BallReviews
General Category => Miscellaneous => Topic started by: itsallaboutme on August 14, 2013, 03:38:54 PM
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OK, here's a question for Avabob (and the other old timers) since he's been winning since a little before I was born. Which era was the best bowling wise? Rubber, Polyester, Urethan or Reactive? Not your best results, because I've read your opinion on short oil, or the most participation, because that declines every year, but the just the most overall enjoyable time to bowl.
I know this will be very dependent on your life circumstances at various times, but try to think just about the bowling at the time.
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I've been bowling for about 50 years now and I have had some success in each of the eras. Not Bob Hanson success but locally successful.
I would say I enjoyed the late 70's to mid-80's the best. It seemed to me it had the best combination of skills need to compete. You had to be a good spare shooter, accurate with your strike ball, and still throw enough ball to make it effective when it hit the pocket.
Pot games were plentiful, bowlers seem willing to work at their games and pay their dues to get better.
During that time they also had come out with enough choices in balls to give you some help in matching up to the conditions.
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Just had a conversation today at the Senior World Championships with a former PBA bowler. We revisited the days of old, when we bowled against each other in the JAT days. He told me "The game was so much simpler then, and the difference between the top and the great, then the good, then the decent and so on, was not that far apart." He also said 99% of the bowlers out there are not good enough to throw the modern equipment, so the houses had to become easier to keep people bowling.
Guess what: I agree with him. I am no saying our time, the 80's urethane days, were that much better, and yes, it had it drawbacks, too. But almost any time you can name will be better than what we experience now and any time other than now will be better on many different levels.
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That is a great question, and I find myself struggling with the answer more than I thought I would. I loved the game with hard rubber on lacquer, because it was simpler. However I think I enjoyed the early resin era of the 90's the most of any. Partly because it was like coming out of the end a terrible era for me. The 60's were all about finesse. The 80's were all about power, and the 70's were kind of a transition between the two but we all struggled learning how to handle the harder urethane lane finishes. As a finesse player I could see things going away from me by 1980, even before the urethane revolution. Again, partly sour grapes because in hindsight I could have made the adjustments necessary in my game to at least be a good niche player the way guys like Gary Dickenson were.
The reason I say the early 90's is because I really think it gave the most different styles a way to compete if they could execute. Prior to the introduction of the resin ball, the lane man had a lot more to do with who won than he should have.
The only real reason I wouldn't put the modern game post 2000 right up there is that the balls are impacting the condition too rapidly and too much. Lanes always broke down, even with plastic balls. But today who you follow when crossing has more impact than it should. Also, long formats always brought the cream to the top, but today it is tough to run a lengthy format without re oiling several time a day. If we could get the oils to hold up longer, or get rid of the most aggressive surfaced balls I think the game would be better. I like what companies like Kegel have done with developing different types of oil patterns to challenge our versatility and skill.
There have always been issues. Lefty dominance was a big problem in the late 60's, and early 70's. Urethane finish replacing lacquer totally changed the way the game had to be played.
One thing I do believe is the old statement that "things aren't like they use to be, and they never were". We tend to be too nostalgic for an older era, forgetting about the problems the game had then too. there never was any money in the game, and today is even worse. I just hope that the game stabilizes with a large enough base of competitive bowlers so that we don't become even more of a niche sport like archery of skeet shooting
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The 1900's, of course.
(https://www.ballreviews.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2F24.media.tumblr.com%2Ftumblr_lstzdd9Vdq1qdhv0mo1_500.jpg&hash=13084f3c023ab51917b2a3ba120a6f304a4bdfc2)
lol
I enjoyed the early 90's too, right before reactives...but the ball/lanes were only part of why I preferred it. The other is the economy was doing fairly well, the houses were still busy, leagues were full, etc. In truth, that was more important than the technology, which really doesn't mean that much.
But, every generation will have a different answer. In truth, I love the game now and enjoy it more than ever, but the sport as a whole is not competing with the pace of modern life and it's losing it's relevance...and that's a shame but I don't lament how the game has progressed. It's easier? News to me, I still have to compete with everyone else and they're all better than ever too.
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You mention Kegel. I have been involved in bowling for about 30 years. It blows my mind that in my time we went from doing the lanes with a push bar and towel and a very simple machine with oil that didn't even feel slippery to a lane machine that costs as much as a decent car and oil that feels like 80 weight gear oil.
