American Bowling Alley Culture and the Implications

Running Head: AMERICAN BOWLING ALLEY CULTURE AND THE IMPLICATIONS OF SCORING SYSTEM
DESIGN FOR BOWLERS
American Bowling Alley Culture and the Implications of Scoring System Design for Bowlers
Vignesh Krubai
Bentley University
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AMERICAN BOWLING ALLEY CULTURE AND THE IMPLICATIONS OF SCORING SYSTEM
DESIGN FOR BOWLERS
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Introduction
Ronald Reagan gave our party a bowling alley image as opposed to a country club image – Pete
du Pont
This quote by Pete du Pont is a case in point to the existence of a bowling alley culture the
represents a certain image and corresponding conduct. In this paper, I will attempt to explore
what this ‘bowling alley’ culture means in the United States and what some characteristics of it
are as described in publically available literature. I will then try to relate this to my personal
experience of visiting a bowling alley in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Though I will discuss the
overall American bowling alley culture, the focus of this paper will be on the effect of design on
the scoring mechanisms used in the bowling alleys. I will look at the use of these scoring systems
by different categories of players and the implications of their actions.
Evolution of Bowling Alleys
The “History of Bowling,” (2009) is chronologically described in the Bowling Hall of Fame and
Museum webpage. The earliest known records of bowling date back to 3200 BC. A British
anthropologist, Sir Flinders Petrie discovered what resembled a ball and pins in a child’s grave in
Egypt. William Pehle also discovered evidence of bowling in Germany at around 300AD.
Slowly, bowling or the concept of throwing a ball at objects to knock them down spread across
Europe. At around 1366, it became so popular that King Edward III of England declared bowling
as forbidden since it distracted their troops from archery training. It was later reinstated by Henry
VIII. Figure 1 depicts an image of bowling in the 16th century.
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(Figure 1)(“The History and Origins of Bowling,” 2010)
Bowling had many variations like lawn bowling in Britain, Bocce in Italy, Petanque in France
and other nine pin variations across Europe. One of the most peculiar versions of the game that is
still played in Edinburgh has a player ‘swinging a fingerless ball between his legs and heaves it
at the pins; in doing so, he “flops” onto the lane on his stomach’(“History of Bowling,” 2009).
Bowling in the United States
Bowling, like many other things, came to the United States with the immigrants. The first
occurrence of its usage in American literature was in Washington Irving’s short story titled ‘Rip
Van Winkle’ in which the title character awakens to the sound of ‘crashing ninepins’. One of the
first bowling alleys in the United States was a lawn bowling arena set up in New York’s Battery
area and is till today referred to as Bowling Green even though it now encompassed by the
financial district. The game started to become a gambling opportunity which aided in increasing
the popularity of the game. In 1841, the Connecticut government even passed a law that made
ninepin bowling illegal. In order to bypass the law, an extra pin was added and tenpin bowling
began to gain popularity and spread westwards to Ohio and Illinois although the ball weights and
pin sizes varied in different regions(“The History and Origins of Bowling,” 2010).
Joe Thum, a restaurateur, pioneered an effort to standardize the operations of different locally
formed bowling clubs. This effort led to the creation of the American Bowling Congress which
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was officially inaugurated on September 9, 1985, at Beethoven Hall in New York City. The
American Bowling Congress then set up national competitions that helped in transforming the
image of the game into a more professional sport. However it was only for men and the
Women’s American Bowling Congress only came into existence only in 1917 though women
had started bowling in the later part of the nineteenth century.(“History of Bowling,” 2009)
Evolution of Bowling Technology
In the era of bowling when no technology was use the players played with a ball made of a very
hard wood. They used ‘pinboys’ who would manually pick up fallen pins and reset them.
