My Cleveland Browns Bowling Ball
Posted: February 12th, 2010 | Filed under: Essays, Other Sports | 69 Comments »
People often come up to me and say: “You don’t really have a Cleveland Browns bowling ball.” Well, I guess it depends on how you define “often.” It has happened at least twice.
The thing is, I’m never sure why anyone would think that I would LIE about having a Cleveland Browns bowling ball. I mean, hey, I might lie and say that I used to date Wynona Ryder. I might lie and say that I briefly played slot receiver for the New York Giants. I might lie and say that I was once in a band with Eric Clapton. But I’m not sure there is much to be gained by lying about my Cleveland Browns bowling ball. No percentage in it. If anything, I should probably lie and say I don’t have one.
I grew up bowling. I suppose that’s a Cleveland cliche, but it’s a simple fact of my childhood. My father worked in a factory, brutal work, six days a week, and he would treat himself to two things … three if you count the Kent cigarettes he smoked by the pack. On Tuesdays, he would go out and play chess. And on Sundays, he would bowl in his league. I grew up thinking this was what all fathers did. Chess and bowling. Looking back now, it seems a pretty odd combination. But my father was good enough to win the Cleveland Open chess tournament one year and good enough to be the anchor on his bowling team. It’s no wonder I grew up thinking my father could do anything.
My own chess talents were limited by a lack of imagination and a complete inability to protect my pawns. And as a bowler, I was inconsistent around the pocket. I joined my first bowling league when I was 12, and I have only two memories of that. The first was one league day when I woke up with a really nasty flu. Had something like 103 degree fever. I was going to go bowl anyway — had my coat on and was at the door — and would have made it if my mother had not then shoved the thermometer under my tongue and seen the mercury rise to 103. I don’t know, there’s something about that image that I still love — Cleveland kid, 12 years old, sick as a dog, trying to sneak out into the Cleveland chill so I could bowl for my team.
The second memory — this is a bit later — is of bowling my first 200 game and having the guy standing behind the shoes at Cedar Center Bowling Alley* announce my name over those speaker system. It was “Vinny, cleanup on Lane 4,” and “Reset lane 23,” and “Congratulations to Joe Posnanski for his big 203.” He butchered the last name. It didn’t matter. I was a lousy bowler. But in my neighborhood — especially with my background and my father’s example — even lousy bowlers rolled 200s every now and again.
*I will never forget writing a bowling column once and having a woman call me and scream at me — SCREAM at me — for calling a place a “bowling alley.” She said it was a “Bowling center.” An alley, she thought, suggested beer and loud music and cigar smoke and tacky clothes and the crack of pool balls and cold coffee and a seedy underworld. It’s funny, I agreed with her completely — that was EXACTLY what I meant by a bowling alley — and yet somehow also disagreed with her entirely. Bowling center. Please.**
**I told a friend of mine that story, and he said: “The woman was right about you using the wrong word, but she was angry about the wrong one. BOWLING is what sparks those images. After all, Ballet Alley doesn’t sound too lowbrow.”
I bought the Cleveland Browns bowling ball later in life … in Augusta, Ga. of all places. I was on the Augusta Chronicle bowling team almost entirely because of my last name and my willingness to buy beers for everyone on the somewhat meager salary I was making as the newspaper’s sports columnist.
I suppose I could define my bowling talents like such: I was pretty good at picking up spares. I had always remembered my father’s credo that strikes are for show and spares are for dough. I did not know that the phrase really originated as a golf thing — Bobby Locke famously said “Drive for show, putt for dough.” I remember years later hearing the golf version and thinking, “Hey, they stole that from bowling.”
I was extremely inconsistent on my first ball. That was my problem. I just could never get that repeat delivery down. I’d get hot now and then — I bowled a 227 once — but I’d mostly hover in the 140s and 150s because I just had trouble hitting the pocket. At some point, I decided that this was because I could never find the right bowling ball. I would spend more and more time before the game trying out different balls. That’s when I first considered buying my own ball. The thing about buying a bowling ball is simply this: It’s never the right time. Because unless you are a serious Fred Flinstone level bowler — and so few are — you have to ask yourself: How many more times am I going to bowl in my life?
Plus, there’s a stigma that comes with bringing your own bowling ball into the lanes. So much of the charm of bowling is that it is a sport you are NOT taking seriously. Having your own ball shatters that.