I guess I would have to say I liked the late 80's early 90's the best, but for a different reason. This was about the time that synthetic were starting to get popular, but wood was still around. The new centers would have synthetics, but all the older places hadn't gone that direction yet. Center characteristics came in to play much more than they do now. Some places always hooked. Others the heads would hook and the backends would always be tight. Some places the carry was easy, others were like bowling on 5 pound pins. Some places you always played the gutter, others you always started left of 15. Regardless of how the lanes were dressed, the house characteristics played a part much more than they do now. Now unless the synthetics are trashed you pretty much are dictated by the pattern where you have to play and not the lane characteristics. The part of knowing that you had the nut because your ball rolled good at a certain house or you would have to bowl your ass off just to get a check I liked. Now the center doesn't really matter nearly as much, if your ball rolls good on certain pattern it pretty much rolls good on that pattern everywhere.
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Interesting points about the wood lanes. In our area Brunswick synthetics took over earlier than many places. By 85 we were bowling on synthetics in 75% of our houses.
I will freely admit that my opinion favoring the mid 90's is heavily influenced by the fact I had my most success during that period. I think probably from a broad perspective the 60's were the best era of bowling. Automatic pinsetters had brought the game to the suburbs. The PBA tour was getting off the ground and drawing good tv ratings on ABC. Junior leagues were full on Saturday mornings ( most important of all ).
Still lots of issues. Bowling still had the "smoky poolroom" stigma for a the blue collar crowd, and most importantly with educators.
I think it was this elitism among many that prevented the game from capitalizing at the pro level to a greater degree on its popularity during the 60's and early 70's. Despite out drawing golf and even the NBA on tv advertisers were loathe to commit major money to the game, viewing the bowling population as a low priority market. They totally ignored the level to which the game had proliferated in the general population.
The funny thing is that the 70's actually saw the biggest single increase in scoring during my lifetime. My average increased from 200 to 214 in 1975 when I first began throwing Columbia white dots and yellow dots. We had 6 800 series shot that season in our association, several with the super soft Shore D. Doesn't sound like many until I say that we had 2 in the entire history of our association prior to that season. A friend of mine set a world record for 6 games at the time of 1608 with a Shore D. Averages jumped dramatically from as the soft polyester balls took over. They increased again with urethane, but not as dramatically. Increase in averages with resin balls was noticeable, but the award scores increased disproportionately to average increases
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I grew up in Phoenix. About 1/2 the centers there were Fair Lanes that didn't start getting synthetics until the AMF takeover. We had a couple of new Brunswick centers that were synthetics, but that was about it.
Balls get all of the blame for the scoring increase, but during the same time lane maintenance has become easier, better and way more consistent. When you let good bowlers stand in the same place with the same ball all the time on fresh conditions with clean backends the scores go up dramatically.
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This is a good question, as while I was really young bowling on them, I can still remember them.
A lot of points were already made here. To be good on those older patterns, you had to be as versatile as a Gary Dickinson and Dick Weber, but also as much of a technician as Earl Anthony could have ever taught you. That pretty much summarized the 70s as much as I could remember (I didn't first start bowling until '78-'79).
The 80s changed the entire game around. Synthetics, urethane, the entire lot. Kids were able to watch bowling on TV on a saturday afternoon, as well as any local show that featured bowling (Omaha had two such shows; one of which constantly advertised that if you left a 9 count, and the headpin was the only one standing, you'd win a car). And we flocked to it like moths to a flame.
Wanting to be like the people on TV, junior leagues were completely filled at every house in Omaha. Rose bowl in Omaha (second largest house at the time) had so many kids they had to split juniors into 3 shifts. Ames Bowl had 50 lanes but still had to split theirs into 2 shifts, and every lane was used. We only had 3 choices for balls: Rubber, Plastic, or House ball. That is why it was much more of a game of skill then than now.
While I would also say that the early 90s would be my best time (I just turned 18 when the Rhino Pro, Turbo X, and X-Calibur made it big), I would have to go back and say that the late 70s through 1990 was probably the best. That is when it took the most skill, accuracy, versatility, and professionalism to excel at the game. We still had to deal with rubber vs. plastic vs. urethane, but we still had to deal with short vs. long oil and that condition on wood vs. synthetic. Of those 21 houses I mentioned in the Kelley's Hilltop thread, by 1989, 3 were synthetic (IIRC, AFBs have always had synthetic. By 1991, 4 were synthetic (would be 5; Rose Bowl closed at the end of the 1990 season) By that time, it was a challenge to figure out how to keep a urethane ball, let alone reactive resin when it came out, consistent and not erratic due to the hook factor it had on wood lanes, and due to how quickly synthetic lanes dried out at that time.