(Figure 2)(“The History and Origins of Bowling,”
2010)
After new technology was introduced, the hard wood ‘lignum vitae’ was replaced by a type of
rubber called ‘Evertrue’ in 1905 and later by ‘mineralite’ in 1914. In 1951, the American
Machine and Foundry (AMF) Company acquired patents to Gottfried Schmidt’s automatic
pinspotter that automated the work done by pinboys. (“History of Bowling,” 2009)
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(Figure 3)(“The History and Origins of Bowling,”
2010)
The automated pinsetters also allowed for detecting the number of fallen pins and therefore
automating the scoring systems used in these games. Manual scorers who entered scores on
paper were replaced by machines that compiled the scores. The latest versions of the device also
have provisions to show ball path and speeds to the players.(“The History and Origins of
Bowling,” 2010)
The 50’s also saw increasing media coverage of bowling events. Many professional bowling
competitions began being telecasted live on American Broadcasting Company’s (ABC) sports
channel. Game shows like ‘Make That Spare’, ‘Celebrity Bowling’ and ‘Bowling for Dollars’
brought about awareness about the game into households thereby increasing its
popularity.(“History of Bowling,” 2009)
Today, tenpin bowling is the most commonly played version of the game, with other formats
popular in regional pockets. In order to create more entertainment value tenpin bowling also is
nowadays also played in the dark as lunar or glow bowling.(“The History and Origins of
Bowling,” 2010)
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Bowling Alley Culture in the United States
As bowling become popular in the 70’s it developed a culture for itself. Talbot, (2011) in his
blog describes “Garish polyester shirts, bright orange plastic chairs, swoopy ‘Jetsons’
architecture, carpet the color of bubblegum, glittery bowling balls, loud shoes, elaborate victory
dances, Pepsi in plastic cups” as telling of the bowling alley scene. On the negative side he
describes bowling culture as rampant with brawls, frequent smokers and lacked discipline in
general.
I feel that the bowling became popular across all classes of people but it was the middle-class
and to an extent the lower class people who frequented bowling alleys. The middle-class were
people who worked as construction workers, mechanics, plumbers, carpenters, owned mom and
pop stores etc. They worked in regular shift jobs and an evening at the bowling alley was a way
to meet friends and have a good time. They formed leagues with those that played regularly on
the same day to make it more interesting.
Andrew Hurley (2002) in his book ‘Diners, Bowling Alleys and Trailer Parks: Chasing the
American Dream in the Postwar Consumer Culture’ attributes the development of bowling alley
culture to the location of the alleys and the overall mentality of people during the time. In the late
nineteenth century most bowling alleys were setup in basements with poor maintenance
facilities. These dingy and shabby establishments, filled with tobacco smoke that was not
ventilated properly, were natural visiting spots for miscreants and other recluse individuals. They
indulged in gambling and bookies even tried to manipulate the game with loaded balls and
rigged pinsetters so that they could manipulate the score. Due to these reasons bowling was
mostly shunned by middle and upper class of American society. It was only just before World
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War II that legislation was passed to bring about regulation to curb these activities. Licenses
were only issued to alleys that met the minimum requirements of sanitization and upkeep. This
effort slowly brought about the middle class crowd into the bowling alleys. When the Second
World War resulted in about 6 million men enlisting with the American Armed Forces and
bowling alleys saw a drop in numbers. This void was filled by women and women bowling
league teams increased in large numbers.(Hurley, 2002)
After the war, many companies started promoting bowling as a way for its employees to get
along with one another. For example they provided bowling subsidies to all their employees so
that they could build bonds between their front-line workers and factory workers. These
subsidies only helped in boosting the attractiveness of the sport as more and more working class
people embraced it.(Hurley, 2002)
Douglas Harper (2004), a sociology professor, recounts his experience of participating in a
bowling team that was part of a Wednesday night league that played in autumn, winter and
spring. This bowling alley was in a small town in northern New York and was 25 miles from a
town of 4,000. He characterized his team-mates and other players in the league into three broad
categories – the workers in a nearby aluminum-processing plant, local dairy farmers and lastly
independently employed carpenters, mechanics and machine operators. Hence, Harper broadly
describes them as the rural working class.
Harper (2004) was part of the bowling team from 1981 to 1990 and in this duration he observed
that some common themes were recurring in most bowling alley conversations. The first theme
was on the topic of family life. The men exchanged stories about how their children were doing
in academics and sports. They would also talk about what was going on in their houses like -
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DESIGN FOR BOWLERS
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additions to the house, holiday plans etc. In the entire duration that Harper was part of the team
he only came across 1 divorce where the wife chose to leave the person in the league for another
man. The other bowlers were always sympathetic towards him and supported him when he was
feeling low. This shows the strong bond that the bowlers in the league developed with each
other.
