E-dition No. 997 • Thursday, April 4, 2018
Editor: Bob Johnson (bjibob@aol.com)
Dave & Buster’s to Open in Madison on Monday
And then there were two.
Two Dave & Buster’s locations in the state of Wisconsin, that is.
This coming Monday, the newest location of the dining and entertainment chain will open in Wisconsin’s capital city of Madison. It will be smaller than most D&B’s at 30,500 square feet, a size company owners believe is ideal for the marketplace. Because it is about two-thirds the size of most other locations, it will not include bowling lanes.
The venue occupies space in Madison’s West Towne Mall that formerly was part of a Sears store. That Sears location remains but with a smaller footprint.
The other Dave & Buster’s in Wisconsin is located in Wauwatosa, a suburb of Milwaukee. The company now has 111 locations in the United States.
Lots of Xtra Frame Programming in April
Now that the “madness” is over, PBA’s Xtra Frame will resume its exclusive coverage of PBA action in a big way, beginning with coverage of all qualifying and three-game match-play elimination rounds of the USBC Masters from the Oncenter Convention Center in Syracuse, N.Y.
The action begins on Tuesday, April 10, and continues through the final matches on Saturday, April 14, to determine the five finalists for Sunday’s live ESPN telecast at 1 p.m. Eastern.
Following the Masters, Xtra Frame heads to Portland, Maine, for the “draw party” to determine the bracket positions for the 64 players entered in the PBA Xtra Frame Port Property Management Maine Shootout. Coverage of the draw party on Monday, April 16, at 12:50 p.m. will be followed by the elimination matches Tuesday and Wednesday, including the semifinal and title matches beginning at 5:50 p.m.
The XF Maine Shootout will be the final qualifying event to determine the eight-player field for the PBA Tour Finals, set for May 4-6 at Thunderbowl Lanes in Allen Park, Mich.
On the heels of the Maine Shootout, Xtra Frame will cover all eight OceanView at Falmouth PBA League teams as they bowl a “seeding” tournament on Friday, April 20, to determine the matchups for Saturday’s opening round of best-of-two-game Baker team matches.
Following its Maine schedule, Xtra Frame heads south to kick off the 2018 PBA50 Tour season with start-to-finish coverage of the PBA50 Florida Open from New Port Richey, Fla., April 21-23; the PBA50 National Championship Presented by Radical — the senior circuit’s first major of the year — from The Villages, April 24-28, and the PBA50 Mooresville Ford Open from Mooresville, N.C., April 29-May 2.
Also in April will be the first event of the 2018 PWBA season, the Las Vegas Open, April 27-28.
Fans can watch the entire month of coverage for only $7.99. A three-day subscription also is available for $3.99, and the 12-month Season Ticket plan is offered for about $1.25 week. To sign up for the plan that works best for you, visit xtraframe.tv.
BJI Podcast: Catching Up With Mark Roth
As part of Bowlers Journal’s ongoing celebration of two special anniversaries in the bowling world this year — the PBA’s 60th and BJI’s 105th — the April 2018 issue features a story unearthed from the BJI archives that originally ran in February 1979. It captured Mark Roth at the height of his powers and fame following a record season in which he won eight titles in a single year.
For a new edition of the BJI Podcast, BJI Editor Gianmarc Manzione captured Roth in a year that marks the 40th anniversary of that absolutely sensational season he experienced in 1978. There are some interesting facts about the record he set that year, some well-known and others not so much.
For instance, did you know that in addition to setting a record for number of titles in a single season that year, he also set the record for the fewest tournaments bowled by a PBA Player of the Year? That’s right, Mark won eight titles despite skipping 10 out of the 36 PBA Tour stops held in 1978. Another thing to keep in mind is that Roth won each of those eight titles in a different bowling center, and the following year he won another seven for a combined 15 titles in two seasons.
These are among the reasons why the bowling world may never again see the likes of what Mark Roth achieved at that time in his career, and Manzione asked Mark about all of it for this interview.
So, to Mark Roth’s 67th birthday on April 10, please enjoy this conversation: http://www.bowlersjournal.com/the-bowlers-journal-podcast-mark-roth-on-the-40th-anniversary-of-his-record-1978-season/.
Gift for Life Scholarships Awarded
The International Bowling Campus Youth Committee has awarded Gift For Life Scholarships to 12 youth bowlers.