But then I found the perfect solution. I could buy a Cleveland Browns bowling ball. Now, let me say right up front that it is not fancy like the Cleveland Browns bowling balls today … I would never have bought a ball that looked like this:
No … that’s way too ostentatious. That’s something you would see at, like, the Church of Saint Paul Brown or something. The ball I saw was brown with a small orange outline of … well, here it is right from my camera phone:
I was thinking two things. One … even if I did not ever bowl again, I would be happy to have the Cleveland Browns ball. There’s the team of childhood — on a bowling ball. I would cherish that forever. Two, I realized that if I brought THAT ball into a bowling alley, no one would have any expectations that I could bowl. With the Cleveland Browns ball, I was not going to let anyone down.
OK, so I bought the ball like 16 years ago. And, of course, just weeks after I bought it, I stopped bowling. The league died. I moved to Cincinnati. I moved to Kansas CIty. I got married. We had kids. Bowling just never fit in. I suppose there were times in Cincinnati when I thought it might be fun to go bowl a few frames by myself but then stopped short and wondered if my social life had really fallen that low (it had). I know there have been times I have talked about taking my wife bowling, taking the kids bowling, but for whatever reason that has not yet happened. I can only think of two times I have bowled in the last 15 years. One was when I bowled against a professional bowler for a column (Spoiler alert: He beat me). The other was when a friend put together a little bowling gathering where the irony was supposed to thick. It was a joke. We were anti-bowling. We were not bowling for bowling’s sake.
All the while, the Browns ball stayed in the garage … or in a spare room … or in the attic. I would never leave it behind when we moved, of course. But I also would never see it. Every so often, someone would ask me if I bowled, and I would say that not only did I bowl but I have a Cleveland Browns bowling ball. They would laugh and insist that I was lying. And I would wonder again why anyone would think I would lie about that.
Thursday night, I went bowling again — this time to support my friend and Royals announcer Ryan Lefebvre’s Glove for Kids program. It’s a great program that buys baseball gloves for kids who can’t afford them. It was a celebrity night — Frank White was there, Willie Wilson, John Mayberry, Jeff Montgomery, Mike Boddicker, and so on — and for Ryan I brought out the Cleveland Browns bowling ball. My bowling bag had ripped on the bottom, and my bowling shoes (yes, I bought bowling shoes too) had somehow come apart while in limbo. I walked into the Lucky Strike bowling center (this was clearly a Center and not an Alley — there were video boards over the pins) and held my bag like it was an infant so the ball would not fall out. Others went to get some food. I set up to bowl.
And — funny thing — once I stepped on the lane I felt like that 12-year-old again. I realized again that I love bowling. I don’t love it for the kitsch. I don’t love it for the companionship. I don’t love it because it’s funny. I love bowling for those feelings — feelings, admittedly, I did not have often Thursday — when I rolled the perfect ball, the one that felt just right coming out of my hand. I loved those rare times when I hit the pocket and the pins scattered. I loved those rare moments when I knew, even as the ball left my hand, that I was going to pick up the spare. I bowled lousy — shoot, the point of the whole night was to bowl lousy* — but I bowled just well enough to remember.
*Part of the deal on this night was that they gave each of us three strikes — in the third, sixth and ninth frames — as a handicap.
And now? Well, now, the Browns ball is out. I’m not putting it back in the garage. I’m keeping it out to remind me. I really do need to bowl every now and again.
Loading ...
Circle me Dick Weber
Circle me Earl Anthony
Circle me Mark Roth
Joe,
Whenever you figure out a trick to become more consistent on your first throw please let me know (I suffer from this too). Your post just brought back so many memories…thanks.
Joe, the columns are always readable, almost always good. This is even better. Superlative stuff, and I do not bowl and wouldn’t if asked. Well, maybe if you did. Circle me Dick Weber!
Circle me, the love child of Dick Weber and Dick Schafrath
How about this: Team Fox Sports/Boulevard ended up winning the bowling tournament because all the other teams disbanded before the single frame roll-off. Trophies by default sill make me feel good. And Jeff Montgomery insisted that we take his giant “Enemy of Pins” award and display it somewhere here at the brewery. Sadly, trophies that are awarded to other people but somehow end up in my possession also make me feel good.