The second theme that Harper (2004) found was the negotiations between men in shared projects
that they undertook outside regular jobs. This included bartering the services that they were
proficient in. An example that Harper provides an example when one of his team mates, Joe
helped another teammate Al clean up his field, in exchange for which Al accompanied Joe an a
trip to buy a Ford Mustang for Joe’s daughter. Money was also exchanged on some occasions
and quarrels about the amount exchanged would sometimes occur but never did it cause relations
between the members of the league to become permanently soured.
The third theme that often came up was local and personal politics. People would often discuss
issues that they have with business dealings. Other members in the league would offer their
perspective on how to handle it. Sometimes they would act as negotiators to solve an issue.
Harper (2004) describes the general attitude of the people as ‘assertive and even arrogant in its
dealings with the outside world’.
Ethnography of a Bowling Alley
The Setting
The bowling alley that I went to is located in Cambridge, Massachusetts. It is has two floors with
the ground floor dedicated to candlepin bowling and the first floor having both candlepin and
tenpin bowling. Apart from bowling the ground floor has an arcade and the first floor has a
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restaurant. The map of the ground floor is shown in Figure 4 and the map of the first floor is
shown in Figure 5.These are not accurate scale models and only give a rough idea of the layout.
(Figure 4)
In the ground floor all the 26 lanes are for candlepin bowling. The counter at the center is where
the employees assign lanes and the number of games to the customers. The bowling shoes that
are for rent are also stored in the shelves under the counter. Lockers are available on both ends of
the alley. The merchandise shop, that is located on both floors, sells bowling balls, gloves and
other bowling equipment along with used pins as memorabilia. The arcade has a few claw
machines, car and boat racing games, shooting games, air hockey and pinball stations.
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(Figure 5)
The second floor has a restaurant with a bar. It also has 3 pool tables and lockers on both sides of
the alley. An ATM machine is available on both floors to withdraw cash since the bowling alley
does not accept credit/debit cards. Of the 28 lanes in the second floor, 8 are candlepin lanes and
there are 20 tenpin lanes.
Description of Tenpin and Candlepin bowling
Tenpin bowling is the most common form of bowling in the U.S(“Bowling Game Variations and
Types,” 2010). As per the World Ten Pin Bowling Association, the length of a bowling lane
from the foul line to the head pin must be 60 feet long and 42 inches wide. On both sides are
gutter lanes which are outside the playing area and the ball does not strike any pins if it reaches
here. As the name suggests the game has 10 pins, each weighing between 3 lb 6 oz and 3 lb 10
oz. Each pin must be 15 inches in height, with a diameter of 2 ¼ inches at the base and
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circumference of 15 inches at the widest point. The pins are arranged such that there is one pin in
the first row, two in the second row, three in the third row and four in the fourth row(“Bowling
Rules,” 2011). The ball can be of a circumference of 26.704 inches to 27.002 inches with
weights ranging from 6 lb to 16 lb with three holes in the ball(“Tenpin Bowling Balls,” 2011).
The purpose of these holes is to grip the ball using the thumb, middle and ring finger.
“RulesofBowling.com” (n.d.) explains that each game has 10 frames with two turns per frame. If
all pins are downed in the first turn then it is called a strike. All the points scored in the next
frame are added to the 10 points scored in the current frame. If all the pins are downed at the end
of two turns or a frame, then it is called a spare and the score for that frame is 10 plus the number
of pins downed in the first turn of the next frame. If a strike or spare occurs in the last (tenth)
frame then the player gets one extra turn for a spare and two extra turns for a strike in order to
add to the 10 points scored in the last frame. The player cannot step beyond the foul line and if
they do their score in that turn is not counted and all fallen pins are placed back in their original
positions.
Candlepin is a variant of bowling where each pin is 15 ¾ inches tall and tapered at both ends.
