April 17, 2025
Mike Pierce rocked the pins for a huge 299 game in his second game of the Friday National league at the Barbecue this past week. Oh, so close! Great game Mike. Cory Weeden spared his first frame in his second game last week in the Monday United league and proceeded to roll the next 11 strikes for a great 290 game. Great bowling Cory.
The Barbecue Recreation team won the Monday United League this past week defeating Hannaford for the title. All five members of the team were on the top of their games. Matt Williams had 634, Walt Callahan 653, Jack Fitzsimmons 266-727, Tim McCart 289-743 and Dave Rice 289-795. Congratulations guys on a great season.
The Schuylerville Men's league is having its roll-off this week with two-time defending champions Capital Tractor taking on the Undertakers to see who comes out as league champion. It will be an interesting match; I will be on hand to see who prevails. Matt Seymour had the high average for the league once again this year.
The Troy Association is assisting in the running of the State Women's Tournament which is being held at Kingpin's Alley Latham. I worked four squads and chatted with a few of the bowlers. One woman said it was her 62nd year of bowling in the tournament! Another one said it was her first year of bowling and had no idea on what to expect. There were bowlers with averages as high as 239 with a low of 91. I was somewhat surprised by the number of bowling balls that they were bringing to the tournament. Many were bowlers from a long distance, Long Island, Buffalo, Binghamton and even from Hoosick Falls! There were several Schenectady bowlers as well. Fun to chat with bowlers from out of the area asking them how many leagues they bowl in and where they bowl. The tournament concludes in May.
The Troy Association will be conducting its annual City Tournament with the team event at Hometown Lanes in Mechanicville while the doubles and singles events will be held at Hilltop Bowl in Spiegeltown. Entries are available at the Barbecue and online. Please reserve your dates with Mike Hodlik, the tournament director. Some days are filling up quickly. You do not want to get shut out. The team event begins on April 28th and runs through May 3rd. Doubles and singles begin on May 5th through May 10th. Each event is $25 per bowler with all events being $5. Barbecue bowlers have had good success in cashing as well as winning numerous events. This year could be the year you win an event. Don't bypass this tournament, it is handicapped with scratch winners as well.
While at the state tournament, I had a chance to chat with Carol Judge, Operations Manager of the center. We briefly discussed about the use of string pins in bowling. I asked her if she would ever see her center change over to the string pins. She said that her center will probably not be changing to string pins at any time soon. She said the string pins are not compatible with the scoring system they currently have. She believed it would be an expense of close to a million dollars to make the change to new machines and new scoring system. She said that is not in the budget at this time. She said that the string pins do not seem to carry the light pocket hits from the high rev players as the pins don't seem to mix as well as the free fall pins do. She did state that the solid pocket hits seem to carry very well on the string machines. There seems to be much talk about string pins on social media as well as just casual talk at the lanes. I do not believe that the string pins are going to go away. The pinsetters many of the centers currently being used are anywhere from 30 to 75 years old. Much maintenance is needed to keep the machines running in tip top shape as there are fewer and fewer high-level mechanics out there. We shall see how things progress as time marches on.