Pinsetter November 18, 2018 Vol.9

Bowling With World's Best, Then Rejoining eigth Grade Almost Perfect

Janesville bowler's One man's rare feat: two quest for consecutive games a perfect score.

Hot Hand on : Bowling Data Indicates Correlation to Recent Past Results, Not Causality

Pinsetter Bowling Magazine Almost Perfect

Michael J. Mooney One man’s quest for a perfect bowling score.

hen Bill Fong approaches the lane, he tries not to breathe. He wants his body toW perform a series of complex movements that his muscles themselves have memorized. 48 years old, 6 feet tall, with broad shoulders, Fong pulls the ball into his chest and does a quick shimmy with his hips. He takes five measured steps toward the foul line and releases the ball. It glides across the oiled wooden planks, and nears the edge of the lane, veering back toward the center, as if guided by remote control. In a heartbeat, what was a wide, sneering mouth of pins is now-nothing. He comes back to the table where his teammates are seated-they always sit and bowl in the same order-and congratulate him the same way they have thousands of times over the last decade. But Fong looks displeased. “I got pretty lucky that time,” he says in his distinctly Chicago accent. “The seven was hanging there before it fell. I’ve got to make adjustments.” With a pencil, he jots down notes on a folded piece of blue paper. His teammates aren’t interested in talking about what he can do to make his strikes more solid, though, or even tonight’s mildly competitive league game. They’re still discussing a night two years ago. They mention it every week, without fail. In fact, all you have to do is say the words “that night” and everyone at the Plano Super Bowl knows what you’re talking about. One man, an opponent of Fong’s that evening, calls it “the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen in a bowling alley.”

Bill Fong needs no reminders, of course. He thinks about that moment-those hours-every single day of his life. 2 Pinsetter Almost Perfect

ost people think perfection in chaos of the flying pins, each rotating right time,” Gibson says. “It was almost like he bowling is a 300 game, but it past the upright nine. Fong craned his was putting on a show up there.” Misn’t. Any reasonably good recreational neck, watching, hoping. Until one of the bowler can get lucky one night and roll pins popped up from its side and swiped Each time he approached the lane, the 12 consecutive strikes. If you count all the the nine down. bowling alley went silent. Each time he bowling alleys all over America, somebody struck, the room erupted with applause. somewhere bowls a 300 every night. But In his second game, “it was like Moses In all his life, Bill Fong had never heard only a human robot can roll three 300s in parting the sea,” he says. “I’d move my anyone cheering him like that. He had 33 a row-36 straight strikes-for what’s called hands and everything would get out of the straight strikes entering the 10th frame of a “perfect series.” More than 95 million way.” By the 10th frame, Fong found that the third game. Out came the cellphone Americans go bowling, but, according most people around him wouldn’t make cameras. There were whispers, but as soon to the United States Bowling Congress, eye contact for fear they would be the last as Fong picked up his ball, it was dead there have been only 21 certified 900s thing he would see before rolling a dud. quiet. He turned to look at the crowd since anyone started keeping track. Bill Fong’s run at perfection started, as most of his nights do, with practice at around 5:30 p.m. He bowls in four active leagues and rolls at least 20 games a week, every “Never seen anything like it,” week. That night, Jan. 18, 2010, he wanted to focus on his timing. He didn’t roll many strikes in practice, though. There his teammates said. was nothing to make him think this night would be anything special. “Back-to-back 300s.” Fong’s team, the Crazy Eights, was assigned lanes 27 and 28, one of Fong’s On the first roll of the last frame, he had behind him, now well over 100 people, favorite pairs. The left lane, 27, hooks what he calls a “happy accident.” For the densely packed from the end of the snack more, he says. The right lane, 28, tends to first time that night, one of his powerful bar to the vending machines 80 feet away. be more direct. When it was Fong’s turn, throws missed its mark ever so slightly. he opted to roll a deeper , to stay But because the oil was now evaporating, That’s when Fong began to feel nervous, outside and ride the edge of the gutter a the ball found the pocket for a perfect like the world was watching him pee. He little longer. His ball slammed into the strike. Noticing what happened on the first felt the buzz-whatever it had been-leave pocket, obliterating all 10 pins. His next roll, he adjusted his position and finished his body. As he stood in front of lane 28, roll, on 28, was another violent strike. All the game with two more powerful strikes, he felt numb. He lined up and threw a ball four of the first frames were robust strikes, Nos. 23 and 24 of the night. without much hook on it. As soon as it left actually. “To tell you the truth, that wasn’t his hand, Fong began waving at it, trying that unusual,” says JoAnn Gibson, a sweet “Never seen anything like it,” his to will the ball left. It connected with the Southern woman who enjoys the company teammates said. “Back-to-back 300s.” pocket but without the usual force. As the more than she does the actual bowling. Fong shook his head. “Me neither,” he other pins dropped, the nine pin stayed Gibson and teammate Tom Dunn have said. up for what seemed like ages. But just as bowled with or against Fong in this league the gasp of the crowd reached a peak, one since the Clinton administration. They here’s almost never a time when of the pins rolling meekly across the lane don’t really hang out much outside the every decision you make is correct bumped the nine just enough to tip it. The bowling alley, but no matter what’s going andT every step is in the right direction. room exploded with cheers and whistles. on in life, they go to Plano Super Bowl for Life, like bowling, is full of complicating a few hours on Monday nights. factors. Fong, a C-student turned college Fong looked dizzy as he walked back dropout, divorced young and never made to the ball exchange. He was sweating In the sixth frame, Fong had another loud, much money. Nothing in his life had gone profusely. But he realized the mistake he’d devastating strike. Then another. Then according to plan, but when that first made on his last throw, and the second roll another. With each throw, he could tell it roll of the third game produced another was much cleaner. Again there were shouts was a strike from the moment it left his strike, Fong felt like he was floating. He from the audience as the ball blazed down hand. “It felt like driving and catching a wasn’t drinking, but he felt a little drunk. the lane, zipping back in time to smash green light, then the next one, then the By the time he struck in the fifth frame, the pins apart in a powerful, driving strike. next, then turning, and still catching every he realized he would almost certainly Thirty-five strikes down, one to go. Before green light everywhere you go,” Fong says. break the coveted 800 mark. By the sixth his final roll, Fong wiped his ball with his On the last roll of the 10th frame, though, frame, a large crowd had formed. Dozens towel. He lifted the ball to his something happened. He could tell from of people had stopped bowling to watch. chest and stood calmly for a the sound of the pins. As the clutter at the Texts were sent and statuses posted to moment. Then he took five end of the lane cleared, he could see the Facebook, and the audience grew. “We steps and released the ball. 3 nine pin still standing. He watched the were more nervous than he was at the ~ Continued on Page 5 November 2018, Vol. 9

