some new phenom who had been tearing the league apart. His name might be Jim Stefanich or Don McCune or Les Zikes Jr.—with the final suffix, since Les Sr. still bowled in the Classic. One year the promising rookie was our own Don Eberl, a graduate of Habetler’s Friday night scratch league.
Of the actual bowling I recall very little. There was too much to take in. My most vivid memory is of Eddie Kawolics coming out of the box with the first seven strikes. Another time there was an old-timers’ match. Rudy bowled along with some other vets. What made this special was I got to watch the great Adolph Carlson in action. It was the only time I would ever see him bowl.
And then it was over. My friends and I came out of our trance. We drifted sleepily into the night toward our homes, declaring that we would show up a half-hour early for league next Saturday, so we could try out the tricks we gleaned from observing Andy Rogoznica or Lou Cioffi.
Going home from one of these sessions, I had the aura of the Classic League reinforced for me. It was long past midnight, and as I walked down Foster Avenue, a police car pulled up next to me. Vacation or not, Chicago youth had a strict 10:30 curfew.
When I told the officer where I had been, his face brightened, and he asked me how the Biasetti Steak House team had done. He then told me to get into the squad car—and gave me a ride home. He spent the trip talking about Vince Grzelak, Biasetti’s young phenom.
Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays.
First published in BOWLERS JOURNAL INTERNATIONAL in December 2008.
For this story and 89 more, buy a copy of my book THE BOWLING CHRONICLES. Available on Amazon.
In the spring of 1917, the United States entered World War I. Among the unforeseen results was the largest bowling tournament the world had ever seen.
Germany was the enemy, and anti-German hysteria was sweeping the country. Schools dropped German language courses. Opera houses cancelled Wagner programs. Restaurants changed sauerkraut to “liberty cabbage.” Some resident Germans were tar-and-feathered.
Because bowling was still close to its German roots, some super-patriots talked of outlawing the game. With many proprietors and tenpin officials sporting German names—Bensinger, Baumgarten, Bruck, Schuenemann, Mueller, and so on—the major players sounded like a roll call of the Kaiser’s General Staff.
It happened that many army recruits from Chicago were taking their basic training at Camp Grant, near Rockford. Word reached home that the recreational facilities at the camp were limited. The boys didn’t even have a bowling alley.
ABC Treasurer Pasdeloup
ABC treasurer Frank L. Pasdeloup announced the solution in Bowlers Journal in February 1918. The city and state bowling associations, along with the local proprietors, were going to build bowling facilities at Camp Grant. To raise money, they planned to stage the Patriotic Bowling Tournament. Now all the doubters would know that bowling truly was an All-American game.
Over the next few months, the tournament committee rounded out the details. They decided to make the Patriotic Tournament a full-blown “ABC-style” show, with Team, Doubles, and Singles events. All male bowlers in Illinois were eligible. Entry fees were set at a modest $1 per event. Bowlers would be allowed to shoot at the establishment of their choice.
The last proviso set the tone for the tournament. With so many houses involved, scoring conditions couldn’t be consistent, so the Patriotic Tournament would forget about competitive standings. Prizes would be awarded through a blind drawing.
Public response was enthusiastic. As Patriotic Tournament Week got closer, entries poured in. Some leagues simply added an extra week to their schedules and bowled as a unit. Churches, fraternal societies, athletic clubs, offices, and factories all organized teams. At the Chicago Stock Yards, rival meatpacking companies engaged in friendly competition to see which one would field the most teams. Armour won, and had to reserve an entire floor of Wabash Recreation to accommodate its bowlers. The largest contingent from a single business was the 104 teams representing the Crane Plumbing Company.
The games began on Saturday, May 25. One bowler at Prima Recreation got into the patriotic spirit by showing up dressed as Uncle Sam. A total of 1,066 teams participated, including 134 from towns outside Chicago. The Doubles entry was 762, while the Singles attracted 1,585. All entry figures were records. In fact, the biggest bowling tournament up to that time had been the 1916 ABC at Toledo, with 756 teams.
The concluding festivities were held at Randolph Recreation on June 22. Former ABC president Judge Howard was master of ceremonies. Medals were presented for the highest scores in each division: Team—Olsens (3223), Doubles—Hank Marino and Bob Rolfe (1336), Singles—Robert Phelps (759). Then the Judge began drawing for the prizes.
