Quote from rs7:
Why is it now easier to bowl a 300?
And of course this thread would degenerate in a page or two. Wouldn't you have been disappointed (surprised) if it had not?
1. Not surprised at all. Had a good laugh as I read down through the posts.
2. Easier to bowl 300 nowdays... Everybody likes to score, so they made the lanes more "forgiving" and with computer technology, designed both the cover stock and the internal weight block for much more power. "Power = resistance to deflection" when the ball hits the pins.
The bowling "shot" has always been about
a. Speed
b. Accuracy
c. Type of release
d. consistency of release
In the 60's, "rollng dynamics" and the material the ball was made of came into play.
By oiling the lanes in a pattern, the lanes can help correct slightly errant shots.... maybe even moderately errant shots, and help direct the ball towards the 1-3 pocket for more strikes.
Years ago, one of the most difficult things to do was to get the ball to roll fast... more RPM down the lane = gyroscopic effect = power. That was one of the greatest skills. Now, with cover stock and internal weight block design, manufactures build strong hitting power into the ball. Sort of took the sport out of it to a large degree.
In the early days of trying to make the ball more powerful, they used to do such things as drill a big hole through a 12 ball, plug the ends, and load 4 pounds of barium oxide in the middle for mass density.... sometimes the end plugs would break, spewing the BaO2 all over the lane. They also soaked plastic balls in solvent to soften them... mostly highly flammable methyl-ethyl ketone (MEK). After the 2nd motor home got torched from a MEK explosion behind a bowling center, the PBA banned the practice.
In addition, soaking the balls would make them swell to be larger than specifications allowed. You'd see guys in the bathroom with heavy grit sand paper trying to make the ball smaller for inspection. Sometimes, when the weather was hot, the plastic balls would get too soft from the heat. Guys would be flushing them in the toilets to cool them off and make them read harder.
(Unless you're into bowling some, I'll bet this is a boring thread, huh? I guess I threw this out because I was reaching my 300th post on ET... 300 is always an important number to a bowler, you know. I once bought a ball whose last 3 serial numbers were "299". First time I used it I shot a 299.... should have grabbed the one whose number ended in "300". )