The ball used for candlepin bowling is 4 ½ inches in diameter with a maximum weight of 2.7
pounds(“Rules,” 2000). Since these balls are smaller than the regular bowling balls they do not
have holes in them. The ball is grasped by all five fingers of the hand as one would hold a
baseball. One game of candlepin bowling comprises of 10 frames. A frame includes 3 throws of
the ball over a 60 foot lane at the end of which are 10 pins setup just as in tenpin bowling. At the
end of each throw, the fallen pins are not cleared away; instead they are cleared away at the end
of a frame. The fallen pins at the end of one turn may or may not be used as an aide to knock
over other pins. If all the pins are knocked out in the first turn, it is considered a strike. In the
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event of a strike, the score is ten plus the number of pins knocked in the next two turns by the
player. A spare is when all the pins are knocked down in the first two attempts. The score for a
spare is ten plus the number of pins downed by the next ball rolled by the bowler.(“Rules,” 2000)
Methodology
I made four visits to the bowling alley for this ethnographic study. My only previous experience
of bowling was when I was probably in middle school. I grew up in Dubai and my classmate had
celebrated his birthday party at the bowling alley. I remember we played with bumpers on, which
meant that the gutter lanes were pulled up so that the ball never went into the gutter lane. I did
my under-graduation and worked in Chennai, India but I never once bothered to go play bowling
in the 8 years that I lived in India.
During the first visit I observed what was going on in the alley and the restaurant. In my second
visit I became a participant observer and played a game of tenpin bowling. My third visit mainly
comprised of informal interviews with an employee and a league player at the bowling alley. In
my final visit, I became a participant-observer at the arcade as well as played a game of
candlepin bowling.
Discussion of Findings
The people in the bowling alley can be broadly classified into two categories – the league
bowlers and the casual bowlers.
The league players register themselves to be part of a league that plays at a designated time every
week. In the league game teams are formed with a stipulated number of players and they all play
a set number of games. The total of their individual scores forms their team score. In some cases
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if the players in the league are of different proficiency levels then a handicap can be put into
effect.
I learnt about the handicap in talking to one of the league players. The following is the
conversation that I had with him.
I was watching a league game and inquisitively asked him, “Are you guys playing as part of a
league tournament?”
He responded very enthusiastically saying “Yeah, we play every Friday night. It’s 4 people on a
team and its good fun.”
I asked him “So what kind of prizes do the winners get?”
He replied saying that “Our league is more about having a good time than about the competition.
We have a few prizes just to keep it interesting but we play with a 100% handicap.”
I questioned him back saying “I’m sorry for being so ignorant, but I’ve never played league
before. So what exactly does at a 100% handicap mean?”
He smiled back at me and said “No problem at all. With the handicap it’s all about how much
you score above your average. So each player……”
He went on to explain the intricate details of how the handicap worked but it seemed too
complicated at that point for me to understand. I just nodded my head as if I understood and later
I researched about what a 100% handicap meant.
There is a base average for every league. The base average is determined by looking at the
averages of all the players participating in the league. Your handicap score is the difference
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between the base average and your average. So a player with a higher average will get a lower
handicap score to be added to their final score as compared to someone with a lower average. For
example, if the base average is 200 and Player 1 has an average of 150 and Player 2 has an
average of 175 then Player 1 gets 50 points(200 – 150) added to his final score and Player 2 gets
25(200 – 175) added to his final score. The player average can be calculated from previous
league experience or the league decides the number of games to be played to calculate the
average for new players. This average is then used throughout the season as the person’s average
score.(“Bowling Handicap,” 2010)
The features such as the handicap clearly show that league bowling takes the score very seriously
since they played with the goal of trying to get the best score possible in a fair manner.
The second category of bowlers was the casual bowlers who came to the bowling alley with
friends or family to just have a good time at the bowling alley. These people were not as
competitive as the league players and the score was just one aspect of the overall bowling
entertainment package and different people attached different meanings to the scores. Some just
had friendly competitions while others had interesting bets. For example, on my first field visit I
saw a girl doing push-ups because she had lost the game to her friends. Casual bowlers may also
not focus as much on their technique of playing. In my field observations I noticed some people
would roll the ball in a smooth flowing action while others would hurl the ball in the direction of
the pins and it would hit the wood with a loud thud. At least in all these cases the ball was
thrown underarm, with different points at which the ball was released, however on one occasion
when I was observing a bunch of kids celebrating a birthday party, I saw that they were throwing
the candlepin balls over their shoulders. The women who were supervising did not bother
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correcting them since they were more interested in making sure the kids were having fun than in
teaching them how to bowl correctly.