But the technology made the game easier back then just as it has now. I would love to see a couple of classic leagues our tournaments come up to where ball manufacturers had to put out something back from that level of technology to see people return back to requiring skill for the ball rather than it always hooking out of the box. Won't happen, but I can dream. :)
Anywho, I would definitely say from 1973 to 1993 would be the best time for bowling.
BL.
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The problem you get with going back to old technology with balls is that it ignores the changes in lane finishes and oils that have taken place. I averaged 215 with a white dot in 1978, but we were bowling on low viscosity, low volumes of oil. As a low rev guy I suspect a lot of young guys would call me a liar if I told them that I was disappointed if I didn't drive the 5 out at 4th arrow with a yellow dot. In 1980 I shot a career high 793 series playing inside 4th arrow in an old wood house where the lane finish was gone in the heads to the right of 4th arrow. It played like a wall because the oil soaked straight into the bare wood, but still sat on top of the finish where it wasn't worn off. My yellow dot carried like a bomb.
When I was young I always wished I could bowl on shellac that the guys of the 30's bowled on. From what I was told the replacement of shellac with lacquer created just as much upheaval for bowlers as did the transition from lacquer to the much harder urethane lane finish. I saw films of Ned Day with his figure eight looping full roller that apparently devasted the pins on shellac.
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I'm a young pup compared to some of you, but I think I was allowed to bowl for the first time back in 1985 ( would of been 8 or 9 years old), went prior to that but my parents wouldn't let me actually bowl.
Anyways here in Middle Tennesse pretty much everything was synthetic by then, granted alot of the centers around here started popping up or remodeling around then. Sad to say but I've never seen a wooden lane other than on old videos.
About the only thing I could say would be, " I can remember when you had to do the scoring yourself!". Yeah just yeah ;D
Anyways, I think I remember watching a PBA Plastic Championship back in 2009 if I remember correctly, it was interesting to watch. I personally would like to see more of it, with Urethane only, or maybe nothing prior to X year. Might be a way to get the to re-release some of the old balls. ( Yes I know its wishful thinking :P )
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bradl,
So if you were 18 when reactives got going (1992), that puts your birth around 1974. You started bowling when you were 4 and know about the game from the 70's?
And the best "era" for bowling was 73-93, which covers plastic, all of urethane, and the beginning of reactive?
Am I the only one confused?
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Without a doubt, my answer would be the '70s. By the start of the '80s, there was already too much easing of the scoring conditions, and the game has never really been the same since.
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Being an old fart, I still miss the long-gone days of the 1960s with the 1970s next in line. Before someone criticizes my post, I know that things change but not always for the better.
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I bowled some back in the 1970's, but didn't really take it up seriously until 1982. I can honestly say that I wish I had been able to experience earlier times, but I was not.
I honestly think that the late 1940's and all of the 1950's had to be the "golden age" of bowling. The war was over, and the economy was booming. Many people, with jobs and money, were looking to be entertained, and bowling seemed to be the ticket.
Technology was simple back then, and so was the game. Learn the basics, then practice them until you were good enough to suit yourself. The ONLY thing separating the really good from the crowd was their ability to develop certain techniques to a higher level than most.
There weren't any worries about what "condition" you were playing, nor was there the worry of trying to pick the "right" ball, because you only had a small handful to pick from, not the literal HUNDREDS available today.
Me, personally, I liked the 1980's best. The game was still reasonably basic and simple, and technology was still just a minor player. Much more emphasis was put on the bowlers themselves, and their physical abilities, rather than on whether someone had the right "matchup" or not.
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Yes with the Excalibur being the first reactive ball that would make bradl being born about 1973-74 time frame!
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The first reactive resin bowling ball was the Columbia bleeder circa '75....the second was the original Faball blue hammer
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The first reactive resin bowling ball was the Columbia bleeder circa '75....the second was the original Faball blue hammer
I believe the Columbia yellow dot bleeder was a soft plastic ball and the blue Hammer was a pure urethane. The best yellow dots were the early ones with a serial number that started with 5T.
