The late fifties and sixties were the hay days of action bowling in the metropolitan area.

The large new bowling establishments came to New York for the first time; bowling became much more popular than ever before. This was prior to, and including, the early days of the PBA, (Professional Bowlers Association) when the prize money was really low. Most of the really good area bowlers, were action bowlers, even the ones that joined the PBA. Many of the bowling centers were opened 24 hours a day, most of them had house bowlers that would take on the outside hustlers who traveled around looking for easy marks. Many of the better bowlers became legends in the N.Y. area. Men like Iggy Russo, Richie Hornreight, Joe Santini, Ernie Schlegel, Burt Goodman, Johnny Petraglia, Mark Roth, Freddie the Ox, Mike Lemongello, Fats & Deacon, Mac & Stoop, Sis Montevani, Johnny Myers, Buffalo and Lenny Dwoskin, just to mention a few. You could walk into many bowling establishments any night of the week after midnight, the place would be packed with bowlers and their backers from all over the tri State area looking for the same thing! ACTION. A few hundred people might be there, bookies, shy locks, lawyers, business men, street people, all for the same reason, to watch and bet on some of the greatest bowlers in the world competing against each other, what a sight, occasionally every pair in the house would have a match game going on, at around 3 am or so, any and every night of the week, it was action heaven. Like sport teams, and horses, the action bowlers had very loyal followings. There were also the backers, many of which had their own stable of bowlers, they would arrange matches and give their bowler a percentage of the winnings, if there were any. They also backed a lot of guys on the PBA tour, and took a piece of the pie. New York bowlers were known through out the country as action bowlers. This whole scene started to die out in the late seventies, a lot of the bowling alleys were closing down, the ones that remained open started shutting the doors after the leagues ended for the night, the 24hr day no longer existed. We'll probably never see these type of bowlers and action again.

They were a very unique breed in a very unique time....butch.