The scholarships are awarded annually to United States Bowling Congress Youth members who are in high school and can demonstrate financial need. Applicants must have a grade-point average of 2.5 or higher (based on a 4.0 scale) and provide at least two recommendation letters.
The IBC Youth Committee can award up to 12 Gift For Life Scholarships each year. Each award winner receives a $1,000 scholarship managed through the SMART program.
This year’s recipients are Gabrielle Aleman, Universal City, Texas; Skyler Austin, Burlington, Conn.; Marco Avila, Clermont, Fla.; Brooklyn Boudreau, Longview, Wash.; Eva Bradley, Enterprise, Ala.; Morgan Brooks, Racine, Wis.; Brandi Chun, Waipahu, Hawaii; Chloe Jones, Chicago; Connell Kelleher, Chicago; Kayla Payne, Louisville, Ky.; Jamal Ray, Chicago; and Sydney Shumaker, Martinsville, Ohio.
Each year, two of the awards are reserved for children of fire department, emergency rescue or police personnel. Kelleher’s mother was a police officer in Chicago, and Aleman’s father was a firefighter in San Antonio.
Jobs That Aren’t Anymore
Thanks to Ron Getto of Starlite 66 Lanes in Flagataff, Ariz., for sending along this essay called “Northland Memories,” written by Richard K. Mangum. Cyber Report readers of a certain age will relate to Mangum’s memories, even though the people he refers to as “pinspotters” were commonly known as “pin boys.”
Today all bowling alleys are automated, but until the mid-1950s, everything was done by hand. There was one bowling alley in Flagstaff when I was a kid, The Pastime Recreation Parlor, run by Oscar Lundahl in the basement of the Masonic Building.
Oscar had a few lanes for bowling as well as a couple of ping-pong tables, some pinball machines and a few other amusement devices.
One night, I went down to Oscar’s with a couple of friends to play ping-pong. It was a busy night, and my concentration on the little white ball was broken by the intervention of a desperate friend, who was working as a pinspotter. The other boy who was supposed to be working on that shift had failed to appear, and my friend could not handle all the lanes himself, so he pressed me into service.
“It’s easy,” he said.
So, I thought, “What the heck; I’ll help a pal and maybe learn something and earn a little money at the same time.”
It turned out that the pinspotters crouched on a catwalk behind and above the pins. After each ball was rolled, we were supposed to hop down and clear the fallen pins, then return the ball to the bowler.
I had never bowled and did not understand the rules. My first faux pas was to clear all the pins, including those left standing after a split. The bowler, a surly drunk, who was commiserated by an equally inebriated friend, advised me of my mistake in loud and unkind terms.
After that it was a frenzy of hopping from lane to lane — clearing, re-standing, rolling balls, and all. Due to inexperience, I continued to make all sorts of mistakes, making such a hash of it that the impatient drunks began to throw at me while I was still on the floor. Soon, their game shifted from bowling at the pins to bowling at the pinspotter. In short, I made a dog’s breakfast of it.
A couple of hours later, the lanes closed for the night, ending my ordeal, with me sweaty, terrified and thoroughly exhausted. Hidden from view of the public, my friend slipped me fifty cents for my torment and then slunk out, keeping his face in the shadows so that onlookers would think that he was not connected to me in any way.
This was my one and only experience pinspotting, but afterward I made a point of watching the good spotters in action, and they were a joy to behold — fast, accurate and deft.
It was not the sort of job that would support a family, so the pinspotters seemed to be students and part-time workers, a good sort of job for a kid.
But not this kid.
Other News You Can Use…
* Reigning PBA Rookie of the Year Matt Sanders joined BJI Editor Gianmarc Manzione to discuss the leadership role he has taken on with Big Brothers Big Sisters of America, his topsy-turvy Rookie of the Year season last year, and what he hopes lies ahead during the rest of 2018. To listen to the chat, go to: http://www.bowlersjournal.com/the-bowlers-journal-podcast-pba-rookie-of-the-year-matt-sanders/.
* The guest this week on Phantom Radio is Bill Zuben. You can access that conversation here: https://kegel.squarespace.com/phantomblog/2018/4/4/bill-zuben-phantom-radio.
* CONTACT: Please send business news, event information, etc. to Bob Johnson at bjibob@aol.com. For breaking business news, visit bcmmag.com or bowlersjournal.com, and “Like” Bowling Center Management and Bowlers Journal International on Facebook. BJI Cyber Reports are now archived at bcmmag.com.
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