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Bowling great Danny Wiseman, a native of Dundalk, will find out next month if the headquarters of the United States Bowling Congress will move to Texas from Milwaukee, where it has been located for more than a century. — Courtesy of Danny Wiseman
BALTIMORE (Map, News) - I’ve learned to accept that the Dodgers left Brooklyn and the Colts left Baltimore and NASCAR left Rockingham and I even finally bore up to the reality that Brad actually left Jennifer, but, I’m sorry, I simply can’t take it if bowling leaves Milwaukee.
Well, not all bowling . . . But the headquarters of the United States Bowling Congress, the heart and soul, ye, the shirt and shoes of American bowling, located in Milwaukee for more than a century, is threatening to pick up and move to Texas.
That benighted decision by the bowling poohbahs is scheduled to be made by March 14th. Say it ain’t so. As an erstwhile pin boy, I plead with the USBC to keep their sport in the city bowling made famous. After all, as Crackerjack goes with baseball, as tailgating with football, so have bowling and beer and Milwaukee always gone together.
In fact, do you know how the old German-Americans used to play the game? Three teams would compete against each other. Have you ever heard of any sport where it’s three teams? Everywhere else it’s two. But here’s the way it worked with bowling. Two of the three teams would bowl against each other, while the third team went to the bar and drank beer. Then they’d rotate. Golf may have it’s 19th hole at the end of a round, but bowling had a moveable nineteenth hole.
No wonder bowling prospered long into this century. Why, in winter time, its big heroes, like Don Carter and Dick Weber, were as famous as basketball and hockey stars. As recently as 40 years ago, there were nine million sanctioned bowlers in this country. But then the bubble burst.
Now it’s hardly 2.5 million. Especially as tennis and golf moved out of the country clubs, poor bowling appeared to be de classe. Bowling shirts were the epitome of tacky and, oh, those multi-colored shoes that looked like something elves would wear.
It’s funny, isn’t it? In most sports, the finest compliment you can pay an athlete is to call him a “blue-collar kinda guy.” But the whole sport of bowling took it on the chin because it was considered too blue-collar.
Bowling tried to upgrade its image. Suddenly, you were supposed to call alleys “lanes” and gutters “channels.” Please. You are what you are. You might as well try and have baseball start calling dugouts “patios.”
And wouldn’t you know it: What president put alleys in the White House? Right — Richard Nixon. I interviewed President Nixon once. His big gripe against sports journalists? They didn’t pay enough attention to bowling. Just bowling’s luck — Nixon. And it’s Gerald Ford who plays golf, and Ronald Reagan who rides horses.
Then Robert Putnam came out with his famous treatise, Bowling Alone, which featured the decline in numbers of weekly bowling leagues to illustrate how Americans had stopped doing things together. Apparently, younger Americans would rather play video games by themselves than go down to the alleys and rent some funny shoes and drink beer with their buddies.
And now they might move bowling central from Milwaukee to Texas? Hey, you might as well make Oshkosh the rodeo capital of America and transport the Alamo to Sheboygan. Bowlers of the world: unite, have another brewski and keep bowling where God meant it to be.
Frank Deford’s column also appears as commentary Wednesdays on National Public Radio’s Morning Edition. He can be reached at flamegarden@aol.com
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Examiner Reader said:
Dude, come into the 21st century and leave your old white guy racist beliefs behind. Are you friggin' serious? Nah, you gotta be kidding. Some old fart like you? Geez!
4 agree | 3 disagree
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Examiner Reader said:
your chauvanistic gilman background shows. what about hoff she is from baltimore too. you seem to dismiss the williams as unamerican---perhaps because they are women also
4 agree | 5 disagree
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Examiner Reader said:
This is quite possibly the stupidest article I've read in a while. Frank, was press time five minutes away when you coined this piece?
11 agree | 10 disagree
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Examiner Reader said:
Great article; agree with it entirely. The Olympics have lost their prestige, and this year in Beijing, the IOC will recognize this reality when it sees the declining interest from worldwide audiences. And indeed, let's ask the athletes to skip the opening ceremonies and demand that President Bush boycott the games altogether; it's his job to speak diplomatically with action.
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Brian O'Rourke said:
Alas, poor Billick...we knew him well!
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Examiner Reader said:
this so called legal system will destroy a thousand white men to destroy one black man. if they want him bad enough. and they do. racism is more clandestine and senister in this country than anywhere else in the world. we black men are considered a threat and always have been. but the table is taking a slow turn. but don't worry we'll show you some love. obviously something you know nothing about.
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avid reader said:
Angelos would not listen to anyone who made sense about making baseball interesting again in Baltimore.
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Michael said:
Football was named after the length of the ball, one foot. It has nothing to do with using your feet. And no one cares about soccer anyway. You could change its name to kickball. Oh, and basketball will be bounceball. And change tennis to racketball, racketball to wallball, and golf to metalstickball. Hey, volleyball. Theres one you can keep. Some people will search high and low to find something to complain about. Isn't there real sports news in D.C. that you can write about.
313 agree | 295 disagree
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Ron Redmerski said:
No way was this supposed to happen. Not like this, anyway. Four years ago when the ACC decided to expand, the prevailing thought on Tobacco Road was that the SEC had some competition. Finally. A 12 team super conference that included two Florida schools and, arguably, New England’s top athletic program. The talent-rich, fertile Newport Beach/Hampton recruiting areas were going to help the ACC yield top five football programs like Pez dispensers spit out candy. Well, if yesterday was any indication of how far the ACC has come, we won’t be eating Elvis Pez any time soon. Losing to an underrated East Carolina team is one thing (not to mention struggling with UAB, a program beaten by Michigan State 55-12 the week prior), but getting run over, completely throttled, by LSU and Oklahoma is quite another. The aforementioned powers made quick and decisive work of Virginia Tech and Miami (and that’s saying it nicely), respectively, the two programs that had John Swofford and the ACC bras
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Examiner Reader said:
Frank Deford's editorial on tall tales: Best athletes seem to rise Growth hormones does wonders ask my 16 year old son who is on them for medical reasons due to cancer treatment as a baby! If an adult or even a child is using them and they shouldn't be who knows what problems they may have down the road.
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Examiner Reader said:
Reminds me of the old line about horseracing as the sport of kings. But you never saw any kings @the $2 window.
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