A LOTTA WOOD
If you haven’t heard by now, 20-year-old Vince Wood, Moreno Valley, Calif., became the third bowler to receive American Bowling Congress sanction for a 900 series.
The southern California college student rolled the series September 29 in the Vegas Express Mixed league at Cadillac Bowl in his hometown that’s near Riverside.
Wood was the anchor bowler on the team which included his parents, Loretta and William Wood, his girlfriend, Gina, and his friend, Rick York. Loretta Wood is the manager of Cadillac Bowl.
Wood now joins Jeremy Sonnenfeld of South Dakota and Tony Roventini of Wisconsin to become the only trio ABC has endorsed for rolling three consecutive perfect games in the same series. Sonnen- feld rolled his 900 while a student at the University of Nebraska in Lincoln in 1997. Roventini, the only lefty in the group, tossed his in a men’s league in Greenfield, Wis., in 1998. There were nine 900s shot prior to those rolled by these three young men, but they were not sanctioned as official by the ABC for various reasons.
REMEMBER ALLISON?
In 1982, when Vince Wood was only three years old, one of his Southern California neighbors, Glenn Allison, rolled a 900 in league play in LaHabra, Calif., with a plastic Columbia 300 Yellow Dot bowling ball.
Allison, a member of the ABC and PBA Hall of Fame whose talent cannot be questioned, still competes regularly on the PBA Senior Tour. When ABC denied approval of his 900, it set off a firestorm of protests among knowledgeable people in bowling. In hindsight, that bad decision on ABC’s part could have been the spark that set off a widespread distrust of ABC, which led to the comical creation of the so-called "System of Bowling," which has probably made it possible for the new crop of 900s.
This "anything goes" system, which establishes minimum but no maximum lane dressing requirements, was established in 1991 with the BPAA "holding a gun to the head" of ABC. BPAA leaders at the time threatened to pull out of ABC and start their own sanctioning organization if ABC didn’t agree to soften its stance on endorsing award scores. To make a long story short, ABC caved in, and the environment we see today was born.
CHEAP THRILLS BY THE THOUSANDS
In 1992-93, the year after the SOB was born, there were 20,542 perfect games "sanctioned" or approved by the ABC. Since that time, with a membership still in a decline of about five percent per year, 300 games have increased 60 percent to a phenomenal 34,470 in 1998-99.
The number of 800 series also has increased dramatically, from 4,606 in 1992-93 to 8,043 in 1998-99. With a lucky break or two, probably half of those 800s could have been 900s. There have been four 899 series sanctioned since 1989.
If you read October’s column, you heard me say that perfect games are nothing more than "cheap thrills" because they have become so common. The concern among us who have been around long enough to remember legitimate scoring is that our heroes, the men and women who built this sport, will vanish from the record books and eventually from memories, as if their accomplishments didn’t matter.
WHAT ABOUT RESPECT?
No one doubts that bowlers like Glenn Allison, Dick Weber, Don Carter, Marion Ladewig, and Donna Adamek were great bowlers. But their combined scoring records don’t come close to Wood, Roven- tini, and Sonnenfeld.
Wood, at age 20, already has rolled 17 perfect games and 11 800s. He started bowling at age 12. Assuming he rolled most of these scores within the past five years, that means he could have 60-70 perfect games and over 40 800s by the time he’s 35 years old!
My first reaction when I heard the news about the latest 900 was, "Who cares?" It may have sounded sarcastic, but was a serious question. Unfortunately, because of the fake-scoring environment allowed to proliferate by the ABC, virtually no one outside of family and friends really cares about the 900s shot by these three young men.
Should this editorial make it into the hands of any of these three young bowlers, I want them to know that I mean no disrespect to them personally. I have met and talked with Jeremy and Tony, and I found them to be fine young men. Every indication is that Vince is also. I only hope that they can understand why they will get very little recognition for their achievement.
I call them "victims," not out of meanness or malice, but because they have by a quirk of fate been cast into a leadership role for which they may not be ready. We all know how huge the luck factor is in this game, and these three young men have been put on an unstable pedestal by a sport in serious condition.
Only a month after Jeremy shot his 900 in Febuary of ’97, bowling’s leaders paraded him in front of the ABC delegates like some kind of war hero. Strike Ten and others called him the "Tiger Woods of bowling" in a ridiculous attempt to start and ill-founded marketing campaign. ABC made him an "ambassador," and people ignorant of the real insignificance of his achievement told him he would make a lot of money.
Today, he is still a fine young man, but very few financial rewards have come his way. When he recently traveled to Miami, Fla., to bowl in the Tournament of the Americas where he won five gold medals, he had to pay his own expenses.
Many others, perhaps thousands, are on the same talent level as this perfect trio, but lady luck has kept them out of the 900 spotlight. It may be a blessing because once you reach the peak of the scoring mountain, there is only one place to go. Hopefully, with the right guidance, they will find other, more meaningful mountains to climb.
I predicted accurately in 1997 that there would be at least one 900 every year unless the environment changed. So far, we are right on target, but look for the pace to pick up. As for Jeremy, Tony, and Vince, it’s a shame they may never get a chance to experience the real sport of bowling.
Jim Goodwin, a BWAA director and PWBA’s regional program director, is the award-winning editor/publisher of Stars & Strikes, in which the preceding originally appeared. Subscriptions: $20 for one year, $32/$48 for two/three years (Pin Point Publishing, 2850 Red Valley Run, Rockwall, TX 75087 … voice/fax: 972/771-0069.