“History of Bowling” Research paper Jeremy Isaiah Nettles Bowling (PEED) 136 -01 April 29, 2014 History of Bowling Bowling is a unique and interesting sport. Today it is one of the most popular sports in the world. A British anthropologist, Sir Flinders Petri, discovered in the 1 dad’s a collection of objects that proves that bowling traces back to 3200 BC. A German historian, William People, asserted that bowling began in his country about 300 AD. There is substantial evidence that a form of bowling was in vogue in England in 1366, when King Edward Ill allegedly outlawed it to keep his troops focused on archery practice.
And it is almost certain that bowling was popular during the reign of King Henry VIII. Thus bowling has been around for a long period of time and will remain for a long period of time. At about the time of Christ, the Romans played a game that had been adapted from their war maneuvers. The Romans did much of their fighting in hilly areas, so one of their tactical maneuvers was to roll rocks down a pass to attract or bowl over the oncoming enemy. The soldiers practiced to develop skill in this tactic and before long began to “play’ this game for fun.
Evidentially bowling started out to be a game of curiosity and evolved to a game of great skill and precision. In the early days, bowling was a sport of ill repute but in present day it is a family-friendly activity. In the beginning, bowling centers were attached to saloons and had only a few lanes where women were not allowed to enter because of the rough atmosphere. Now there are huge bowling centers that are considered to be entertainment facilities in some areas of the world where men, women, and youth all compete in a family-friendly environment.
Sometimes tournaments (amateur and/ or Pro) are bowling in a stadium setting located in conversation centers all over the world. By this time, too, there were many variations of “pin” games, and also Of games where a ball was thrown at objects other than pins. This would seem to imply that the games had developed over time, from an earlier period. One of the most eccentric games is still found in Edinburgh. The player swings a fingerless ball between his legs and heaves it at the pins. In doing so, he “flops” onto the lane on his stomach.
There were and still are many variations of ninepins in Western Europe. Likely related are the Italian bocce, the French petulant and British lawn bowling. Undoubtedly, the English, Dutch and German settlers all imported their own variations of bowling to America. The earliest mention of it in serious American literature is by Washington Irving, when Rip Van Winkle awakens to the sound of crashing ninepins. The first permanent American bowling location probably was for lawn bowling, in New Work’s Battery area.
Now the heart of the financial district, New Yorkers still calls the small plot Bowling Green. The game had its ups and downs in America. An 1841 Connecticut law made it illegal to maintain any ninepin lanes, probably because bowling was the object of much gambling. But the robber, of course, also evidenced its popularity. Also, many captains of industry chose to install a lane in their mansions. While it is uncertain where the tenpin game evolved, by the late sass it was prevalent in many states such as New York, Ohio and as far “west” as Illinois.
However, details like ball weights and pin dimensions varied by region. But that changed when Joe Thumb finally pulled together representatives of the various regional bowling clubs. On September 9, 1895, at Beethoven Hall in New York City, the American Bowling Congress was born. Soon, standardization would be established, and major national competitions could be held. Under its leadership, bowling became popular nationwide, and more importantly, finally gained respectability due to the virtual elimination of the gambling associated with it.
BBC largely accomplished this by offering substantial prize monies in sanctioned regional and national competitions, in which gambling was prohibited. With the sport cleaned up, it was just a matter of time until women were attracted to the game, and in 1 916 the Women’s National Bowling Association, renamed the Women’s International Bowling Congress WIBNI) in 1971 , and was formed. Young people also became involved, and in 1982 the Young American Bowling Alliance (YUBA) was formed.
These three organizations have now merged into one cohesive national governing body, the United States Bowling Congress (GIBBS). Just as the sport of bowling evolved, so too did the equipment that is used to play the game. A wooden ball eventually replaced the stone, and multiple wooden pins (as few as three and as many as seventeen) were used instead of the single keel. The most common form of bowling in America in the 1 ass’s was ninepins, in which the ins (which were straight, and taller and narrower than those used in today’s ID-pin game) were set up in a diamond pattern.
The “alley’ was usually a plank only about a foot and a half wide and 90 feet long. Needless to say, it took a great deal Of skill just to keep the ball on the alley, let alone hit the pins! From a rolling stone, the ball changed over the centuries to wood, then hard natural rubber, and finally to the variety of resins, polyurethane and plastics used in today’s bowling balls. Drilling the holes in a ball has become a highly technical skill, and the way in which a ball is drilled can have a erroneous impact on how it reacts when thrown by a bowler.