Almost Perfect

It looked good from his hand, arcing out Some of the people in the room couldn’t hat night his friends bought him a the way so many of his great strikes that process what they’d just witnessed. How few beers. He doesn’t usually drink, night had, cutting back to the pocket just could the last roll, like the 35 before it, not butT at the time, he felt like the best day in time. Several people started applauding be a strike? of his life had just turned into the worst. before the ball even reached the end of the After a beer or two-and at least an hour lane-that’s how good it looked. But this Strangers fell to their knees. It was hard of excited congratulations from strangers- time, as the pins scrambled, something for anyone to breathe. Fong turned and he felt dizzy. When he got home, he unimaginable happened. The 10 pin, walked to his right. He was empty. Blank. went into the bathroom and vomited in farthest to the right, wobbled. As he stood there, Fong wanted to say the toilet. The walls were spinning. something-anything-but he couldn’t make But it didn’t fall. a sound. It turns out Fong was having a stroke. With the stress and tension of the night, The Odds of Bowling a his already high blood pressure had “Perferct Series” reached dangerous levels. Not long after, he had another stroke. When the doctor saw the X-rays and heard about the night Many people believe that of dizziness, he explained to Fong that withe enough talent, practice, he had suffered what could very easily and effort, achieving a “Perfect have been a fatal stroke. That night at the Game” (300) in tenpin bowling bowling alley, he could have died. is feasible. This belief is true, as the odds of a professional It also means that with the sweating bowler getting a and dizziness he was feeling in the third is 1/500. In comparison, the game, it’s likely that Fong bowled the last odds of a professional golf few frames through the beginning of that player getting a “hole in one” stroke-which makes the accomplishment in golf is 1/2500, and getting that much more amazing. stuck by lightning is 1/3000. However, when looking at a “Mind boggling,” Gibson says. professional bowler achieving the fabled “Perfect Series”, or When he had his heart surgery, he was in 36 consecutive strikes thrown the hospital for a week. Not many family in one go, the odds become members visited him. But he didn’t lack astronomically less probable. for visitors. Plenty of people from the As in only a 1/62,500,000,000 bowling alley took the time to see him, to (you read that right, billion) ask him how he felt and encourage him chance of achieving a Perfect to get well quickly. And, one by one, they Series. There is a much higher each mentioned that incredible night in chance of a any person winning January, when Bill Fong fell just one pin the lottery-1/13,983,816 to be short of perfect. Rehab was hard at first. specific. When including other The strokes took a lot of his strength. But variables such as oil levels on within a few months-earlier than doctors bowling lanes, length of said recommend-Fong was back to his usual lanes, and the composure of form, back to rolling five days a week the bowler, it becomes nigh unfathomable to imagine any As they’re talking about that night, one single bowler to achieve such of his teammates poses the question: a daunting task. However, Would Fong rather be alive with an it is still possible to do as of 899 or dead with a perfect 900? It’s a 2012; 21 bowlers have been rhetorical question, but Fong takes a recorded by the United States moment to consider it seriously. He’s Bowling Congress (USBC) to gone over that last roll so many times in have bowled the Perfect Series. his mind, replayed the shaky cellphone video. It takes him another moment, or maybe two, but eventually Bill Fong said he’d rather be alive. § Only 21 certified perfect series have been rolled. Ever. Bill Fong almost made it 22. 5

November 2018, Vol. 9