Rolling a ball to knock down targets has been the object of a number of
games, at various times and in various parts of the world. The implements for
such a game have been found in an Egyptian tomb that's more than 7,000 years
old, and a sort of bowling has been popular among Polynesian Islanders for at
least several centuries.
But the modern sport of bowling, which seems distinctly American and very
secular, probably grew out of a German religious ceremony.
In the 3rd century AD, every German peasant carried a Kegel, a club similar
to the Irish shillelagh, for protection. It became a customary test of faith in
many churches for the parishioner to set up his Kegel as a target, representing
the heathen, and then roll a stone in an attempt to knock it down. If he
succeeded, he was considered free of sin.
Bowling eventually moved out of the church and became a popular secular
sport, with a wooden ball replacing the stone and multiple pins (from as few as
three to as many as seventeen) replacing the single Kegel.
There are several references to bowling in Germany during the Middle Ages.
Berlin and Cologne in 1325 set a limit on the amount that could be bet on a
bowling match. A 1463 feast in Frankfurt featured bowling, along with a venison
dinner. And the winner of a 1518 competition in Breslau was awarded an ox.
From Germany, the sport spread into Austria, Spain, Switzerland, and the Low
Countries. Bowling also moved indoors, into covered sheds with lanes made of
wood or sun-baked clay. These Kegelbahns, as they were called in Germany, were
often associated with inns or taverns.
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Dutch in New Amsterdam were bowling at ninepins by 1650. In that form of
bowling, which was widespread in Europe, the nine pins were arranged in a
diamond, 1-2-3-2-1 pattern. The "alley" was frequently a plank, about a foot and
a half wide and up to 90 feet long, so it took some skill simply to avoid what
we would call a gutter ball.
Although English settlers brought lawn bowling (which doesn't use pins) and
skittles, a form of ninepins, to the colonies, it seems likely that tenpins
evolved from the Dutch sport.
Connecticut banned ninepins in 1841 because of the gambling associated with
the game. The story has often been written that a tenth pin was added to get
around that law, but there's no substance to it. Actually, a town in New York
had earlier prohibited tenpin bowling, also because it led to gambling.
The pins used during this period were tall and slender, much like modern
candlepins. About 1850, the heavier, bottle-shaped pins were substituted to make
scores higher. That eventually created a different sort of game, in which
strikes and spares became paramount for the best bowlers.
Bowling was a very popular sport in New York City in the middle of the
nineteenth century. A newspaper said there were more than 400 alleys in the city
in 1850. It then declined for a time. One reason may have been that the larger
pins made it too easy. The prevalence of gambling was another factor. Bowling,
like billiards, was considered semi-respectable, at best.
When nine clubs from New York City and Brooklyn formed the National Bowling
Association (NBA) in 1875, one of its purposes was to standardize rules. Just as
important, though, the clubs wanted to eliminate gambling among their
members.
The NBA didn't last long, but the rules its member clubs established are
still the basic rules of bowling. A similar New York-based organization, the
American Amateur Bowling Union, established in 1890, was also short-lived.
Meanwhile, German immigrants helped to popularize the sport in the Midwest,
especially in Chicago, Cincinnati, Detroit, St. Louis, and Milwaukee. With
inter-club and inter-league bowling on the increase, equipment and rules had to
be standardized nationally.
As a result, the American Bowling Congress (ABC) was founded as a genuine
national federation of clubs at Beethoven Hall in New York City on September 9,
1895. In 1901, 41 teams from 17 cities in 9 states competed in the ABC's first
National Bowling Championships in Chicago. There were also 155 singles and 78
doubles competitors.
Under the leadership of the ABC, bowling quickly became both popular and
respectable. Gambling was virtually eliminated--partly because of prize money
offered not only by member leagues, but also in ABC-sanctioned regional and
national competition.
As a result, women were attracted to bowling in large numbers. The Women's
National Bowling Association, founded in 1916, conducted its first national
championship the following year. The association was renamed the Women's
International Bowling Congress (WIBC) in 1971.
