1958 - Park Circle Lanes - Brooklyn NY - Iggy Russo

The first time I saw Iggy Russo was in 1958 at Park Circle lanes, when he came in on Fri night and challenged anyone in the house over the microphone, just after the singles classic league had just been completed, with some pretty good NY locals at that time, such as Jimmy Allen, Tom Ermolovich, Bert Goodman, Joe Santini ,Vinny Pantuso, Tom Caputi,  Tom Camelleri, and a few more 200 plus bowlers. No one accepted Iggys challenge, however he bet $100 that he could bowl 120 right on the nose. The action started, Iggy off to the races throws a strike, then another and another again one more and Isay to myself whats this guy up too, when after he throws the 5th consecutive strike and says you lose, do you want me to press the re set or throw gutter balls the rest of the way 30 - 60 - 90 - 110  120 picks up the C note and says want more, so the crowd bets now 200 bucks, but he (Iggy) had to hit pins on every shot. The game commences again and Iggy a master at the game for leaving whatever he wanted worked his way to the tenth frame with 98 in the 8th a strike in the ninth, a sure lock for anyone who knew him cause, he could easily pick three off the right and three off the left. Now comes the 10th frame Iggy shoots for the 6-9-10 and low and be hold to everyones surprize, he picks the 6-10 clean, and now must get four of the remaining six pins to win the 200 bucks, no easy task for us mortal bowlers, but the legend again grabs the microphone,  and for about 10 minutes walks up and down on the approach, saying should I try for the 4-7-8 sliding the backrow, leaving the 1-2-3-5 or should Icome in light for a bucket leaving the 2-4-5-8, or perhaps I should throw my loaded ball, a fade to the three pin and leave, the 1-2-4-7,  any way you sliced it,  a difficult shot. Iggy goes for the loaded ball,  throws the fade and leaves the 1-2-4-7 for a winner, and had no more action for the rest of the night...Lenny D

Neptune Lanes, TV Matches

All the big name pba bowlers came to bowl there, watching bluth in practice setting up white adhesive tape on the lanes as a marker around 17 at 50 feet, and shooting 780 that night. other bowlers who bowled,  joe joseph vs iggy russo , iggy beat him , had him closed out and bowled off the wrong foot in the 10th to showboat.   the cane

Summer of 62 - Iggy

Iggy Russo came to Ave M bowl to bowl stoop, with his backer bookmaker loan shark or whatever for a thousand a game. Iggy was notorious for throwing games, his backer would bet on the other guy, knowing Iggy would lose the first game and line in later in the game, however this particular time , Stoop was doing the identical thing that Iggy was doing , trying to lose, with his backer betting a thousand on Iggy to win. What a predicament, when Iggy got up on the right lane in the tenth he found himself up 1 pin 106 to 105, then both backers proceeded to put a gun to Iggy, Iggys backer saying, you sold me out, he's doing worse than you, and stoops backer saying, I bet a grand on you to win, better throw a good ball, this was on lanes 19 and 20 as I was bowling a match on the opposite pair on the otherside of the house, 11 and 12, it was 3 am Sat morning, Iggy then got up to apparently throw the 10th frame, he collapsed to the floor, grabbing his chest, an ambulance got there 20 minutes later and took Iggy out on the stretcher apparently having a heart attack, being in his middle forties. At the first red light iggy jumped out of the ambulance and ran to his car, he disappeared for a couple of weeks...