Brownielocks and The 3 Bears
present 

The Ancient History of Bowling

German is the country that is credited for starting the sport of bowling. And believe it or not, it began as a church game to prove how good of a Christian you were.  Go back, way way back to the 3rd Century, after church service.  The members went out into the churchyard and set up a single wooden pin (a bit larger than those used today).  This pin represented the devil.  One by one, the church members got their chance to prove what a good Christian they were by either rolling or throwing stones at the stick.  If you knocked the stick down, it meant you were a good Christian because it meant you just knocked the devil out of your life.  If you missed, well... next week you had a chance to prove your Christianity again.

Everyone bowled, even the priests.  But the priests didn't bowl using one pin. (Hmm? Give them a better shot at proving their Christianity when you've got more pins.)  Instead, the priests set up as many pins as there were church members or participants. With all these pins to knock over, the small stone that the members used to hit one pin wasn't working for them with all these pins. So they started using a bigger stone (about the same size as our modern day bowling balls). The winner, aka Best Christian, was the one that knocked down the most pins or devils.

It took about 200 yrs. for the people to realize that bowling to prove your Christianity was more up to the skill of the person's throwing ability than the quality of their soul. So, people started bowling just for the fun of it, for exercise and sport. And, when the weather got bad, they tried to take the game in their homes.  They pushed all the furniture to the edge of the rooms, rolled up the rugs and set up the pins (a bit smaller than the outdoor ones). So the floor wouldn't get all nicked up, they used a rubber bowling ball.

To keep the game still outdoors (but not in the church) bowling was done on lawns.  But grass slowed the ball down and well the grass was too long (remember lawn mowers weren't invented yet!).  So they created alleys of hard clay which gave a faster roll to the ball. And the balls were made of either iron or solid wood.

For a long time rolling the ball was done by holding it in the palms of your hand and letting it roll off.  Then around the 14th Century somebody came up with the idea of drilling two holes  (one for the thumb and one for the forefinger) in the ball.  A little while later (no one is sure how long) 3 holes were drilled into the ball as we know it today.

As I said in the beginning, the game went from one pin to many pins. And so deciding on a set number of pins to be used was hard, as people traveled all over Europe playing this game with different pins during the Middle Ages.  One town might you 10 pins another might use 15 pins etc.  It wasn't until the 16th Century that a bowling fan named Martin Luther (who also was that famous Protestant church reformer) decided that 9 pins were the best.  And he set them up in a boxlike shape in 3 rows of 3 pins each.  People felt that if that was the way THE Reverend Luther did it, then that's the way they would.
And so everyone agreed to use 9 pins.  

When did bowling come to America?  No one is really sure.  But around the 18th Century a ship from Holland arrived with some male passengers who had packed with them their bowling equipment.

The game was called "Ninepins" and at first became a gambling game, so it was played in areas of town where the degenerates hung. So after a while, Ninepin was outlawed. However, every law has a loophole, right?  How to get around the ban of Ninepin? Simple, they changed the game to 10 pins!!  The cops couldn't do a thing because there was nothing illegal about Tenpins.  And that is why we have bowling with ten pins today in the arrangement that we have.

Although there are bowling leagues and (I assume) sometimes bets, the sport has grown to be very popular with everyone of all aspects and isn't just sport for degenerates anymore.  It has local, state and national tournaments with some very good prize money.

Bowling is one of those sports that exists without much sensationalism like other sports. But it does have a growing history.  My purpose is to present the origins of the sport, not it's timeline.  There is the Bowling Hall of Fame in St. Louis, Missouri. Visit their website for stats on players, events, etc.

Check out some other Sports Fun at our Main Entry Page.

Source: "When Human Heads were Footballs"
By Don L. Wulffson
Aladdin Paperbacks (Simon and Schuster) © 1998