Approximately 60 million people in the U. S. go bowling at least once a year.
More important, about 7 million of them compete in league play sanctioned by the
ABC and/or WIBC.
A steady stream of young bowlers has been a major reason for the sport's
continuing popularity throughout this century. Bowlers of high school age and
younger originally came under the jurisdiction of the American Junior Bowling
Congress, an ABC affiliate. That organization was replaced in 1982 by the
autonomous Young American Bowling Alliance (YABA), which sanctions league and
tournament play of bowlers through college age.
Although collegiate bowling is rarely mentioned in the media, many
conferences offer team competition and championship tournaments. National
championships have been conducted since 1959 by the Association of College
Unions (ACU) and since 1962 by the National Association of Intercollegiate
Athletics (NAIA).
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Sweden was the first European country to take up American tenpin bowling, in
1909. The sport gradually spread through northern Europe. In 1926, the
International Bowling Association was organized by teams from Denmark, Finland,
Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, and the United States. International
tournaments were held in Sweden that year, in New York City in 1934, and in
Berlin in 1936.
Bowling became popular in Great Britain during and after World War II, mainly
because many alleys had been built on U. S. military bases. Beginning in the
1960s, the ABC worked with equipment manufacturers to promote the sport in
Australia, Mexico and other Latin-American countries, and then in the
Orient.
The Fédération Internationale des Quilleurs (FIQ), founded in 1952, now has
more than 70 member nations. Headquartered in Helsinki, Finland, the FIQ has
conducted world championship tournaments every four years since 1967.
Bowling was an exhibition sport at the 1988 Olympic Games in South Korea.
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There was not always a clear distinction between amateur and professional
bowlers, especially since amateurs are allowed to collect prize money. Most
acknowledged professionals were instructors, but there were a few who toured the
country, giving exhibitions or playing matches for money.
Three professionals were pretty well known to the public. Andy Varipapa, a
colorful trick shot artist, spent thirty years entertaining crowds throughout
North America. He also won two consecutive BPAA All-Star tournaments, in 1946
and 1947.
Floretta McCutcheon was the sport's leading woman ambassador from 1927
through 1939, giving thousands of clinics, lessons, and exhibitions.
Best known of all was Ned Day, who not only toured but also did a very
popular series of movie shorts during the 1940s. Millions of people saw the
films in theaters and, later, in television reruns.
Day retired in 1958, the very year the Professional Bowlers Association (PBA)
was founded. Under the leadership of Eddie Elias, the PBA set out to establish a
regular tour of sponsored tournaments similar to the Professional Golf
Association tour.
For several years, there were only three or four tournaments on the PBA tour,
but the number grew rapidly during the 1960s, mainly because of television. To
fit tournaments into TV time slots, Elias created the "stepladder" format that's
still used in almost all PBA events.
Competitors first roll a series of qualifying games, with the top five
finishers advancing into the stepladder round. The fifth- and fourth-place
qualifiers bowl a match, with the winner advancing to bowl against the
third-place qualifier. And so it goes up the stepladder, until the survivor
meets the first-place qualifier in the final match.
The Professional Women's Bowling Association was founded in 1960 to establish
a similar tour. It wasn't particularly successful, so a group of players left to
form the Ladies' Professional Bowlers Association in 1974. The two merged again
in 1978, forming the Women's Professional Bowlers Association, which became the
Ladies Professional Bowlers Tour in 1981.
As in golf, the women's tour isn't nearly as lucrative as the men's, largely
because of the lack of television coverage. The PBA tour boasts about 40
tournaments, many of which award $40,000 or more for first place. The LPBT tour
offers only about 15 tournaments and first place money is usually less than
$20,000.
There are four major men's tournaments,
the BPAA U. S. Open,
the PBA National Championship,
the Tournament of Champions,
and the ABC Masters.
Women have three majors,
the BPAA U. S. Women's Open,
the Sam's Town Invitational,
and the WIBC Queens.
A fourth major tournament,
the WPBA National Championship,
was discontinued after 1980.