Most professional bowlers carry an arsenal of balls with them when they compete, each drilled for a specific purpose or lane condition. In addition to the basic bowling ball and shoes, the marketing of bowling accessories, apparel, and ancillary equipment has grown into a multi-billion dollar industry today. In 1951, another technological breakthrough set the stage for massive growth. American Machine and Foundry Company (AMP, then a maker of machinery for the bakery, tobacco and apparel businesses) purchased the patents to
Gottfried Schmidt automatic pinsetter, and by late 1 952, production model pinsetters were introduced. No longer did a proprietor have to rely on “pinions”. Television embraced bowling in the sass’s, and the game’s popularity grew exponentially. Nab’s broadcast of “Championship Bowling” was the first network coverage of bowling. Coverage proliferated with shows like “Make That Spare,”, “Celebrity Bowling”, and “Bowling For Dollars. ” And in 1961, BBC became the first network to telecast competition Of the Pro Bowlers Association.
Successful promoter, agent and entrepreneur Eddie Alias founded the ABA, and with his leadership, the Pro Bowlers Tour became a hugely popular stalwart of BBC sports broadcasting. Joined later by telecasts of the Ladies Pro Bowlers Tour (the forerunner now the Professional Women’s Bowling Association, PAPAW) millions of Americans witnessed and became interested in the sport. With the formation of the BBC became rules and regulations. In today’s version, the playing surface is a lane, 60 feet long from the foul line to the head pin 42 inches wide.
On either side of the lane is gutters; if the ball goes off the edge of the lane, it will drop into the gutter and e carried past the pins. The approach is an area 15 feet long, ending at the foul line. The bowler, in making the approach, must not step over the line; 60 feet beyond it is the headpin. The pins are arranged in four rows, with one pin in the first row, two in the second, three in the third, and four in the fourth. They are numbered 1-10; the pins themselves don’t carry specific numbers, but the spots on which they are placed do.
The regulation pin is made of hard maple; it is 15 inches high and has a diameter of 2 1/4 inches at the base and a circumference of 15 inches at its widest point. Weight must be between 3 mounds, 6 ounces and 3 pounds, 10 ounces. The regulation ball is of solid composition, has a circumference of no more than 27 inches, and weighs 10 to 16 pounds. A ball may have two or three finger holes; most bowlers use the three-holed ball, inserting the two middle fingers and the thumb into the holes. Bowling in ordinary shoes isn’t permitted, because it can damage the lanes.
The peculiarities of the sport demand an unmatched pair of shoes. The right-handed bowler wears a left shoe with a relatively slippery sole, usually of hard leather or vinyl, and a right shoe with a rubber sole that will help “brake. Game is made up of 10 frames. Each frame represents one turn for the bowler, and in each turn the player is allowed to roll the ball twice. If the player knocks down all the pins with the first roll, it is a strike; if not, a second roll at the pins still standing is attempted. If all the pins are knocked down with two balls, it is a spare; if any pins are left standing, it is an “open frame. If a bowler commits a foul, by stepping over the foul line during delivery, it counts as a shot, and any pins knocked down are re-spotted without counting. If pins are knocked down by a ball that has entered the gutter, or by ball bouncing off the rear cushion, they do not count, and are re-spotted. In an open frame, a bowler simply gets credit for the number of pins knocked down. In the case of a spare, a slash mark is recorded in a small square in the upper right-hand corner of that frame on the score sheet, and no score is entered until the first ball of the next frame is rolled.
Then credit is given for 10 plus the number of pins knocked down with that next ball. For example, a player rolls a spare in the first frame; with the first ball of the second frame, the player knocks down seven pins. The first frame, then, gets 17 points. If two of the remaining three pins get knocked down, 9 pins are added, for a total of 26 in the second frame. If a bowler gets a strike, it is recorded with an X in the small square, the score being 10 plus the total number of pins knocked down in the next rolls.
Thus, the bowler who rolls three strikes in a row in the first three frames gets credit for 30 points in the first frame. Bowline’s perfect score, a 300 game, represents 12 strikes in a row?a total of 120 pins knocked down. Why 12 strikes, instead of 10? Because, if a bowler gets a strike in the last frame, the score for that frame can’t be recorded before rolling twice more. Similarly, if a bowler rolls a spare in the last frame, one more roll is required before the final score can be tallied.
Today, the sport of bowling is enjoyed by 95 million people in more than 90 countries worldwide. Under the auspices of the Federation National des Quilters (FIX), bowline’s top athletes regularly compete in Olympic Zone and worldwide competitions. With 7,000 years of history backing it, is it any wonder that bowling has become one of the favorite pastimes of Americans today. It is estimated that approximately 70 million people in the US go oiling at least once a year, with about 7 million of them competing in league play.