The monetary awards were in the form of war certificates and thrift stamps, ranging in denomination from $1 through $20. Various businesses had donated merchandise. Boxes of cigars and subscriptions to Bowlers Journal were hot items, though the prize list included socks, straw hats, fountain pens, a new bowling ball, a case of marshmallows, and an “assortment of cookie treats.” Everyone who bowled in the tournament received a red-white-and-blue badge.
The Patriotic Bowling Tournament raised $2,646.48—about $50,000 in today’s money.. Unfortunately, government red tape then began to tangle things. Army officials backed out of their commitment to provide a building for the lanes. Angry words were exchanged, letters were fired off to the Secretary of War. Both the YMCA and the Knights of Columbus were approached to co-sponsor the Camp Grant bowling facility. Neither group was interested.
At last, the Great Lakes Naval Training Camp agreed to accept the gift. Ten new bowling lanes were installed at the base. On December 19, 1918, the facility was formally dedicated. Its work finished, the Patriotic Bowling Tournament committee disbanded.
By then the war had been over for a month. But in this case, it was the thought that counted.
First published in Bowlers Journal, October 1995. For this story and 89 more, buy a copy of my book The Bowling Chronicles. Available on Amazon, or from McFarland Publishing for bulk orders. A great gift for any bowler!
Many of us have signed the petition asking that Glenn Allison’s 900 series be given official recognition. For perspective, let’s look at the history of high-series records.
In 1908 A.C. Jellison of St. Louis became the first person to win an American Bowling Congress award for a 300 game. Jellison’s 826 series was also the highest reported three-game set that year. However, ABC did not give out high series awards yet. Though many leagues rolled three-game matches in 1908, many did not. In fact, most record books of the era listed the best series as the 1628 six-game total rolled by Lee Johns in 1910.
As the three-game league match became standard, Jellison’s 826 gradually gained recognition as the highest-ever series. In 1930 it was topped by another St. Louis bowler, future Hall-of-Famer Otto Stein, with 844. Shortly afterward, ABC issued a statement saying Stein’s score was the “real record” for a three-game set.
Otto Stein
Yet there were still no high-series awards. Stein’s 844 earned him nothing more than whatever he made in pot-games that night. Finally, in 1933, ABC began giving out an annual gold medal for the highest three-game series, and two bowlers—Virgil Gibbs of Kansas City and Mitzi Weinstein of St. Louis—set a new record, each with 847.
The next year Ray Holmes pushed the mark up to 853. Holmes was yet another St. Louis bowler, and there was muttering about the easy conditions in that city. Of course, with the Depression in its depth and many proprietors using cracked and light-weight pins, scores were up all over. In 1937 a Cleveland bowler broke the Missouri monopoly, when Harvey Braatz shot 864. Then came the big one.
The date was October 25, 1939. The place was Lockport, New York. The bowler was Allie Brandt. The scores were 297-289-300—886.
Allie Brandt
Brandt’s 886 was a public relations bonanza for bowling. He was a small man, 5-foot-5 and 125 pounds. His size made the point that you didn’t have to be a muscle-bound giant to succeed on the lanes. For years, nearly every book about bowling featured a picture of the all-time record holder, “Little Allie Brandt.”
Brandt’s 886 was also a personal bonanza. In 1960 he was elected to the Bowling Hall of Fame. Brandt won a few tournaments, finished second in the All-Star, and had a second-place at the ABC. It’s a fine resume, but no better than Bob Chase—except for that 886.
As the decades passed, 886 became bowling’s magic number, the record that might never be broken. I even used 8-8-6 as the combination lock on my first briefcase. The closest anyone came was 876, rolled by Carl Wilsing in 1966.
Ray Orf
The biggest threat to Brandt’s record came from Ray Orf of St. Louis. In fact, Orf actually topped the score with an 890 series on February 6, 1972. ABC rejected the 890, Orf went to court, and eventually received a settlement. Meanwhile, later in 1972, John Wilcox Jr. rolled an 885 series—which ABC certified. Allie Brandt remained atop the heap, though scores in the 870s were starting to go up on the board. Allison’s 900, in July 1982, was the culmination of this upward trend. Sooner or later, someone was going to displace Little Allie.
Allie Brandt died on April 17, 1982. His 886 was tied by Pat Landry in 1988. In 1989 Tom Jordan rolled an 899 series, and was recognized as a new record by ABC. In more recent times, of course, there has been something like two dozen sanctioned 900 series.