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If you understood my post you would understand that the 1975 Columbia 'bleeder' had an additive that made it 'react' differently than simply a polyester ball...the original Faball blue hammers, also had an additive in the cover and it too react differently than a urethane bowling ball...the bleeder was an accident, the blue hammer was not...both had an additive to change their reactions...not far off from the original NuLine Excalibur...
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I'm just a genx'r but anything after 2005 has been disastrous. If your wondering why that particular year, do an internet search on what happened to sanctioned bowling that year.
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I'm just a genx'r but anything after 2005 has been disastrous. If your wondering why that particular year, do an internet search on what happened to sanctioned bowling that year.
I am going to take a wild guess that it was something like the death of the ABC?
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As a younger bowler 29 ( not that young) i gotta say i love reading the info you guys are giving from back in the day. I love the sport and wish sometimes i could go back in time and test my skills
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I have a feeling that most people are going to pick the era that they were at the top of their game, both physically and mentally. It would the 90's and 00's for me. 2010 and after have not been kind to me. Has nothing to do with equpiment or lanes.
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bradl,
So if you were 18 when reactives got going (1992), that puts your birth around 1974. You started bowling when you were 4 and know about the game from the 70's?
And the best "era" for bowling was 73-93, which covers plastic, all of urethane, and the beginning of reactive?
Am I the only one confused?
Yes with the Excalibur being the first reactive ball that would make bradl being born about 1973-74 time frame!
Yep.. that's right. Born in 1974. My uncle got my mother into bowing in the late 1960s. By the time shortly after I was born she was bowling 2 nights a week, so I was literally running around a bowling alley by the time I was 3 to 4. After league was over, she'd pay .75 or $1 or whatever it was, help me with an 8lb ball, and either run and drop it or granny it on the lane. Comfort me when I cried because every ball fell in the gutter, or watch me jump up and down when I took a corner pin off the rack.
But every Saturday when my dad wanted to watch football, I begged him to stop on the PBA Tour when he flipped through the channels.. and back then, you had to turn the channel knob, so you had to go through it, especially if you only had 3 stations on the main knob in Omaha (the UHF knob is where PBS and all snow was). So I got to see a lot of Anthony, Roth, Berardi, Dickinson, Durbin, Weber, Salvino, Bluth, Myers, Schlegel, Troup, and all of golden era guys when they were on the tour, and before there was a Senior or Women's tour.
IIRC, YABA rules back then even said that you had to be 5 to start bowling, so my first league wasn't until 1979. Since that league, I traded Smurfs, Spiderman & His Amazing Friends, Dungeons and Dragons, Mighty Orbots, Blackstar, and CBS StoryTime on Saturday mornings for an 8lb. Powder Blue White Dot and clown shoes. And still made it home in time to catch the Tour. :)
So I got to see a lot of bowling. I almost gave up the sport after the season ended in 1987 because the coaches bailed on the league and it was as if the alley didn't care. But we moved that year, went to a different house, and saw kids my age using fingertip drills and grips, while I was still in a conventional grip. That's when I knew I wasn't taking the game as seriously as I thought I was, so I gave it one more try, and haven't looked back. The rest... is history.
Anywho, if it weren't for my mother letting me bowl after her league ended, I wouldn't have had any interest in the sport, especially from back then. Seeing old matches from then reminds me of my youth.. literally speaking! :)
BL.
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Always makes me jealous when I hear about those that had youth programs around or whose parents got them into bowling. We had diddly around here til about 10 years ago when they added high school programs. Of course by then I was long since out of high school.
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As per Justrico stated about the bleeder yellow dot! Columbia 300 did a lot a experimenting with coverstock a lot because of the Sur D! When it was outlawed for the hardness rule they had the bleeder and the red dot had an additive that gave the cover a different texture as did the orange dot! Brunswick tried to do something different with the cover of the Mark X that made the cover ripple on most of them and didn't work out to well. It probably all started when guys back in the day would soak their bowling balls in solvents to make the cover softer, before the hardness rules in the early 70's! Just my $.02, Bruce
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I don't remember the exact date but the best era for me was when I only had to carry two balls to league. :)
Anything more than a Yellow Dot and a Black Angle would be overkill.
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Always makes me jealous when I hear about those that had youth programs around or whose parents got them into bowling. We had diddly around here til about 10 years ago when they added high school programs. Of course by then I was long since out of high school.
