Most of us think of bowling as a "sport" in quotation marks, and bowling
alleys are places with disco balls, matching shirts, and funny shoes.
But in the 1960s, New York City was the center of "action bowling", a
form of high-stakes gambling in which bowlers--often teenagers--faced
off for thousands of dollars every night. When money like that is
changing hands, you can bet the pressure is on (and the balls are
rigged), and losses come with dire consequences. But for a few kids, the
world of action bowling would turn out to be a ticket off the mean
streets and onto the Professional Bowlers Association Tour. For Ernie
Schlegel, it would be a chance to shed his hustler ways and become a
bonafide champion.For the more than 100 million bowlers worldwide and
for fans of timeless sports histories, Pin Action captures the
underbelly of 1960s and '70s New York and tells the true story of how
the most notorious action bowler of all time became a Hall of Famer. Set
in the gritty, flashy, lost world of action bowling, Gianmarc Manzione
tells an epic tale filled with seedy characters, uproarious
eccentricities, improbable twists of fate, and a rags-to-riches
narrative so crazy it has to be true.