I don’t know how thorough the lane inspection was in 1939, when Brandt’s 886 was certified. I don’t know whether the inspection of Allison’s lanes was more stringent—or, for that matter, the inspection of Orf’s lanes. I don’t know whether sentiment for Little Allie affected the rejection of their scores. But I do know it’s time to give Ray Orf and Glenn Allison their due.
First published in Bowlers Journal International in January 2015. For this story and 89 more, buy a copy of my book THE BOWLING CHRONICLES. Available on Amazon, or through McFarland Publishing.
On the long roll of ABC-sanctioned 300 games, there is one curious entry: “Koralewski, Barney—Buffalo, NY—March 22-29, 1934.” It’s not a typo. Barney Koralewski’s perfect game took a week to bowl.
The tale begins on the first of those Thursday evenings, March 22. Koralewski was a printer at the Buffalo Evening News and bowled on a team sponsored by the paper in the Genessee Arcade Major League. After a mediocre opening game, Koralewski started his second game with a strike.
Koralewski had been having tough times on the lanes recently. Tonight he was using a ball borrowed from his team captain, Lorne Robertson. The first strike raised his hopes—perhaps his slump was over. Barney found that all he needed to do was apply a slight wrist turn as he released his shot from the corner of the lane. Then the ball would roll smoothly into the pocket.
Another strike. Three, four, five . . . that one was on the Brooklyn. Six, seven, eight. Barney had the first eight in a row. And then everything went black.
Barney Koralewski
The lights had gone out. Blown fuse? Somebody stuck his head out the door and noticed that the entire neighborhood was dark. That meant a power failure at the nearby electrical plant. So the bowlers lit a few candles and sat down to wait.
After forty-five minutes, nothing had changed. The team captains huddled, trying to decide what to do. They were about to suspend play when Lorne Robertson spoke up. Robertson reminded the other captains that his bowler, Barney Koralewski, was working on a string of eight strikes. Perfect games were rare events. Barney should have the opportunity to go for his. The captains agreed to wait a while longer.
Another hour passed. By now it was midnight. With the league little more than halfway through its session and no clue as to when the lights would return, the captains saw no alternative. They reluctantly declared bowling suspended. Koralewski would have to wait until the following week.
The next day’s papers carried the story of the printer’s perfectus interruptus. He took a lot of kidding from the rest of the guys at the Evening News and from his friends. Barney’s big adventure became the hot topic of conversation at Buffalo’s bars and bowling centers. Most people wished him luck. Those with money to wager were less sentimental. Koralewski was rated a longshot.
Thursday the 29th finally came. The electricity had long since been restored, and Genesee Arcade was ready for the continuation of Barney’s quest. A large crowd packed the house. The suspended games were to be picked up immediately, before the regular league session.
Five minutes before bowling time, Barney arrived. He seemed surprised to see the crowd. No one talked to him. He changed shoes quickly, grabbed his ball, and walked over to the lanes. The bowlers were not allowed any practice—they were in the middle of a suspended game. So after 165 hours of delay, Barney merely stepped up, rolled his ball, and delivered a perfect strike. Loud applause from the spectators, and then he sat down.
After that first (ninth) strike, the tension was released. Koralewski had not cracked. The crowd was almost serene when play rolled around to him in the tenth frame. And Koralewski himself was matter-of-fact. He stepped up again and rolled strike number ten. Back up once more, and there was number eleven. The final ball was anti-climactic. And then the crowd went wild.
The shouting gradually died down. Now the official business had to be taken care of. Oddly enough, no one had sent notice to the ABC about Barney’s unique situation, probably out of fear of jinxing him. With the 300 safely completed, a telegram was immediately sent to Peoria, where the ABC High Score Committee was meeting during the annual tournament.
In due course, the decision was handed down. Barney had bowled his game in accordance with all ABC rules and regulations. Proper procedures had been followed for the order of bowling, the alternating of lanes, and so on. The long delay in the middle of the game did not affect the legal course of the game. Therefore, the 300 was approved.
Koralewski received his gold medal afterward. As an extra bonus, the Buffalo Bisons baseball team of the International League gave him a season’s pass. For a while, Koralewski was the most famous sports figure in western New York. “I don’t know what I could have done to make more friends,” he said.
Fast forward to 1967. An episode of TV’s “Andy Griffith Show.” Mayberry town clerk Howard Sprague is working on a perfect game when the lights go out. After a week’s delay, he gets his 300.
