2008 Woodie Awards
Issue Date: 4/2/07
Bowling deserves recognition as true sport
By Anthony Schwartz
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If movies like "The Big Lebowski" and "Kingpin" told the truth of the bowling scene, bowlers would be pot bellied bar flies with tacky shirts.
Thanks to television coverage bowling saw a rise in popularity in the fifties and sixties, according to rollerbowl.org.uk.
In the 50s bowling grew in popularity, in large part due to the creation of the automatic pinsetter. League bowler numbers grew from less than 3 million to 7 million according to answers.com.
Since then bowling has developed a sort of party atmosphere in which you can hang out with friends or bring a date. Because of this, bowling doesn't get the respect as being a
legitimate sport.
They call baseball the sweet science, however while all sports involve physics, bowling is all about collisions, velocity, and revolutions.
While football may be a game of inches, bowling is a game of quarter inches. Bowling is not like football where Philip Rivers can throw it in the general vicinity of Antonio Gates and he'll catch it. Missing a little left or right of an arrow makes all the difference in throwing the perfect ball.
A bowlers throw is more important to him than a pitch is to a pitcher. In bowling, there is so much emphasis on throwing the same exact way each time.
Bowling has its milestones. Most people know of the seven ten split and the 300 game, but most don't know of the big four (4,6,7,10 split) or the nine hundred series which occurs when a bowler rolls three consecutive 300 games. That feat is so rare and so difficult, that out of literally millions of bowlers,
bowling millions of series, there has only been 11 900 series in the
history of the game, according to the United States Bowling Congress.
So why doesn't bowling seem to get the fanfare. It could be the scheduling of the tournaments. PBA tournaments are played Sunday mornings which means its in strong competition with church, football and sleep.
Bowling is comparable to golf, both in which its an individual effort. Golf is televised in the afternoon, which allows more people to watch.
Thanks to television coverage bowling saw a rise in popularity in the fifties and sixties, according to rollerbowl.org.uk.
In the 50s bowling grew in popularity, in large part due to the creation of the automatic pinsetter. League bowler numbers grew from less than 3 million to 7 million according to answers.com.
Since then bowling has developed a sort of party atmosphere in which you can hang out with friends or bring a date. Because of this, bowling doesn't get the respect as being a
legitimate sport.
They call baseball the sweet science, however while all sports involve physics, bowling is all about collisions, velocity, and revolutions.
While football may be a game of inches, bowling is a game of quarter inches. Bowling is not like football where Philip Rivers can throw it in the general vicinity of Antonio Gates and he'll catch it. Missing a little left or right of an arrow makes all the difference in throwing the perfect ball.
A bowlers throw is more important to him than a pitch is to a pitcher. In bowling, there is so much emphasis on throwing the same exact way each time.
Bowling has its milestones. Most people know of the seven ten split and the 300 game, but most don't know of the big four (4,6,7,10 split) or the nine hundred series which occurs when a bowler rolls three consecutive 300 games. That feat is so rare and so difficult, that out of literally millions of bowlers,
bowling millions of series, there has only been 11 900 series in the
history of the game, according to the United States Bowling Congress.
So why doesn't bowling seem to get the fanfare. It could be the scheduling of the tournaments. PBA tournaments are played Sunday mornings which means its in strong competition with church, football and sleep.
Bowling is comparable to golf, both in which its an individual effort. Golf is televised in the afternoon, which allows more people to watch.
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