I don't know if it has to do more with location than exposure, but I know how you mean.
Back to my mother. where she grew up at in southeastern Oklahoma, there was only 1 bowling alley, and it was a 35 mile drive to it. But to my knowledge, they had a youth program there, at least when I went to it every time we visited my grandparents. I want to say it was the only bowling alley in a 50 mile radius of that town (Paris, TX). Again, this is small town/rural country, so that made a difference. It could be that most other places wouldn't care, because the sport didn't get any sort of traction there. If Paris didn't already have that traction, every boy would have been lost to football in either Oklahoma or Texas.
Jealousy.. I know how you feel, because when I was in high school, I was invited to join the elite youth bowling league in our city: Junior Traveling Classic. Minimum requirement was a 150 average sustained over 2 years. That was our leap pad to being scouted by collegiate teams (Nebraska, Kansas, Kansas State, Wichita State, Mankato State, and at least 5 others all in 3 hours drive). A lot of us made it to collegiates...
But we missed out on everything that Junior Olympic Gold now offers.. and to make it worse/better, performance in the JTC is now a ticket to the JoG tournaments, as well as collegiate scouting. If we had that back then, who knows what the potential for our crop would have been.
BL.
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They were all great times,each served it's purpose and I am very glad I have had the chance to bowl competitively in each era. The early rubber and polyester days demanded accuracy which has allowed me to adapt to the changes that has followed. I have consistently been able to improve my average with each change while still retaining that accuracy. Our concern now is how to drive people back into the bowling houses and fill them up with league players. I really believe this wing it and bring it has been the demise of our sport. I watch these young players now that have grown up in the reactive era, and most of them have no clue how to make a spare.
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Its kind of odd here, pretty much every town has its own bowling center, but it hasn't ever seemed like anyone ever did anything to try and generate new bowlers.
I always had to go to the one Murfreesboro when I got older because my local one in Shelbyville was more like a honky tonk than a bowling alley. Too many rednecks and too many fights. Not to mention the owner didn't take care of his customers or the center either.
Luckily there was about 5 places I could go within 30 to 45 minutes of my house so I just chose somewhere else.
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For me, the late '60's until the time Don McCune put the first plastic ball in a bucket of MEK to see what would happen. -- JohnP
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there are some good arguments for the late 60's era. I will say this however. The industry decision to abandon lacquer for the more durable and higher flashpoint urethane lane finishes brought on the need soft polyester. As an example, the polyester ball had been around for 10 years before Don Johnson started winning with regularity using a carmel white dot. On lacquer, the performance difference between hard rubber, and polyester ( including super soft polyester ) was small.
Brunswick was testing its epoxy astrolane finish in lots of markets. I was bowling on it in league in a small 12 lane house while attending college. Didn't know what I was bowling on, but struggled to average 189 with an AMF 3 dot. Another guy throwing a full roller and using a Columbia white dot was out averaging me. I knew I was a better bowler, and didn't find out until 3 years later what we were bowling on. By then we had all started throwing polyester
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Absolutely the rubber and polyester era, that is when it took high skill to be a premier bowler. The game was accuracy, looking at boards,sometimes 1/2 and 1/4 boards,not like today's game where there are no measurements. Not sure why we have dots,arrows and even simulated boards now because they mean nothing.
I often believe that is why our game of bowling is on a serious decline, it does not required the skill that it once did.
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The Budweiser Team didn't shoot 3858 splitting a 1/2 board, lets get that straight!
It's not like the premier bowlers of today aren't high skilled. Some of the skills required to be competitive now are just different than they were 50 years ago. If you had a time machine and could gather all the top bowlers of every decade in to compete against each other they would all figure out what they need to do to be competitive.
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I will say this once, but have elaborated on it in another thread. As a 65 year old codger, I see the talent and skill level of todays bowlers miles ahead of that from the so called golden era of the game. Watch a video of the great Ned Day sometime. He threw a looping full roller and his follow through never went the same way twice. Great bowlers from the 50's were more accurate, because they could sacrifice a more powerful release for accuracy without losing much carrying power compared to the guys who did throw a more powerful ball.