It was nice meeting you last night, and I hope you’re able to make it to a roller derby bout sometime this season! Your girls will love it. Promise.
Joe – to cure your problem, perhaps on the first ball you should summon your inner “Twinkletoes” Flintstone.
Funny, I don’t bowl either, at all, but boy did my parents ever bowl when I was a kid. This was in central Ohio in the 60s. Mom was in a league, dad was in a league, and on Sunday nights they were in a mixed league (and I had to kill a couple of hours at the alley). I thought everybody’s parents did that (and in their circle everybody did), and OF COURSE they owned balls and shoes.
So what happened? How come nobody in my age group bowls?
You’re really not going to tell us what your score was!!!?????
I used to bowl a lot in high school. I have my own ball and everything.
Then, when I was in college, I realized just how bad I was at it after reading the following article in SI, about a 77-year-old woman who threw a perfect game…at my bowling alley, Ranchmart Lanes outside of KC.
http://tinyurl.com/yzyguqt
Perhaps not coincidentally, Ranchmart Lanes closed soon thereafter.
Take Joe Posnanski bowling, take him bowling.
But Joe, did you break 150? Your old neighbors back in Cleveland must want to know.
I don’t think I’ve ever broken 150, but it’s been decades since I dropped the ball on my foot.
Yours,
Tom
Great story, but you got one thing wrong. If I saw a guy with a Cleveland Browns bowling ball, I’d assume he could bowl. I’d assume he was a GREAT bowler. I’d think “now, that’s a guy from Cleveland where they went down the lanes once week with the boys from the union hall. Then on Sundays they’d huddle up and watch the Browns.” Cliche, I know, but that’s what I’d think.
Perry-
Bowling used to be a cheap form of entertainment…..nowadays, it isn’t any more. Plus, they got stuck with that “smoking is prevalent here” tag, and when smoking became and action-non-grata in society, bowling suffered too.
I stopped bowling because I could never find a ball at the alley/center that had a thumb hole big enough for my apparently wide thumb.
I presume if I bought a ball, they could hand craft the holes to fit my thumb and fingers?
But now … I can just bowl on the Wii!
My parents bowled in a mixed league of people from my dad’s work on Monday nights at a Bowling ALLEY somewhere in the KC Northland (it was across the street from a Venture, if that helps anyone out with the geography). I would sit there and watch for a couple hours every Monday night. My dad was pretty good, I think his average was around 180. My lasting memory of their bowling is the night he got a strike the first 9 frames. By the 6th frame everyone in the alley, from his league or even the other leagues, were down to watch him.
Of course, he choked in the 10th frame (his words, not mine) and, IIRC, didn’t even mark or get his third ball that frame.
Funny, I know all the lingo and yet probably could count on both hands the times I actually bowled myself.
Joe, ever go for Candlepin? It’s all you could find in Boston when I grew up.
I can remember the first time I went “big ball” bowling and being horrified that I only got 2 rolls.
I bowl about once every 2 years. Went a little more often in high school. One time when I was like 17 we went and they started that cosmic bowling crap where they try to give you a seizure with strobe lights and crap music. 5 strikes to start the game, ended up with a 204. Don’t think I had higher than a 130 before or since that night.
I just started 10 pin bowling this year – my son talked me into it. I had always been a candlepin bowler growing up – that red-headed step-child of the 10 pin breed. And now I’ve bought not one, but TWO balls. And I suck – i mean I REALLY suck. I don’t think I’ll ever get the hang of delivering a 14-15 lb ball. Muscle memory is a funny thing.
But when you write about loving bowling 10 pins – I get it. That rush when you hit the pocket and the pins explode – the sights, the sounds, the… smells (apologies to Marty DiBergi). You get some of that in candlepins, but not like 10 pins.
@18 Is “candlepin” the same as duck pin?
Give us the scores, for crying out loud!
Gotta agree with Vin, if I was bowling against a guy who showed up with a Cleveland Browns ball, especially an old-school one like that, I’d be totally psyched out.
It’s like playing pickup basketball when a guy shows up wearing a t-shirt that says “Nike ABCD Camp” and you’re like, oh f***.
I consider bowling (along with mini-golf) one of those things that was fun as a kid, and WAY more fun as an adult. Especially if alcohol is involved in any way, shape or form.