Nice going, Howard! But Barney Koralewski did it first. And for real.
First published in BOWLERS JOURNAL INTERNATIONALin November 1993. For this story and 89 more, buy a copy of my bookTHE BOWLING CHRONICLES. Available on Amazon or at select bookstores.
Most knowledgeable bowlers know the origin of the high-tech bowling ball. In 1973 PBA pro Don McCune discovered that soaking a plastic ball in the chemical solution MEK improved the lane-gripping qualities of the ball’s surface. Thus began the era of Chemical Bowling.
Yet McCune was not the first person to demonstrate the scoring potential locked in the shell of a bowling ball. For that part of the story, we have to go back further in time.
In 1939 the Raybestos-Manhattan Company began making bowling balls. The firm was an old, established manufacturer of rubber products, and the booming bowling market provided a logical opportunity for expansion. As one bit of advertising copy promised, the new Manhattan ball would be the finest ever made. It would “offer greater resistance to wear, and maintain its original spherical shape longer than any pellet ever offered to the tenpin world.”
In Chicago, radio broadcaster Sam Weinstein had just gone into the bowling supply business. He became the first distributor of the Manhattan ball. The factory sent Weinstein a batch of 100, and he sold most of them. Then problems started to develop.
The new balls had an excess of static electricity. And as we learned in junior high science class, rubber that has an excess of static electricity gets sticky. “Those balls gripped the lanes like no other ball ever did,” Weinstein remembered years later. “But they really got dirty and the bowlers couldn’t keep their hands clean.
Johnny Small
That didn’t bother Johnny Small. A member of Joe Wilman’s Budweiser team, Small was one of that large group of bowlers who ranked just below the elite—“a good team bowler,” the expression went. He was a rugged competitor who rolled so many pot games that friends called him The Marathon Man. Two things about Small stood out. His backswing was ridiculously short. And though just in his early thirties, he was almost completely bald.
Small had purchased one of the new balls from Weinstein. He was in the electrical business himself, so presumably he understood why his Manhattan got so greasy so quickly. What mattered to Small was that he was suddenly cleaning up in all his money matches. At a time when the best bowlers averaged a shade over 200, he was regularly rolling 240s and 250s.
Meanwhile, Manhattan had been working to correct the rubber problem. The company issued a recall of its “electric” balls, replacing each one with a new model. At first, Small didn’t want to turn his in. Weinstein finally convinced him, and Small got a different ball. Just as he’d feared, his game reverted to its previous level.
Now Small went back to Weinstein to retrieve the original ball. A search of the shop revealed that it had been shipped back to Manhattan. The factory was contacted, and an exhaustive search of those premises was undertaken. After weeks of uncertainty, the news finally came back—the magic ball had already been melted down.
The next part of the tale should say that Small spent the next thirty years, and thousands of dollars, trying to replicate that lost ball. Maybe he did. But if he did, he never admitted it.
Manhattan continued to manufacture bowling balls for decades. Sam Weinstein’s supply business became a success. Johnny Small’s bowling resume eventually included three ABC eagles, a share of the BPAA Doubles title, and an eighth-place finish in the All-Star Tournament.
Of course, we may presume that Small would have done even better if he had managed to keep that special ball. Had that been the case, today we might all be using rubber bowling balls . . . and washing our hands between frames.
First published in BOWLERS JOURNAL INTERNATIONAL in February 2008. For this story and 89 more, buy a copy of my book THE BOWLING CHRONICLES. Available on Amazon or at select bookstores.
When cancer killed Joe Falcaro in 1951, he had been calling himself Bowling’s Undefeated Match Game Champion for twenty-two years. That billing was open to dispute, but Chesty Joe did have a point. No one ever took away his title on the lanes. A gun did that.
He’d won the championship from Joe Scribner in a 60-game set in 1929. Falcaro was a New Yorker, knew about publicity, and knew that being the champ was worth much more than being an ex-champ. So after beating Scribner in a rematch, he concentrated on socking away the dollars from endorsements and exhibitions, while refusing all challenges. “Go get a reputation first,” he’d snarl at would-be opponents.
Joe Falcaro—LIFE magazine, 1940
Early in 1933 a group of Eastern proprietors decided to blast Falcaro into action. They announced a series of elimination events to provide a challenger for the champion. With the Depression getting deeper and money getting scarcer, Falcaro agreed to the plan.
