STL All Sports

If there's anyone in the world of the 1970s who hasn't at least heard about bowling, he must live in a cave. And if you find a man who lives in a cave, he might just be tossing stones at sticks, or some such antics resembling the modern game of tenpins.

Bowling has become worldwide in scope and enjoyment, with international competition blossoming from the day-to-day activity performed by "Joe Bowlers" throughout the world who compete regularly in organized league play.

Organizations such as the American Bowling Congress, Women's International Bowling Congress, American Junior Bowling Congress, and the Federation Internationale des Quillers have formulated rules to govern the sport. And the Bowling Proprietors Association of America, the Professional Bowlers Association, Ladies Pro-fessional Bowlers Association and the Professional Woman's Bowling Association have flourished and helped the game reach more people each year. The National Bowling Council, composed of the game's major integers, promotes bowling through a basic fundamental practice of united action from within.

Figures compiled by national pollsters reveal more than 40 million people bowl during a year. Of that, more than nine million (including members in Canada, Puerto Rico, Bermuda, Grand Bahamas, and foreign military installations) compete regularly in ABC, WIBC, and AJBC sanctioned competition.

Although the game now appeals to people of all walks of life, even though basic rule changes have not been altered, entering a bowling center today would give no clue to its origin.

Bowling has been traced to articles found in the tomb of an Egyptian child buried in 5200 B.C. The primitive implements included nine pieces of stone, to be set up as pins, at which the stone "ball" was rolled, the ball having first to roll through an archway made of three pieces of marble. Another ancient discovery was the Polynesian game of ula maika, also utilizing pins and balls of stone. The stones were to be rolled a distance of 60 feet, a distance which today still is one of the basic regulations of tenpins.

Another ancient form of bowls was played in the Italian Alps about 2,000 years ago. It involved the underhand tossing of stones at an object, differentiating it from the rolling of the stones, and is believed the origin of boccie, still a widely played game in Italy and among persons of Italian descent around the world. Basque quilles is another of the ancient European games, originating as an outdoor pastime using a wooden ball, probably made from tree roots, with a slot-like grip. The player held onto the ball as he swung it against the first of the three-foot-tall pins arranged in a large rectangular court. As that pin fell, hopefully to knock down its neighbor, the player rolled the ball toward the center of the court, trying to apply reverse spin that would send the ball ricocheting against several other pins. The pins were arranged in three rows of three each.

Bowling at pins probably originated in ancient Germany, not as a sport but as a religious ceremony. Bowling, written in the 19th century by William Pehle, secretary of the German Bowling Society and a member of the Berlin bowling club, revealed that as early as the third and fourth century, A.D., strange rites often would be held in the cloisters of churches. The parishioner would be told to place his ever-present kegel-the implement most Germans carried for sports and self protection-at one end of a runway resembling today's bowling lane. The kegel represented the heide. A stone was rolled at the heide, those successfully toppling it having cleansed themselves of sin. The practice was described in the chronicles of Paderborn, but evidently lasted less than two centuries.

The passage of time brought an increase in the size of the stone rolled at pins and eventually the ball came to be made of wood. In 1300, according to Pehle, some sections of Germany played a game with three pins; others used as many as 17. Martin Luther is credited with settling on the idea that nine was the ideal number of pins.

In his research, the German historian Pehle found numerous references to bowling, among them a game played at a great feast given the citizenry of Frankfurt in 1463.

The game spread into the lowland countries in the 15th, 16th, and 17th centuries and also into Austria and Switzerland. The playing surface usually was wood. The roofing-over of the lanes,first done in London for lawn bowls around the year 1450, was the true beginning of modern bowling as an all-weather, around-the-clock game.