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I will say this once, but have elaborated on it in another thread. As a 65 year old codger, I see the talent and skill level of todays bowlers miles ahead of that from the so called golden era of the game. Watch a video of the great Ned Day sometime. He threw a looping full roller and his follow through never went the same way twice. Great bowlers from the 50's were more accurate, because they could sacrifice a more powerful release for accuracy without losing much carrying power compared to the guys who did throw a more powerful ball.
Bold for emphasis.
That's why I chose the late 70s to early 90s, as you'd have the best of both worlds here. You would have those who sacrificed that power bowling for accuracy and did it to perfection, like your Voss, Duke, Anthony, etc. etc. Then you add in your Weber, Hoskins, Hollman, and others who were those power players.
But back to that accuracy.. This was also the era when the women shined. If Weber, Anthony, Dickinson, and Burton were high on accuracy, the women took it to a different level, because the biggest power players in women's bowling didn't emerge until the mid-90s, with Turner, Duggan, and Feldman. And to be honest, compared to some bowlers today, I'd prefer watching a Dana Miller-Mackie or Donna Adamek. You just knew that you were going to get a higher quality shot and game out of those people.
BL.
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The industry decision to abandon lacquer for the more durable and higher flashpoint urethane lane finishes brought on the need soft polyester.
Agreed, but the industry didn't decide to abandon lacquer, they were forced into it by the insurance companies. Too many bowling alley fires! -- JohnP
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The insurance company argument has been used for years as the argument for switching from the red label lacquer. However, people in the industry, who should know, have told me that it was primarily the lower maintenance aspect of the urethane than prompted the switch. I do know that a lot of the bowling alley fires of the 60's occurred in centers that were on the verge of bankruptcy, and always occurred at night.
In any event, it was the introduction of the hard urethane finish that started the drive to find softer and higher friction balls to deal with the different characteristics of urethane. I do know from my own experience that the soft shelled balls were of minor advantage at most on lacquer. The Brunswick Crown jewel of the 60's was very soft in many batches, yet nobody ever dominated with one enough to start a wholesale move to the plastic ball prior to 1970. I remember in about 1973 everyone was going to garage sales and pawn shops looking for the old crown jewels, as Brunswick at some point lost the original Crown Jewel formula.
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The insurance company argument has been used for years as the argument for switching from the red label lacquer. However, people in the industry, who should know, have told me that it was primarily the lower maintenance aspect of the urethane than prompted the switch. I do know that a lot of the bowling alley fires of the 60's occurred in centers that were on the verge of bankruptcy, and always occurred at night.
You could be right, I was passing along information that came to me third or fourth hand. It was strange how those mysterious fires loved the darkness! When I was a senior in high school a center burned about 25 miles from where I lived. A friend and I drove by to look at the damage a few days after the fires. It was devastating. I remember the charred remnants of the bowling balls. -- JohnP
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I guess that water is pretty far under the bridge at this point anyway. The problem I had with the 70's ( I was reasonably successful so this is not sour grapes as it would be when I talk about the 80's ) is that it pretty much brought about the extreme lane blocking that we still see today. It was actually necessary to an extent because anything resembling even oil was largely unplayable with the balls we had available at the time. The lane simply wouldn't track the way lacquer did, and the transitions largely consisted of carry down, with broken down heads.
I always found it humorous when the ABC mandated short oil dressing as a way to curb high scoring. Lane men in the 70's had started going shorter and shorter with oil, and stripping the back ends as a way to get scoring better on the hard urethane finish. Neither group really understood what was happening with the finishes. The problem was that oily urethane had a lower coefficient of friction than oily lacquer, but the friction coefficient was much higher on drier urethane. Because the oil sat on top of the urethane, it pushed down the lane, making the heads hook and the back ends tighten down. Flooding the heads to make them hold up didn't work, and just made more oil available to carry down to the back end. You have to remember that oils were low viscosity and not all solids back then.
The most playable conditions on urethane were actually a heavy crown with the oil buffed down to 40 feet. I knew one lane man who understood this, and we were able to play astro lane in our late scratch league the way we played lacquer. We were playing inside 3rd arrow with a fall back look and had no idea what the lane finish was.
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Just a follow up note on the first soft polyester balls. The first soft balls did not have any additive. Rather it had to do with how quickly the balls cured out. Columbia at that time cured their balls in a covered open air facility in San Antonio. In 1974 a batch of crimson white dots ( 4D ) came out much softer than most. The PBA guys quickly grabbed them up, and soon Columbia figured out how to cure balls out with a softer shell. That was the introduction of the Yellow Dot. I think the much softer Shore D did have some kind of additive.
