I got balls

First of all, get your mind out of the gutter (oh, wow, I just made a funny). I am talking about my bowling balls.

I am taking four bowling balls with me, as I have done for past games. And for the most part, my arsenal is very familiar. As an aside, it’s very easy to get lost in the endless barrage of new bowling balls that are released each month. More bowling balls released means more sales and more dollars for the manufacturers. I get that – but I also need something I can trust and I feel comfortable with, so I’m sticking with some classic, tried-and-true equipment choices.

Three of my four are “repeat offenders” from Israel and Australia:

The Columbia Ti Messenger, which I use on fresher oil at the beginning of a block. The ball can get through the oil and maintain a line to the pocket. If this ball has 100 games on it, that’s a lot – fresh oil isn’t a condition I see much here in the states.

The Ebonite Ice, which I usually use at the end of a block of games when the lanes have “dried up” and the oil has either evaporated, or has been moved around the lane after numerous games, or has been sucked up but the bowling balls and is now anywhere but the lane. The Ice is designed to go long through the dry and maintain some of its power down the lane.

Then there is the Track Heat, which to me is the Holy Grail of bowling balls. I’ve been so happy with this ball; when Track reissued this ball in 2005 I was so happy to pick one up seeing as I loved the original version. I really thought that the Heat would be going out to pasture – after a few 300 games and a pair of 800 series, I didn’t think we could get this ball back into competition. But to the rescue came my Pro Shop aficionado, Al Tilton, who said, “sure, we can get this ball back up to ‘box’” (so that it was just like the day I bought it). Al was spot on! The Heat is a great ball to use on medium oil or when the lane conditioner is breaking down in the middle of a set. It has nice hold on the lane, good carry through the pins, and it just feels good on my hand. You can’t ask for much more.

Finally, the newest addition to my bowling ball family is the Ebonite Magic. Thanks to the generosity of the Ebonite Company, this was one of the balls we received as part of our “swag.” (Thanks also to our chair, Marvin Cotler, for helping to “hook us up” with some great stuff, and to the great people at Hammer, Brunswick, Linds, and Dexter who also provided free equipment to our team). For me, this ball falls somewhere between the Messenger and the Heat. I have it drilled for medium oil and the ball can hit like a ton of bricks.

Bowling equipment and bowling skill have a lot to do with physics and geometry – how items will react when put together under specific conditions and how angle will affect the outcome. Some of it is as basic as “when the ball goes left, you move left.” But there is much more than that; slight hand adjustments or angling the body or using one ball over another because of a different coverstock or weight block have a tremendous affect on what happens 60 feet down the lane. That’s why bowlers travel with multiple bowling balls – each one is a different composition and has different characteristics that make it useful to a given bowler in a given situation. And to think there was a time in bowling’s history when rubber ruled the lanes.

So now you’ve gotten to know my balls. Get ready to enjoy the ride … again, get your mind out of the gutter.