There's only one bowler perfect enough to be "Mr. 900" - Striking Out - Glenn Allison

Bowling Digest, Oct, 2002 by Dick Evans

DURING THE COURSE OF A 55-year professional writing career, I have penned many stories that I wish I could take back.

One centered on a story supporting a politician in Miami who promised to bring a professional baseball team to town if he was elected mayor. He got elected but promptly forgot the baseball promise.

I also made a mistake when I wrote a story about a prominent jockey who admitted to riding winners while using drugs. I got a lot of praise for the story, but it ended his riding career.

Then there was the negative story about a so-called "Faith Healer" who was going around Miami claiming to heal people with his hands. He introduced me as a "Disciple of the Devil" when I went to one of his tent revivals, and I got a lot of hate mail and calls over my challenging his healing powers.

Another piece I wish I had never written was a 1963 column saying that my brother, Lee Evans, was way off base, that there was no way he could start the Bowling Tournament of the Americas. Boy, was I wrong--the tournament is still going strong 40 years later.

But my biggest gaffe was when I said that I didn't think Glenn Allison's 300-300-300--900 series should be approved by the ABC, which at that time was on a nationwide crusade against honor scores rolled on what the ABC considered illegally oiled lanes. The ABC agreed and didn't recognize the 900.

I didn't think any bowler, especially one who had failed to hit 600 in his earlier league on a different pair of lanes that night, was capable of rolling 36 consecutive strikes without the help of doctored lane conditions.

Now, 20 years later, history has proved my theory wrong.

Five other bowlers have roiled 900 series and none is as gifted as Allison, one of the country's top team bowlers and a holder of five PBA national titles. And all five 900s rolled after Allison's 900 have been approved by the ABC under today's lenient lane-conditioning rules. But sometimes from a raw deal or decision comes immortality. That certainly is what happened to Allison.

Ever since Allison rolled the historic 300-300-300--900 in a mixed league on July 1, 1982, at La Habra 300 Bowl in La Habra, Calif., he has been introduced as "Mr. 900" all across the country. The ABC's Hall of Fame book even states that Allison is known as "Mr. 900." No other bowler in history has that title.

Allison told his good friend, scribe Joe Lyou, as much. "Glenn says that he got much more publicity than if his series had been approved," Lyou writes.

It's only fitting that no other bowler in history will be called "Mr. 900." A few writers want the ABC to reverse itself and officially recognize Allison's 900 as the first in history. But you can't reverse history--you only can learn from it.

A lot of young people today think President Harry Truman should never have decided to drop the two atomic bombs on Japan in 1945. My brother, Lee, the guy who started the Tournament of the Americas, had been injured in Holland while fighting with the 101st Airborne. After Germany surrendered, Lee wanted to come home, but he wrote our mother and said he was afraid he would be shipped to the Pacific to fight the Japanese.

When the Japanese surrendered three months later and I knew that Lee was coming home, I went to church by myself and gave a prayer of thanks that the atomic bombs had brought the Japanese to their knees and senses.

Today I wish I hadn't said that prayer because of all the innocent Japanese people killed, but I still believe Truman did the right thing by giving the OK to drop atomic bombs at that point in history.

Today I wish I hadn't written the story rallying against Allison's 900 series, but I still believe that the ABC made the right decision based on its inspections of the lanes at that point in history. I'm sorry Allison didn't get the instant glory that history has proved he deserved for the world's first 900, but you can't change the past.

Glenn Allison has gone down as "Mr. 900" in the bowling history books and no other bowler will ever be recognized in that manner.

Happy 20th anniversary, Glenn--or should I say, "Mr. 900?"

As Dominick Sileo and Dolores Myers see it, bowling is a sport that allows them to enjoy life to its fullest.

"I get mad at myself when I don't bowl well. I know I can do better," says Myers, who has been blind since birth.

"I bowled three games in the 170s and a 187 game in the National Blind Tournament in Houston [in June], but I couldn't put them together for a good score," says Sileo, who lost sight in his left eye four years ago and most of the sight in his right eye last year.

Myers is president of the Daytona Beach Blind Bowlers league at Bellair Lanes, and Sileo is one of its "sighted" stars.

"I started bowling 64 years ago, and I always looked at the arrows on the lanes until my sight started to go bad," Sileo says. "Then I switched to the dots until I no longer could see them. Now when I stand on the approach I can't even see the foul line. So now I use spotters who tell me what pins are still standing after my first shot."