Joe Miller of Buffalo won the eliminations. On February 23 the contract for the championship match was finalized. Falcaro and Miller would bowl 80 games, spread over eight 10-game blocks, at eight different houses in six cities. The opening block was set for the evening of March 31, in Philadelphia.
What happened next was reported on the front page of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle. On the afternoon of March 30, the day before the big match, Falcaro emerged from a house on 31st Drive in the Astoria section of Queens, to be confronted by a man named Frank Mazzola. With hardly a preamble, Mazzola pulled a pistol and shot Falcaro in the groin.
The street was crowded with children from a nearby school. Amid the screams and chaos Mazzola tried to get away, but was tackled by a passerby. Police arrived and placed Mazzola under arrest for felonious assault. Falcaro was taken to St. John’s Hospital.
The reason for Mazzola’s attack came out in court two weeks later. Mazzola had been serving a prison stretch, and thought Falcaro had been paying too much attention to the estranged Mrs. Mazzola. According to Mazzola, Falcaro had reached for a gun when they’d met in front of the wife’s home on 31st Drive. Mazzola claimed he’d shot Falcaro in self-defense.
By then Falcaro was out of the hospital and declined to pursue the case. Mazzola was sent to the Welfare Island jail after pleading guilty to a reduced charge of illegal firearm possession. The reports about him end there.
Meanwhile, the bowling promoters were doing some hasty improvising. Instead of waiting for Falcaro to recover, they matched Miller against Stewart Watson, who’d won a Chicago elimination and was scheduled to meet the winner of the Falcaro-Miller match. When Miller defeated Watson in May, the promoters proclaimed Miller the new match game champion. That didn’t set well with Falcaro. He sent a press release to forty-one newspapers that he was still the champion, and that the Miller-Watson match was nothing more than a “pot game.”
Now things get fuzzy. One report said that the promoters got Falcaro to sign a statement surrendering his title. There was also a story that Miller would bowl Falcaro to settle the matter. The match didn’t come off, and Falcaro was soon reasserting his claim. In February 1934 the Bowling Proprietors Association of America assumed control of the match game championship, recognizing Miller as champ. If Falcaro wanted a crack at the title, he’d have to enter future eliminations, like any other bowler.
He never did. And to the chagrin of the BPAA, Falcaro continued to cash in as the Undefeated Match Game Champion. He branched out into magazine articles, an instruction book, movie shorts, and the first-ever bowling TV program. He was the subject of feature stories in Life, The New Yorker, and The Saturday Evening Post.
Joe Falcaro became the highest-paid bowler in the world. So in the end, did it really matter whether his title was official or bogus?
First published in BOWLERS JOURNAL INTERNATIONAL in May 2016. For this story and 89 more, buy a copy of my book THE BOWLING CHRONICLES. A great Christmas gift for any bowler! Available on Amazon—
I was recently honored by the International Bowling Media Association for the Best Feature Story of 2020. Thank you to the judges and to the IBMA for this award. The story below originally appeared in BOWLERS JOURNAL INTERNATIONAL in May2020.
In September 1918, as the new bowling season got underway, sports in America faced an uncertain future. The United States had been pulled into the Great War in Europe. The government was curtailing all activities that didn’t further the war effort—“Work or Fight!” the order went. Thousands of young men had already been drafted into military service. The last month of the baseball season had been cancelled, with the World Series held just after Labor Day.
Bowlers were trying to continue on as best they could. Some leagues had folded, and pinboys were getting hard to find. There was talk that next year’s American Bowling Congress championships at Toledo might be called off.
In Chicago, Bowlers Journal was completing its fifth year of publication. The journal had begun as a weekly newspaper chronicling the local bowling scene. But by 1918 editor-publisher Dave Luby already had several correspondents sending him regular reports from the country’s main bowling cities. Also featured were letters home from Dave’s sons Mort and Forrest, both serving with the army in France.
BOWLERS JOURNAL front page—June 15, 1918
The big Chicago tenpin news was the follow-up to last spring’s Patriotic Bowling Tournament. Local bowlers had staged the city-wide event in May, raising more than $2,000 to build a bowling facility at the Camp Grant army post. That plan had fallen through. Now it was announced that the money would be used to install alleys at the Great Lakes Naval Training Station.
