1971 Ebonite Open: Earl Anthony vs John(ny) Petraglia and Skee Foremsky

As far as I can tell, this is the earliest video of Earl Anthony bowling in a tournament that is available on YouTube.

It's the final few matches of the 1971 Ebonite Open which took place at the Saratoga Lanes in San Jose, California.

It starts halfway through Earl Anthony's game with John Petraglia (looking extremely young!), which he wins. It then proceeds to his game against Skee Foremsky, which he loses by 40 or so points.

This is apparently an "infamous" tournament because the top 16 bowlers to finish were all left-handers.

Earl looks great with his crew-cut. His bowling motion seems to be the same as in future years - I don't think he changed it at all until around 1997 or so when he started using a slightly higher backswing to increase the speed of his ball.

Manifesto

I am a left-handed bowler.

If you know anything about heraldry, you know that the right side of a heraldic shield is the "dexter" side. (Dexter is Latin for "the right hand side" and is where we get the word "dexterious" = meaning skilled at using one's hands in manual labor.)

The "sinister" side of a heraldic shield is the left-hand side. Because only a small percentage of people were left-handed, this was looked upon as bad (evil, even) and so sinister came to mean "looking dangerous."

Left-handers have gotten a bum rap since the beginning of time, and frankly it continues to this day.

Read a book on bowling and the instructions given are always for right handed bowlers. Left handers are told to just "reverse the directions."

The crowning indignity was in 1977, when Earl Anthony, the best bowler on the planet, who also happened to be left-handed, wrote a book called Winning Bowling - which not only was written from the point of view of a right-handed bowler but also featured photos of Anthony that had been flipped to make it seem as if he were bowling right-handed! [I'm quite sure his publishers forced him into doing that!]

It's not even Earl Anthony on the cover of his own book!

If it were easy for a bowler to just "reverse the directions" of instructions, then it should be just as easy for a right-handed bowler to read the directions aimed at left-handers and "reverse the directions."  Take that, you right-handers!

In this blog, I'll cover the following topics:

1. Tips for left-handed bowlers
2. History of bowling
3. Reviews of bowling centers around the country
4. Things to see and do in cities with bowling centers
5. Adventures of me - a left-handed bowler - in leagues and in tournaments

I am a 150-average bowler at the moment, but thanks to the handicap system, I can participate in tournaments with even the best bowlers, because the goal is simply to bowl one's average.

If I bowl right on my average, and have a 60 point handicap, that gives me a score of 210.

If I bowl someone who has a 210 average and no handicap, and he or she bowls 5 points below their average, with a 205, I win!

My goal of course is to become a scratch, 200-average bowler.

I intend to become such a bowler within the next couple of years.