I don\u2019t have statistics, but just from the disappearance of bowling alleys from the local landscape, most recently Santa Monica\u2019s midcentury Pico Bowl, with its fine coffee shop, I\u2019d guess that the sport is not the ubiquitous American pastime it once was. Still, many if not most of us will have gone bowling at least once in our life, either in the company of parents, or at a birthday party, or as part of some cocktail-fueled hipster fun \u2014 to have heard the special music of balls hitting wood and pins crashing, to have traded your street shoes for the bowling kind. (Unless you have your own, in which case I salute your commitment.)<\/p>\n
I have bowled, as a child, and later with friends, when it enjoyed a renaissance back in the last century \u2014 it was pre-cocktail bowling, the beer years. I am very, very bad at it, but as with every other sport \u2014 none of which I have any talent for \u2014 I can be drawn in as an observer by the drama, the human interest and the physics of a game. All these elements are present in \u201cBorn to Bowl,\u201d a sprightly five-part documentary, directed by James Lee Hernandez and Brian Lazarte (HBO\u2019s \u201cMcMillions\u201d<\/a>) that follows five bowlers \u2014 four champs and one aspirant \u2014 on the Professional Bowlers Assn. tour, a four-month season running from January through April and comprising 19 tournaments, five of which are big-money \u201cmajors\u201d that pay the winner $100,000.<\/p>\n Bowling, you may know from experience, is not easy; professional bowling is grueling, a grind. It has little cachet; it won\u2019t make you rich the way some sports will, and lacks snob appeal, like, say, golf. (Though Ben Stiller, an executive producer, does make a cameo appearance late in the series.) Its reputation is as a working- to middle-class sport; even the big players drive themselves from tournament to tournament in their own cars, leaving their families to follow an itinerary of what a touring rock band would regard as secondary markets \u2014 Reno; Indianapolis; Akron, Ohio; Springfield, Mo. \u2014 playing in alleys that from the outside might resemble a giant warehouse, with maybe a big bowling pin for decoration. They haul their various balls, each with its own character, along with the odds and ends they\u2019ll need to make a home of the mid-range hotel rooms they typically share with a competitor (or competitors) for the sake of economy but also amity; to judge by \u201cBorn to Bowl,\u201d rivals on the lanes may be close friends off them.<\/p>\n Kyle Troup, another bowler featured in the series, calls himself \u201cthe Bob Ross of bowling.\u201d<\/p>\n (HBO)<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/figure><\/div>\n Let\u2019s meet the players. There is Kyle Troup, the ginger haired \u201cPro with the Fro\u201d \u2014 \u201cI guess I\u2019m the Bob Ross<\/a> of bowling,\u201d he says, though you may also think of Richard Simmons<\/a> \u2014 clownish, with colorful dress. Anthony \u201cSimo\u201d Simonsen, the youngest person ever to win a PBA major title at 19, is battling a back problem, has a temper and swears a lot; he dropped out of high school at 15 and began bowling \u201cto survive.\u201d \u201cWithout bowling I\u2019d probably be homeless,\u201d he says. (Off season, he drives a forklift.)<\/p>\n
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