Bowlers Bowled Over By Hi-Tech Pins

Can you imagine Spaulding making a golf ball tethered to a string so duffers won’t lose so many? So why would US bowling alleys start with tethered pins that are easier to remount but harder to knock down just to save a buck?

Believe it or not, suggests the WSJ in “Bowling Is in a Knock-Down Fight Over New High-Tech Pins,” that are “replacing aging pin-setting equipment with systems using bowling pins tethered to a string.” The problem seems to be, warns the US Bowling Congress, that tests show those pins are harder to topple. Any wonder?

It's of course another hi-tech “solution” to rising costs challenging alley owners around America, especially those being forced by a modern-day form of planned obsolescence to invest in an automated system that uses what are called “string pins.” According to the WSJ, “these are regular bowling pins with long cords attached to the top and tethered to string pinsetters … The string pinsetters hoist fallen pins like marionettes and lower them into place.” The USBC’s research using a robotic arm named “Earl”, however, found that “string pins yield nearly 7% fewer strikes, more spares and a preponderance of oddball splits compared with free-falling pins.” Personally, I don’t care so much because I never get strikes let alone many spares and I’d now have a ready-made excuse in between sips of beer for my splits. But, in a sport where one standing pin can mean a lost game, I can see why the Buzz Fazios of the world think the “string pin-setting system is as welcome as a gutter ball.”

Davd Soul