BOWLING

also called Tenpins, game in which a heavy ball is rolled down a long, narrow lane to knock down a group of wooden objects known as pins. The player or team that knocks down the most pins wins the game. The earliest evidence of bowling was found in an Egyptian tomb dating from about 3200 BC, when stone pins and balls were used. The game was played in ancient Germany, and there are numerous references to various types of bowling games in Germany and central Europe after AD 1300. Over the 15th, 16th, and 17th centuries, bowling became common in Britain and in other parts of Europe. Ninepin bowling was brought to the United States in the 17th century by Dutch settlers, and the game became so popular and so rife with gambling that it was outlawed in several states. According to legend, a 10th pin was added in the early 18th century to circumvent such laws, which applied only to the ninepin game. In 1895 the American Bowling Congress, the men's governing body in the United States, was organized to standardize rules and equipment and sponsored its first national championship in 1901. Its counterpart is the Women's International Bowling Congress (WIBC), founded in 1916. Bowling pins had long been set by hand, but the automatic pinsetter, introduced in the early 1950s, revolutionized the game, and the number of bowling establishments increased greatly. The Professional Bowlers Association of America (PBA) was organized in 1958 and now sponsors several lucrative championship tournaments. The Fdration Internationale des Quilleurs (founded 1951) is the world governing body of all types of bowling games. Bowling is played on a lane of lacquered wood about 62 feet (19 m) in length. The pins are placed a foot apart in a triangular arrangement. The ball must be made of a nonmetallic substance and cannot weigh more than 16 pounds (7.3 kg). A game is divided into 10 frames, and each player is allowed to deliver two balls per frame. If all the pins are knocked down on the first ball, a strike is recorded. If pins remain standing, the felled pins are cleared, and another ball is delivered. A second ball that knocks down the remaining pins is called a spare. In scoring, strikes and spares are worth 10 pins, or points. If two strikes are made consecutively, the score for the first frame is 20 plus the number of pins knocked down by the first ball of the next frame; a perfect score is 300, or 12 strikes in a row. Bowling competitions can be held between two players or between teams of up to five players. also called tenpins, game in which a heavy ball is rolled down a long, narrow lane toward a group of objects known as pins, the aim being to knock down more pins than an opponent. The game is quite different from the sport of bowls, or lawn bowls, in which the aim is to bring the ball to rest near a stationary ball called a jack. There are many forms of bowling, but tenpins, the most widely played variation, is the principal form in the United States, Canada, western Europe, East Asia, Australia, New Zealand, and Latin America. Its many variations include duckpins, candlepins, fivepins, skittles, and ninepins, with differences within the framework of each of the games. Additional reading Historical works include Herman Weiskopf, The Perfect Game: The World of Bowling (1978); Ray Nelson, A History of the ABC: American Bowling Congress (1984); and Women's International Bowling Congress, WIBC History: A Story of 50 Years of Progress, 1916/171966/67 (1967). For a general survey, see George Allen and Dick Ritger, The Complete Guide to Bowling Principles, 2nd ed. (1986). J. Bruce Pluckhahn