When the hardness rule of 75 came in in 1977 the Shore D was discontinued, and Columbia started making the shells slightly harder. It was tough to find a yellow dot much under 80 hardness. Then in 1979 they changed the formula and introduced a new shell on the yellow dot. It did have an additive to make it bleed. The new "bleeder" yellow dots worked much better than the slightly harder yellow dots of 1977 and 78. I had a 9P ( number referred to the year, letter was sequential from batch to batch ) that was a very good ball. As a side note, Glen Allisons 900 was shot with a 0R yellow dot. I had one out of the same batch, and it was a great ball. Lots of differences in balls from batch to batch back then.
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The hardness spec was put in place in '73 or '74. The original Shore D (spelling might be different) immediately was illegal. I had one. Then Columbia came out with a new, legal version with a new spelling (maybe Shure D?). I didn't know anyone that had much success with that one. After several years I pulled the original out of its bag and it was covered with about 1/16" of dark "goo". I threw it away, should have cleaned it up and kept it as a collector's item. -- JohnP
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I used a 67 hardness sur d at the 1976 Oklahoma City ABC. I believe the hardness rule for ABC didn't come in until the beginning of 77. PBA had a higher hardness rule and I don't know when it came in. I think they outlawed soaking in 74.
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Well I have only bowled competitively in 2 ERAs, in the late 70s with an AMF Dick Weber All Pro 5 Star rubber ball and in the Reactive ERA. In between I was out of bowling except occasional open bowling. It was easier to bowl in the late 70's but harder to score. I averaged 190 in scratch leagues. I said it was easier because you just bowled. You didn't think about which ball to use or how to play the lanes. It was like PLEASANTVILLE nothing really changed.
In todays ERA yes it is easier to score but you have to have bowling knowledge and that is what I like about todays game. I only started bowling again in leagues in 2009 and average started where I left off and has gradually increased to around 210. Now to put one ERA over the other I can't. I enjoyed bowling back then and I enjoy bowling now just as much. It's just a different game today.
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There was actually a big scoring breakthrough in the mid 70's with the introduction of the super soft polyester balls. Also the early century lane machines ( crude by todays standards ) were able to set up a pretty nice 10 to 10 compared to methods existing with prior machines. I averaged 200 in 1974, still throwing a Dick Weber 5 star. Switched to a Columbia Carmel white dot and averaged over 200 in 3 different houses the next year with a high of 214. I don't think I ever averaged under 210 again on a house shot. A lot of the house shots were set up off the corner, or around 5 board in those days. Even during the 80's this was true. From the outside angles, the carry with polyester and urethane was really not that much worse than with the resin balls. I averaged over 225 with urethane in the late 80's prior to the resin balls. My average only increased a little with resin, but I started shooting award scores at a huge pace for me. I had 5 300s between 1971 and 1992. I have shot 37 in the last 20 years.
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I used a 67 hardness sur d at the 1976 Oklahoma City ABC. I believe the hardness rule for ABC didn't come in until the beginning of 77. PBA had a higher hardness rule and I don't know when it came in. I think they outlawed soaking in 74.
I'm sure the rule was initiated in the '72 to '74 range. I was bowling in Beaumont Texas when it came in, and I left there in the spring of '74. After reading your post, I think the original ball was the Sur D Pro, different spellings were used after the rule came in. Did they check balls at the state tournament you used the ball in? -- JohnP
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I believe bob was saying he used the ball at the ABC National Tournament in Oklahoma City in 1976. So they would have weighed the balls and should have punched the balls for hardness.
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Sur D replaced the Shore D, and had a different shell formulation. It was soft, but didn't bleed like the Shore D. Not nearly as good a ball for most people. I shot 693 with the Sur D in team event at Oklahoma city, but never had much luck with it anywhere else. They put in the 72 hardness rule right after the 76 season.
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OK, then did they specifically outlaw the Shore D (original) in the '72 - 74 time period? -- JohnP
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I don't think the Shore D was ever specifically outlawed. When the 72 hardness rule came in at the end of the 76 season, most of the Shore D balls did not meet the rule. 2 of my team mates were throwing the Shore D at Oklahoma City in 76. Both were well under the 72 hardness limit that was adopted the next year. My Sur D was about 67. Incidentally, I also had a 6P Yellow Dot that was about 74 hardness. Much better ball than my Sur D. Unfortunately I lost it at a tourney in late 76.