The leagues started rolling. As usual, Bowlers Journal printed weekly roundups from the Randolph, the North End Traveling, and the city’s top leagues. Gertrude Dornblaser reported on women’s bowling. Luby’s correspondents in San Francisco, Cleveland, Minneapolis, and the other cities checked in.
And now, as September moved on, a new disruption to America’s everyday life began to be felt—the Spanish Flu.
A century later, there’s still no definite answer on where or when this pandemic started. Later it came out that there had been influenza outbreaks in different parts of the world as early as March. But with a war going on, the governments in the belligerent countries exercised tight control of the news, and the general public knew little of these health concerns.
That wasn’t the case in Spain. Spain was a neutral country, without wartime censorship. So when people began dying in Spain, that fact was reported in all the warring nations. By June the new disease was labeled—unfairly—the Spanish Flu.
Unlike most diseases, this flu was deadliest to people in their twenties and thirties. It came on quickly, too. A person would be feeling fine, then suddenly get headaches and fever, and start vomiting. Then he would turn blue and begin spitting up blood. Within a day or two, he was dead.
Large gatherings of people were thought to spread the disease. In 1918 the United States had no centralized center for disease control, no federal Department of Health. As the new flu began to spread, individual city and state governments took whatever containment measures they thought would work.
Notice Posted in a Chicago Theater
People tried all sorts of home remedies. Hanging a bag of camphor around your neck was one method. So was chewing plug tobacco. Apple cider vinegar, boiled red peppers, honey-laced rye whiskey, and the old reliable chicken soup were other treatments. Eating raw onions was a favorite cure—that certainly kept people from getting too close. Meanwhile, scientists labored desperately to develop a vaccine.
On October 4 Pennsylvania closed all places of public assembly. Philadelphia alone had more than 75,000 cases of the disease, with 139 deaths reported in the past three weeks. Schools, theaters, churches, political meetings, sporting events were shut down. Soon similar large-scale closings were ordered in Boston, St. Louis, Cleveland, and Buffalo, as well as in hundreds of smaller towns.
Bowling alleys were often included in these blanket shutdowns. By the middle of October, Dave Luby’s correspondents were reporting that establishments had also been shuttered in Minneapolis, Milwaukee, San Francisco, and Indianapolis. Yet in New York City and some other places, the alleys were allowed to continue operating. Bowling was considered a form of exercise that would help a person remaining physically fit, better able to fight off the deadly flu.
Still, only active bowlers were to be allowed on the premises. Proprietors were told to turn away spectators and anyone else. And since fresh air was thought to diffuse and weaken the virus, proper ventilation had to be maintained.
Chicago was one of the cities where the alleys remained open. But most people were staying off the streets, and a number of leagues cancelled sessions. Open play virtually ceased.
Jimmy Smith ad in BOWLERS JOURNAL
Jimmy Smith was bowling’s match-game champion. He had been contracted to bowl a series of exhibition in Chicago. On October 14 he beat local star Frank Kafora in an eleven-game set at Randolph Recreation. The next day Smith was on the train back to his home in Brooklyn, the rest of his schedule scrapped by the killer flu.
On October 19 Dave Luby weighed in with a Bowlers Journal editorial titled “Keep the Alleys Clear and Clean.” Luby recognized that the Spanish Flu had become “a serious menace,” something that everyone should be concerned about. Still, there was no reason for the bowling community to panic. Common-sense measures would help defeat the threat.
Luby urged Chicago proprietors to keep their premises “well-ventilated, clean, and sanitary.” Crowds should not be allowed to gather. At the same time, bowling must continue, since it was one of the best “health-givers” available. “The influenza germ has not yet been found in a bowling alley,” he concluded, “and it will not be if the rules of sanitation are strictly adhered to.”
Bowlers Journal also printed some practical advice from a flu survivor, none other than W.V. Thompson. The Brunswick exec, often called “the final authority on all things bowling,” had been working in New York. No sooner was he transferred back to Chicago than he came down with the disease.
“If all the bones of your body ache, and you discover many you did not know you had and they also ache, you have the Spanish influenza,” Thompson wrote. “Get home quickly. Immediately upon arrival, take a hot and then a cold bath. Open up all the windows. Bundle up and get in bed. Send for a doctor, and get the best.
W.V. Thompson
“Some say feed the [flu],” Thompson went on. “I starved mine. I was back in the office in three days, and bowled on the fourth. Not very good, but good enough to convince myself that bowling was good for what ailed me.”