@21 – this is candlepins – Tom Olzta quite possibly is the very best ever.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BrYoQNZapVs
My mom bowled for a team that was sponsored by Kitty Clover. Not as cool as it sounds.
I come from parents that bowled in leagues for years. From Southern Minn. to Texas and back. They still go every now and again.
But, like a few others, I cannot stand bowling. In fact, reading this may be the most thought I have ever put into the game.
I have participated twice in my memory. I don’t remember the first one, but everyone went in grade school so I’m sure I was there.
The second was a few years ago and I played one game and retired to the bar. I have since retired for good. I can’t get into it at all.
Something about a game that is much more entertaining in print than in person that makes me stay away.
I’ve hated bowling ever since my mother was beaten to death with a rented shoe at Plaza Lanes, but, as always, this was great writing.
Grab your balls, we’re going bowling!
@#12: Some people say that bowling alleys got big lanes. Got big lanes! Some people say that bowling alleys all look the same. Look the same!
Circle me Ernie McCracken
My wife and I attended KU at the same time, but had completely different areas of study and never had much opportunity to take classes together. We found two exceptions.
1) Ballroom dancing. Came in pretty handy when we got married.
2) Bowling.
Consequently, I know all about counting boards and aiming points, etc., yet my top score is still a measly 177. My kids think that’s great, but I know otherwise.
On another bowling note, thanks to JohnA@18 for mentioning candlepin bowling, that brings back a lot of memories. There used to be a candlepin bowling show on in Boston when I was a kid, where locals competed against each other for some pittance (I think it was $100). Our neighbor was on it once and lost, but he threw one of those tiny candlepin balls wrong and it bounced off the lane and hit a guy in the kneecap.
That show was regularly broadcast from Sammy White’s Brighton Bowl, and yes, that is the same Sammy White who was the Red Sox catcher for most of the 1950s. When I found out that I was born on Sammy White’s 40th birthday, my parents knew it, and STILL hadn’t named me Sam, I thought they had defied karma so badly that it needed to be corrected. So, yes, my son is named Sam.
Somehow, in my mind, I had envisioned the ball just being a plain orange ball just like the Brown’s helmets with no logo at all.
I bowled in high school for about 3 years – we had just moved into this town, and I figured as long as someone asked me to be on their team, I’d do it. My best average was 163, and I had a high game of 234. Those were good times. Now I’ve lived in New England for the past 25 years, and the candlepin to tenpin ration is about 25 to 1.
/sighs deeply
Bowling is way underrated.
I am from a bowling background too. My mom and sisters still league bowl (in Michigan), and I think a niece and nephew do, too. My oldest niece was on a state championship team in Michigan (yes, it’s a sanctioned state sport). I grew up bowling youth league.
And I lived in the Cedar Center ‘hood for 7 years and have bowled there, too.
Like at least one commenter, I took bowling in college–and got an A-. That minus haunts me to this day . . . just a little better on final exam day, and a straight A! Dammit!
I am still a fair bowler–I can bowl a 150, cold sober, even after not bowling for a year or more, and I get better after a few adult beverages, up to 4. Then, less so. And let’s say that my bowling in recent years has always involved adult beverages. And by recent, I mean the last decade or two.
I have a very unusual delivery. Backspin. I have rolled like that since I weighed 75 pounds, and I weigh twice that now. People always laugh when they see it, but when I have the touch . . . wham!
Let’s bowl sometme, Poz. Let’s roll.
#30 – for a long time on the northwest side of Chicago, there was a bowling alley (NOT a center) with Gabby Hartnett’s name on it.
Wasn’t former MLB pitcher John Burkett a very good bowler?
A lengthy (and entertaining, as usual) article and 34 comments on bowling and not a single mention of The Big Lebowski. That’s what I think of now when I hear bowling mentioned. The Dude Abides.
Joe, in the nicest way possible, myself and my flatmate have never laughed so much as when we first scrolled from the first Cleveland Browns bowling ball to the second one….
[...] The rest is here: Joe Posnanski » Blog Archive » My Cleveland Browns Bowling Ball [...]
Am a day off in the topic, but I have to ask about the funny athlete list….well, 2 questions.
1) Is Yogi Berra really funny? I mean he says things without thinking, but are they humorous?
2) I’ve never really seen Bob Uecker outside of Mr. Belvedere or Major League, but is he more “corny” funny or “genuinely” funny, or have a dry wit? I guess that’s for any Brewers fans reading this.
