My Cousin Gary wrote the other day to ask about pinboys! I was dumbfounded! I had forgotten. The memories come flooding back of my days wasting time hanging around the bowling alley, talking with my friends and playing pinball machines! What a time!
“After a game in a bowling alley that had pinboys, the bowlers would bowl coins down the alley for tips. After setting up the pins, the pinboys sat up on the ledge behind the pit with their legs on the divider between lanes and worked two lanes at once. Their money was made on the leagues, not on us kids.”
On September 9, 1895 at Beethoven Hall in New York City, the American Bowling Congress (ABC) was born. This would mean that the standardization of equipment and playing surfaces would be implemented. Soon after, Major National Championships could be held. Although the ABC was strictly a men's organization, the later half of the 19th Century would show that women were regular participants in the sport of bowling. So in 1917, the Women's International Bowling Congress (WIBC) was formed in St. Louis.
Bowling balls would suddenly take a giant step forward in 1905, when the Brunswick Corporation introduced it's first rubber ball called the Evertrue. Before then, bowling balls were made out of Lignum Vitae, a very hard wood. And in 1914, the Brunswick Corporation would successfully introduce the Mineralite, a bowling ball made using their mysterious rubber compound. Bowling continued to be played for years with the assistance of the pin-boy, someone who would manually set up bowling pins and return the ball to the bowler. But bowling would suddenly take a huge leap and the industry would explode with the invention of the Automatic Pinspotter.
The inventor, Fred Schmidt, enjoyed mechanics and tinkering with gadgets. He built his own backyard workshop and built the first automatic pinspotter. Morehead Patterson, a Vice-President of the American Machine Foundry (AMF), purchased the patents and designs to the pinspotter. Plans for production were delayed due to World War II, but at the completion of hostilities, AMF again pursued the invention. They made certain modifications and improvements and the pinspotter went on the market. The first commercial installation was made in Michigan, 1951. By late 1952, production models were being introduced. No longer did bowling centers have to rely on a pin-boy, as a few higher paid mechanics could keep several lanes functioning for many hours each day. In 1955, the Brunswick Corporation released its Automatic Pinsetter design.
But in the 50’s, in my world of the Forest Park Bowling Alley in Baltimore, MD, pinboys were in charge. They ran the show and collected the tips.
Bowling balls would suddenly take a giant step forward in 1905, when the Brunswick Corporation introduced it's first rubber ball called the Evertrue. Before then, bowling balls were made out of Lignum Vitae, a very hard wood. And in 1914, the Brunswick Corporation would successfully introduce the Mineralite, a bowling ball made using their mysterious rubber compound. Bowling continued to be played for years with the assistance of the pin-boy, someone who would manually set up bowling pins and return the ball to the bowler. But bowling would suddenly take a huge leap and the industry would explode with the invention of the Automatic Pinspotter.
The inventor, Fred Schmidt, enjoyed mechanics and tinkering with gadgets. He built his own backyard workshop and built the first automatic pinspotter. Morehead Patterson, a Vice-President of the American Machine Foundry (AMF), purchased the patents and designs to the pinspotter. Plans for production were delayed due to World War II, but at the completion of hostilities, AMF again pursued the invention. They made certain modifications and improvements and the pinspotter went on the market. The first commercial installation was made in Michigan, 1951. By late 1952, production models were being introduced. No longer did bowling centers have to rely on a pin-boy, as a few higher paid mechanics could keep several lanes functioning for many hours each day. In 1955, the Brunswick Corporation released its Automatic Pinsetter design.
But in the 50’s, in my world of the Forest Park Bowling Alley in Baltimore, MD, pinboys were in charge. They ran the show and collected the tips.
They were not white (African-Americans), they were not boys, but that far South all Black guys were called boys and they were a strange kind of underclass, or so it seemed.
My memories were about the use of pinboys for the collection of booze! What most of us wanted, in those days before pot was known in the suburban communities, was booze. All kinds of booze was desired and the more the merrier.
The world of the young white teenager and the older, African American man crossed at the liquor store. The idea was to find a guy who was old enough to buy booze for you and negotiate a commission deal. The pinboys were the first guys we could find. As we aged a bit, and had access to wheels, we could venture forth into marginal neighborhoods and make curbside deals with unsuspecting guys on street corners. Believe it or not, it all worked!
For a generous tip you could always find somebody to buy booze for you. And when we had wheels, we were able to score big boxes of half pints and sell them for outrageous amounts to other white teenagers without the wheels or the guts to move out into the world at large!
Automatic pinsetters stopped early alcoholism in many a young lad.
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