Usability of Scoring Systems
Another important difference that I noticed between the two categories was how they used the
scoring systems. First, I will describe my experience with these systems while I played a game of
candlepin bowling with a friend.
The first screen that appeared was the empty frames for Player 1 and Player 2. I felt the screen
resembled the screen of a mainframe computer. The is shown in Figure 6
(Figure 6)
The keyboard that is directly below the display is shown in Figure 7
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(Figure 7)
On pressing the menu button, I got the following options (Figure 8):
(Figure 8)
When I pressed the button ‘1’ for ‘Bowlers: names, handicaps..’ , I got the submenu with the
following options(Figure 9):
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(Figure 9)
I pressed ‘2’ to go to the Full Name and got a cursor over the letter P in Player1. The keyboard
was set up so that had each key had one unique functionality and a letter of the alphabet on the
top right corner (as shown in Figure 7). To enter a letter I had to press and hold the ‘Hold for
letter button’ and simultaneously press the key for the alphabet (Figure 10). Each letter that I
typed was overwritten over the existing ‘Player1’ text.
(Figure 10)
On one occasion when my friend incorrectly played my turn, I then went to the system and hit
the ‘Reset Frame’ button. The system prompted me to enter the player and frame number to reset
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with the default being the last frame played. Since the default was what I wanted to reset, I hit
enter and the frame got reset.
Though I was able to use the system, it required a lot of learning on my part through a trial and
error method. There were numerous occasions when I observed other casual bowlers also
struggling to find what keys to press.
Differences in Usage of Scoring Systems
Having established that the system was very primitive and difficult to use, I then observed how
the two groups of bowlers that I had categorized earlier used these systems. The league bowlers
always had their full names and their initials entered whereas on many occasions I observed that
the casual bowlers just entered single alphabets or even characters other than their initials. They
just wanted some sort of differentiating factor between the different rows and did not bother too
much about making sure it made sense to people outside their group. I saw instances where they
would incorrectly enter a character and not bother to correct it. Almost none of them entered
their full names. The default Player1, Player2 etc text remained as it is.
Conclusions & Recommendations
Though the system had adequate functionality to perform all the functions required for scoring a
game it lacked intuitiveness and required considerable learning to understand how the system
worked. The league players took the pains to learn how to use it since it would have been a rule
to have their full names entered into the system whereas the casual bowlers did not bother
learning a system that they were not going to frequently use. Even if they understood how to use
the system they did not make use of the functionality it provided. Hence the recommendations
are focused toward making the systems usable for both the league and the casual bowler.
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A very fundamental recommendation is to upgrade the systems from the green screen monitor
versions to a more visually aesthetic display.
The second recommendation is to acknowledge the two different types of users of these systems
and design the system so that it can be personalized to suit each persona. Though it is not
possible to create a separate menu for the casual bowler it would be useful to have a league
bowling template option that asks for all the required information in a step by step process.
The third recommendation is to make the keyboard more intuitive to use. This can be done either
as using a touch screen where the keyboard characters and options change depending on what the
user has to enter or if a physical keyboard is used it must definitely have a separate alphabet
keyboard.
Future Research Directions
This ethnographic study has looked at the evolution of bowling alley culture and the bowling
alley experience as seen from the eyes of an ethnographer who is relatively new to the bowling
alley experience. Now that a good foundation has been set in understanding bowling alley
culture and systems in the United States, the next steps can look at making observations during
different days of the week to see if there are notable differences between weekdays and
weekends. Also different bowling alley locations can be compared and contrasted to identify
similarities and differences.
In terms of technology, video recordings of people interacting with the systems and among
themselves can be used to continue with more intricate analysis. Interviews with owners and
managers can also provide an understanding of issues that come across in operating the bowling
alley.
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References
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