Just as public morale was hitting rock bottom, the news finally started to turn good. On October 21 scientists announced they had developed an effective vaccine. Shipments of the drug were rushed to all parts of the country. Chicago alone received 100,000 doses, and inoculations quickly began. Within two weeks, the number of flu deaths plummeted.
Then, three weeks after the vaccinations began—on November 11, 1918—an armistice was signed in Europe. The conflict that future generations would call World War I was over.
The country began to rebound. Bowling began to rebound. The shuttered establishments reopened. In Indianapolis, proprietor Jess Pritchett took out large display ads in the city’s newspapers, announcing that his Central Bowling Alleys, “the best ventilated in the state,” were again open for business. In case anyone missed the fresh-air selling point, the ad further advised the public to “avoid influenza by indulging in healthy exercise.”
Two major regional tournaments—the Middle-West and the Atlantic Coast—had been cancelled because of the flu outbreak and the war. But in St. Paul, the International Bowling Association event went on as scheduled. In the spring, the big one—the American Bowling Congress championships—rolled out in Toledo with a record entry of 796 teams.
The Spanish Flu was gone. More than 50 million people had died worldwide, a greater death-toll than all the wars of the twentieth century put together. The United States alone suffered 675,000 deaths. Among bowlers, the most prominent victim was Henry “Heine” Haselhuhn, a onetime ABC champion. And there were all the others, known only to their family and friends.
Those left behind dealt with their grief. One of these was a 29-year-old Chicago bricklayer and 150-average bowler named Florian Przedziankowski. In that horrible October of 1918 he lost both his wife and his mother to the killer flu.
But Florian moved on, as he had to. In 1920 he remarried, and a year later, he had a daughter. And that daughter became my mother.
I met Billy Welu twice. In my memory, he will always be linked with sudden, unexpected death.
The first time was a Sunday morning in November 1963. President Kennedy was lying in state at the Capitol, killed by a sniper named Lee Harvey Oswald. But in Chicago the bowling gods had come to town for the World’s Invitational. I was a teenager and had gone down to McCormick Place to see them. I had just entered the building when the Great Welu appeared in my path, all 6-foot-5 of him.
“Did you hear?” he asked me in a vacant voice. “They just shot Oswald.” Like old friends we chatted about the president’s assassin for a few moments. Then Welu wandered off.
He finished down the list in that tournament, something that didn’t happen often in those days. Welu was one of the best, at the top of his game. ABC Doubles champ . . . winner of the All-Star Tournament . . . charter member of the Budweisers . . . captain of the Falstaffs . . . PBA champion . . . many-time All American . . .
His was a Hall of Fame resume—and he was barely thirty. But it was the way Welu bowled that was most impressive. A big man was supposed to charge the line and overpower the pins with brute force. Welu seemed to glide down the approach like a man on skis, the ball flowing noiselessly onto the lane. How could he get so much power out of so little effort? It made the rest of us want to give up bowling and go play croquet.
By 1963 Welu was already launched on his second career as color analyst for the “Pro Bowlers Tour” telecasts. The teaming of the “aw-shucks” Texan with the polished Chris Schenkel was inspired. A few years later, Roone Arledge would give us “Monday Night Football” with the unlikely trio of Gifford, Cosell, and Dandy Don. I’ll always believe that Arledge got that idea from his Saturday afternoon bowling show.
Welu could play the part of the cornpone philosopher perfectly. It didn’t matter that Billy was a college graduate who’d worked on a Master’s degree. He was Jed Clampett in a bowling shirt. We came to treasure all the little Welu-isms, like “Hit ‘em thin and watch ‘em spin,” or if that wasn’t appropriate, “Hit ‘em high and watch ‘em fly.” And the ultimate compliment—“Good speed!”
Still, among all the clichés, the Welu wit was ready. It might peak out at any moment, particularly when the conversation strayed from bowling:
Schenkel: “Billy, if I had your money, I’d retire.”
Welu: “And if I had your money, I’d throw mine away.”
As it happened, Welu the Broadcaster was not quite through as a player. When the 1964 TV season wrapped up, he went off and won the Masters. That felt good, so the next year he did the same thing.
His credentials re-established, he could relax. He settled into the color role, describing the talents and triumphs of lesser bowlers. The only place we could now enjoy the wonderful Welu style was on reruns of “Championship Bowling.”
