It occurred to me the other day that we are around the 25th anniversary of the introduction of the resin ball.  Looking back the other revolutionary advances, soft polyester, and urethane both had much shorter lives.

More shocking to me is that resin has now been the mainstay for half of the 50 years I have bowled competitively. 

I made my comparison based on impact on the game.  To me, the soft polyester, urethane, and resin enhanced urethane were revolutionary in their impact.  Each almost totally replaced their predecessor in rapid fashion.  Core technology and even shell refinements have continued to evolve, but nothing that made the previous standard nearly obsolete in a short period

If the technology of the lanes, pins, and oils were advancing at the rate of the bowling balls, we could have a very different game now, especially in terms of the balls used.

Imagine if we were to have different surfaces of lanes to bowl on, almost like Tennis courts or golf courses. With each lane being able to "oil" itself with a polymer that was cheaper than lane oil to use, but lasted 5x longer. Imagine if we had pins, that while they still met the same weight restrictions, the pin had dynamic inner weights which make them harder to fall unless the ball was coming in at the absolute right angle. Between the computer aided technology in the lane itself, working in conjunction with a software that was able to show you CATS data of your shot after every shot.

The game can only evolve past the field that it's being played on. That's why ball technology hasn't changed much. There's still centers all across the country where you can barely keep a resin ball in play because the center only puts out a "head run" of oil to save money.

The sad part is, bowlers wouldn't accept the leap forward if it resulted in their average dropping 10-20 pins.

I remember watching Brian Voss throw the first prototypes for the Epoxy shell, which later turned out to be the Columbia EPX T1. He had 4 test balls, all different strengths of Epoxy. They put out a heavy oil 45ft pattern on the left lane, then the same pattern on right lane, but with an even heavier volume of oil (Not sure, but I know it was 100+ML in volume). The demo was amazing. The standard particle balls of the time did not hook on the right lane, and only hooked enough to barely clip the 3-6 on the left lane. The heaviest oil balls from San Antonio (the old Columbia plant) barely wrinkled on the patterns. There was one dull red epoxy ball with a dynamic core that hooked off of the lane a little past the arrows on the left lane no matter what. Then there was that same cover on a pancake block that got better length on the left lane, but still hooked way too much for the left lane to be playable. Then he threw those balls on the right lane where nothing hooked and both of those balls gave a big hooking, strong rolling reaction on the flood on the right lane. Those prototypes were on the "extreme side" of what the technology could do at the time. Then they had two other prototype Epoxy shell balls that hooked like crazy on the left lane, but were still playable and they still had enough dig for BV to play a tight down and in line to the pocket on the flood and still hook.

The way those Epoxy shells ate up oil was way too strong for anything in the early 2000s. On todays oils, they might give that strong particle type roll, but that reaction is very niche and may not create the optimal angle for carry. San Antonio lost millions on the development of that cover.

If the lanes and oils were to advance as much as the balls from plastic->resin, we would have a every different looking game now.

I would think today's balls would be ineffective with the amount of lane conditioner applied on the early urethane coated wood lanes.

Around here all sorts of bowlers complained that the new resin balls hooked too much and pressured the owners into putting down more oil so they could use their new pills.

Resin balls pretty much caused a huge boom in honor scores.

I believe the playing surface has changed so much over the same time.

Virtually all houses have synthetic lane surfaces now instead of wood. The consistency of a pair and across the whole house was huge. In the wood days bowling in your home house with knowledge of each pairs tendencies was a huge advantage.

Modern lane machines that strip and apply lane conditioner have also produced higher scoring conditions. I know most the houses around here 30 years ago only stripped the lanes twice a week. On certain nights the backends were pretty tame with lots carry down.

The great reduction of 5 person classic leagues has also upped the scoring pace. So many leagues now consist of 3 and 4 person teams. The quicker pace and slower transition helps scoring.

I agree with avabob in that resin was the bigger change in ball tech then the 2 piece ball.

Heavy load particle balls were only effective to a few high speed lower revolution players. The manufactures had to reduce the amount of particles down to the point they were mostly just resin balls. 

As a high speed low rev player, I miss those high load particle balls. The only problem with them was that had very short lives. 

Particle balls were even more porous than the other reactive resin balls.  As such they required even more maintenance, assuming they were used on the right conditions.  Not only did they absorb oil faster, but the particles in the covers (whether rubber, ceramic, or whatever) needed some maintenance too.  I remember the Storm La Nina was a very heavy load ball, and when resurfaced it felt "fuzzy".

The materials used to resurface depended on the type of particle used by the company.  If you used sandpaper on a Storm (rubber) particle ball it would "cut off" or smooth out the surface, so we used scotch brite, and later, the newer abrasives with sponge backing.  The harder particle balls could be resurfaced with sandpaper or the other abrasives with no ill effect.

Anyway, when the bowler didn't keep up with the maintenance the term "ball death" became commonplace and particle balls got the bad rap.  The particles were there to create friction, so if the bowler used them on drier conditions the ball could also expend energy faster on the lane and leave corner pins.  Instead of the bowler using a different/weaker ball he complained about the particle ball being "junk".

A couple of the best particle balls I had were pearl particles.   

The Ebonite Big Time Pearl was so good for me.  that and the Azure Zone Pro were my favorite particle balls.  but there were other good ones.

still have the zone pro, almost plugged it for my new span/pitches this season.