[...] the rest here: Joe Posnanski » Blog Archive » My Cleveland Browns Bowling Ball Share and [...]
Dirty undies Dude, the whites.
[...] Read more from the original source: Joe Posnanski » Blog Archive » My Cleveland Browns Bowling Ball [...]
[...] [...]
I used to have a Baltimore Orioles beach towel (“I’m in Swim! I back the Birds!”). I lost it in a move somewhere, and I don’t even think they make them anymore. All I can say is, hold on to your Browns bowling ball. It is irreplaceable.
College PE credit for bowling: bad memories. In the class final, rolled something like 106 for a C. The very next night, a bunch of us went out to an all-night bowling alley (yes, alley) and I rolled an unconscious 220. Never been anywhere close to that again.
Once had a job which included taking psychiatric patients bowling. Thorazine and ten-pins — that was interesting.
I once bowled with the independent baseball team I played for in a charity event for local kids and adults with special needs. I may have been the only one out for blood as I won the event and earned a very chintzy trophy. Proudly displayed that for as long as I could, even into marriage, before my wife (then girflfriend when the event occurred) finally got me to get rid of it. God I miss that trophy …
Hey Mike in Hawaii(ABR): Uecker is genuinely hilarious. You should have seen him on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson in his many appearances. Never failed to bring the house down. Read Catcher in the Wry — great stories.
And by the way, my goal when bowling is not so much to score high, but to break a pin. Wing it as hard as I can and at least get one pin to splinter. Is that too much to ask?
I also took a bowling class in college, and when I was going every week I got pretty good. My high score in that class was a 197, which I’ve never topped.
I just recently started going regularly again with a group of friends. I’m very rusty, and I’m still hovering around 150, but it’s a ton of fun. I love bowling.
Forget ten- and candlepins. It’s all about the duckpins!
Supposedly invented at the bar/bowling alley owned by John McGraw and Wilbert Robinson in Baltimore in the late-1890s, and a Maryland tradition. That’s all I grew up seeing people bowl, though I knew that somewhere, usually at the other end of the lanes, tenpins were bowled.
I bowl maybe once every 3-4 years. I once rolled a 212, but I’m pretty sure between the beer and mine and my buddy’s ignorance on how to keep score, it was probably more like a 185. Never been close to 200 before or since. In my mind, though, I once rolled a 212 and that ain’t changing!
In 1980 I bought a ball at a thrift store for 75 cents. It was 16 lbs of chunked, gouged, ebony beauty! Like Joe’s, the bag it came with had huge tear in it and I had to cradle the ball to carry it…loved the bag almost as much as the ball. My then-wife tried her best to get rid of it, but “Oh Hell No”! One of many reasons she’s an ex-wife. Rolled my “212 game” with that chunk-o-junk ball.
Joe….every other website that has comments allowed devolves into my team is better than your team and you are dumb.
Your comments feel like its a community. And everyone loves your writing. This is a phenomenon that I just can’t liken to anything I’ve ever really seen. Do people get together and read their favorite newspaper every day and then talk about what their favorite columnist said?
There is not a single comment I’ve ever read that has said that they don’t like your writing.
And, really, Joe. I know you probably won’t see this comment. But this kind of community attests to your character as much as your writing. You never slam anyone. Even people who you should probably slam.
Its refreshing and I love it. Don’t ever quit.
A guy asked me to play in a charity bowling event.
“No thanks,” I said.
“Mate,” he said, “it’s for people with disabilities.”
Geez, I thought. I might win this.
Boom, boom, tissshh.
He’s back!!!! Awesome column Joe.
I love a good white russian when bowling and have even gotten the “alley” near us to stock fresh cream by request. In another unusual request she has asked that everyone dress like it’s prom this year. The kids that work there already think we’re nuts, I can only imagine what they’ll think after that.
Here is my bowling connection:
One of my dad’s best friends when I was a kid was Chris Schenkel.
Marvelous guy. Just a gentleman and a class act. Never really thought of him as a famous guy who was on TV. Always just my dad’s friend Mr. Schenkel.
Of course, as I got older I realized that he was the voice of professional bowling. I presume that he got a little grief about that. But he always seemed to love the game.
Rest in peace, Chris.