The years passed. From time to time Welu came to Chicago for a sportsmen’s show. I went to a few of these, and would see him there, but I never approached him. The crowd was always too thick.
Then, one day in 1974, I was walking through O’Hare Airport when I saw him coming toward me. I had aged from a crewcut teen to a long-haired-and-bearded grad student. But when I started to tell Welu that we had met once before, he immediately said: “When Ruby killed Oswald, right?” We reminisced for about thirty seconds, then each of us walked off into our separate lives.
A month later, one bright spring morning, I opened the Sun-Times sports section and read the headline: “Billy Welu Dead at 41.”
First published in BOWLERS JOURNAL INTERNATIONAL in April 2004.
For this story and 89 more, buy a copy of my book THE BOWLING CHRONICLES. Available on Amazon.
In Chicago, where I come from, baseball loyalties are sharply divided. You are either a Cubs fan or a White Sox fan—never both. It’s mostly a geographic thing, North Side versus South Side. When I was growing up in the 1950s, there was a similar schism among the city’s bowlers. The question then was, are you Brunswick or AMF?
Affiliation had nothing to do with geography. Your bowling loyalty depended on the house in which you’d learned the game, and the type of equipment they had. It was like your religion or political party, something you were born into. In my own case, I started bowling at Habetler Bowl. So, naturally, I was a Brunswick man.
Everything was ordered. Like all my friends, I bought my Black Beauty at Buddy Bomar’s store. Don Carter won all the tournaments, and guys like Lillard and Nagy and Day ruled on “Championship Bowling.” And if you were of the female persuasion, there was Marion Ladewig to follow. That was our world.
1970—Still loyal to Brunswick!
Our one apostate was Steve the Greek. For Steve, being cool was the most important thing in life. His favorite bowler was Johnny King, the coolest dude this side of the “77 Sunset Strip” TV show. So when Cool Johnny joined AMF, Steve dumped all his Brunswick gear, replacing it with anything that had the Magic Triangle logo. But then, Steve always did things backwards—he was left-handed. And who ever heard of a lefty bowler?
When you grew up in a Brunswick house, there were certain things you knew. It was an established fact that Brunswick alleys hooked more, producing higher scores. Furthermore, AMF approaches were always tacky—except when they were too slippery, and you fell down. AMF may have invented the automatic pinsetter, but their machines looked dumb, with the pins hanging out in the open in those cheesy slots. And they were too noisy. As for the T-square ball returns, they were a disaster if you took a five-step approach. There was also the matter of color. AMF was all yellow and red and brown, like stale scrambled eggs. The true color of bowling was Brunswick Blue.
If we needed any further proof of Brunswick superiority, there was “Championship Bowling.” For years it was a showcase for high scores and Brunswick stars. Then, around 1962, the program abruptly switched to AMF. Fred Wolf was still doing the commentary, but now guys were winning matches with 590s. What did that tell you?
Still, there was Dick Weber. By this time he had become the World’s Greatest Bowler, and he was AMF. How to explain that? You couldn’t—except to say that Weber might have won even more tournaments if he’d had the right equipment.
Eventually, we started to question our parochial attitudes. During my last two years of high school, I bowled on the Habetler teen traveling team in an eight-house league. A majority of the places were AMF, and they weren’t bad. I suppose my experience was similar to the knee-jerk bigot who gets involved with other racial groups, and discovers they are human after all. When I rolled my first 700 series, it was in an AMF house. That gave me something to think about.
College opened even wider perspectives, and induced a large dose of skepticism in traditional beliefs. My classmates were protesting the Vietnam War, challenging all aspects of American society. The times, they were a-changin’. In that spirit, I finally went out and bought an AMF three-dotter.
Yet old superstition dies hard. At the ABC Tournament, I would always bowl badly in the odd-number years, when AMF was in charge. The pattern was obvious, and a few times I seriously considered sitting out. Then I broke the string by doing even worse in a Brunswick year, and I had run out of excuses.
Today I can happily report that I have learned an important lesson in tolerance. Unthinking prejudice is a terrible thing, and I have a completely open mind on the merits of bowling equipment. So now I announce it to the world, loud and clear—I will bowl on any lanes and use any ball that gives me higher scores with less effort.
First published in BOWLERS JOURNAL INTERNATIONAL in January 2002.
For this story and 89 more, buy a copy of my book THE BOWLING CHRONICLES. Available on Amazon.
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