I think the confusion on this stems from the outlawing of soaking balls to reduce the hardness. The PBA ( and possibly ABC, I don't remember for sure ) outlawed soaking a couple of years before the hardness rule came out for the ABC. Soaking was illegal even if you kept the surface hardness within the hardness limits. PBA events put a small mill hole in the balls and tested the hardness slightly below the surface where the soaking effect would not be present
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I sent the following message to the Specifications department at USBC. I'll let you know if I get a reply. -- JohnP
I have a historical question I hope you can answer for me to settle a disagreement.
Back in the soaker ball era I had one of the original Sur D Pro balls (this was the first ball, I may have the spelling wrong). As I remember it, sometime in the 1972 - '74 time period the ball became illegal. I thought the implementation of the hardness spec made it illegal, but my friend swears that the hardness spec wasn't put in place until '76.
My questions:
1. When was the hardness spec implemented?
2. If it wasn't during the '72 - '74 time period, was the original Sur D Pro specifically made illegal during that period?
Thanks in advance for the help.
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ABC implemented hardness rule at the beginning of the 1976-77 season. Rule did not specifically address any balls, but simply stated that balls must meet the 72 hardness on a D scale. Few Shore Ds or Sur Ds met the hardness test, thus effectively eliminating them from ABC sanctioned events.
Soaking the surface possibly became illegal even before that when the PBA outlawed soaking. I know that even if the soaking kept the ball above 72 hardness it was not legal
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I did get a quick answer from Jason Milligan at USBC, quoted below. Obviously I've got the beginning of Old Timer's disease - my memory is gone!!! It was the original Sur D that I had, I could dent it with my thumbnail. -- JohnP
Hello John,
Thank you for your questions.
1. When was the hardness spec implemented? The ABC implemented the specification for hardness of a bowling ball in 1976 according to the documents we still have here at USBC.
2. If it wasn't during the '72 - '74 time period, was the original Sur D Pro specifically made illegal during that period? The Sur D Pro was actually the second release, and it was a little harder (74-76 D) than the original Sur D (68-70 D). The original Sur D would actually have an indentation from the weight of the ball on the ball cup if you didn’t turn the ball every couple days. The hardness spec did eliminate softer balls from being used during sanctioned league and tournament play, and the Sur D was one of the balls disallowed. The Sur D Pro would have been a case by case situation because most of them were within specifications from the factory, but could be softened by soaking or temperature.
Please let me know if you have any questions.
Thank you,
Jason Milligan
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I could use my thumbnail and almost tell the hardness of bowls under 76. At that level I could just make a dent with my nail. Down in the low 60's it felt like the shell was made of 10 layers of saran wrap.
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Guess you would call me an old timer - but bowling lifer is more accurate. I started bowling in the late 60's as a youth. Spent the mid 70's in germany until I was 18 in
1978. So I have seen and have been competive from rubber and shellac (germany was far behind the US) to today. And as many might remember me here, I am a staunch believer that bowling should be more about the physical skills and not any equipment (be it the lane surface, the bowling ball, the oil on the lane or the pins. But it is not and never has been. This game has changed for sure and most of the changes make scoring easier for the majority every night. There will be those that claim differently and I have 1000 of my own items to prove it. None the less, bowling is simply what it is when you bowl in any era. You have to take on the challanges that is in front of you and learn the requirements of that time. Those that do this become good and those that can continue to do this over a life time become great.
So to me the answer to your question is now, this era. I am struggling with todays techmology and my body failing me as I get older. But I have come to realize I cant fret over what I cant change but simply try to continue to learn. And to me, this is what bowling is... a never ending life long passion to excel in which I have had moments that drive me to find more moments.
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None the less, bowling is simply what it is when you bowl in any era. You have to take on the challanges that is in front of you and learn the requirements of that time. Those that do this become good and those that can continue to do this over a life time become great.
So to me the answer to your question is now, this era. I am struggling with todays techmology and my body failing me as I get older. But I have come to realize I cant fret over what I cant change but simply try to continue to learn. And to me, this is what bowling is... a never ending life long passion to excel in which I have had moments that drive me to find more moments.
WOW!! This is a classic quote in my opinion. I'd like to frame it, put it on a plaque and place it on my wall!
Good stuff!