Great column, as always, Joe.
Are you not covering the Olympics, Joe? They won’t be the same without your daily 5,000 words in the Star or blog.
I went to school in Cleveland and my favorite place in the entire city was a dingy, old bowling alley on E.30th st. (Profiled here by the Cleveland Scene magazine: http://www.clevescene.com/cleveland/the-menge-brothers-are-married-to-bowling-they-should146ve-gotten-a-pre-nup/Content?oid=1505522 )
People sure look at you funny when you carry two bowling balls on a crowded city bus, as I did 3 times a week my freshman year, when I hadn’t a car. I have often tried to explain the appeal of a flush pocket strike to my friends (“the score doesn’t matter, I just like the sounds of the pins crashing!”) but few ever understood. Glad to know I’m not alone on this one.
I’ve bowled (poorly) once in a while in recent decades. As a kid in the 70′s I would bowl regularly while waiting for my girl to get off work across the street from the lanes. High game of 254.
[...] The thing is, I’m never sure why anyone would think that I would LIE about having a Cleveland Browns bowling ball. I mean, hey, I might lie and say that I used to date Wynona Ryder. I might lie and say that I briefly played slot receiver for the New York Giants. I might lie and say that I was once in a band with Eric Clapton. But I’m not sure there is much to be gained by lying about my Cleveland Browns bowling ball. No percentage in it. If anything, I should probably lie and say I don’t have one.” [Joe Posnanski/JoeBlog] [...]
I understand the part about entering a bowling alley (or center) with your own ball raising the stakes- I wanted my own pool cue once, because the local bar’s cues were all crooked, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it because I knew if I entered the bar with my own cue I would be expected to be good.
Also, I think it kind of applies to those that bring a glove to the ballpark. If you are going to try to catch something with the glove, you better be good.
As a kid in 60s and 70s Detroit, I loved bowling. It hurts me now to watch the ESPN coverage with underweight pins, gimmicked up balls and logo-adorned dopes who “grow the sport” by mugging for the camera and screaming with every strike. Oh, for the days of Eddie Lubanski and his two-finger AMF cannonball.
I am so happy that the comments on this blog went to the Camper Van Beethoven references before the Big Lebowski.
The last time I went bowling was as a team-building exercise for work. Management laid off a quarter of the workforce two weeks later. I don’t blame the bowling, but I still play it safe.
Social comments and analytics for this post…
This post was mentioned on Twitter by JPosnanski: An essay on my Cleveland Browns bowling ball? Life gets weirder and weirder. http://bit.ly/bijBvp...
Now I have to go dig out my ball, I know it’s in my house somewhere, and hit the lanes. Sometimes, it really is the simple pleasures that matter!
Joe,
I love the Cleveland Browns!!! I’m 60 years old and have long since stopped bowling. My bowling prowess seemingly ranked right up there with yours.
I have only been to Cleveland once in my life that was in 2009 to see their opening game versus the Vikings! I will always treasure the memory.
I think you should display your bowling ball with pride. I know they make displays holders for balls. Perhaps you should invest in one!
I have a landing just as you enter my home. If I had a Cleveland Browns bowling ball that’s where it would be so all could see it when they entered!
Your ever luvin’ buddy,
John
@ Mike Savino:
Couldn’t have said it any better. Of the few blogs that I visit, this is the only one where I make it a point to read the entire comments section. The classy following that Joe has cultivated is totally befitting of a writer with his emmense talents.
I am grateful to my son’s blog for turning me on to your insights.
I am a fan. Anyone who can mix nostalgia, humor and a quote from the great Bobby Locke is my kind of guy.
Nice.
First of all, it’s always an alley, never a center. We even have a Brunswick XL in my hometown, and although that angry woman would easily call that thing a center, there’s no way that I would call it that. Once an alley, always an alley.
Oh, and this reminded me that I’ve messed up my footwork the past 2-3 times I’ve gone bowling.
Joe, we don’t call them alleys or “centers”
we call it “our house”
I am an avid bowler and have lots of old balls in the basement. My old favorite plastic ball is a USA ball. Very patriotic! I now have a gold ball with the whole world imprinted on it. Pretty cool!
If you really want to impress someone with old school stuff, get an LT 48 or a Johnny Petraglia ball.
Keep up the good stories. Always brings back a memory I’d forgotten about.