Month: November 2015

Originally appeared in Bowlers Journal International, October, 2015

Bowling is the true American pastime. Baseball is great, yes, but you don’t need seventeen friends to participate in bowling (in fact, you can get by with zero friends), and you don’t need to own any equipment. Just show up to a bowling center, give somebody some money, grab a bacteria-ridden ball, put on a pair of charmingly disgusting shoes and start hurling heavy spheres.

If society is not ready to proclaim bowling the official national pastime yet, we can at least confidently say it is by far the most accessible sport. Right?

Why, then, does the seemingly most accessible sport require the largest concentration of common-sense rules and advisories to be posted everywhere? If bowling is truly as simple as throwing a ball toward some pins and hoping to knock them down, and anyone of any age can do it, why do people need to be told to remove their wet shoes, avoid stepping past the foul line and resist the overwhelming urge to put their dishes in the garbage?

When you’re a twice-a-year bowler who walks into a bowling center, you are probably doing so with the intent to have fun rather than the intent to be told you’re not allowed to do anything at all.

I’ve never been on a hockey rink with a sign posted in the trapezoid area behind the net informing players “Please Do Not Touch the Puck in This Area if You Are a Goaltender.” Nor have I seen “Please Do Not Step Past the Line of Scrimmage” on any football field.

The answer, as usual in bowling: it’s complicated. If you’ve ever tried to explain to a novice the many nuances of high-level bowling, you know how difficult it is. Something you take for granted (for example, breaking down the oil on the lanes), cannot be explained to the beginner unless you first convince him there is, in fact, oil on the lanes.

Please do not wear bowling shoes outside. Please do not wear street shoes inside. Please do not leave bowling equipment on lockers. Please do not place hands inside ball return. Please do not throw away pizza trays. Please do not sit on the grill. Please do not place tobacco products in urinals. Please do not continue this increasingly ridiculous but completely accurate (except this one) list.

How many people actually sat on that grill before somebody had to post a sign? How much tobacco had to be scraped out of the urinals to warrant an instructive piece of paper above said urinals?

It would be nice if society as a whole understood or respected the concept of not throwing away dishes and silverware. Or not shoving limbs into moving mechanical parts (haven’t people seen Kingpin?). Or not leaving a mess of bowling equipment out in the open.

Instead, due to sheer idiocy and/or opportunistic lawsuits, bowling centers have to protect themselves from these things, thereby transforming the world’s most accessible sport into the world’s most intricately regulated activity. And, of course, this absurd dichotomy is perfect for bowling. Poetic, even.

So, next time you go bowling, get something to eat (but please do not take food into the bowlers’ area). Enjoy some time with friends (but please do not participate in horse play). Put on your bowling shoes (but please do not wear them outside). Bowl an entire game (but please contact the control desk to start the next game). Most of all, have fun (but please do not have fun).