Has Earl Anthony been shortchanged? Is Don Carter the All-Time 'Majors' Champ?
03/31/06
I don't want to create a controversy nor do I want to say someone is right and someone is wrong, but there is definitely something wrong with bowling records in my mind.
Walter Ray Williams performed a great feat last Sunday by chalking up his 41st PBA tour title. He has been the dominant bowler for more than a decade and deserves every honor thrown his way for an awesome career.
But long ago the PBA, then headed by the late Eddie Elias and Joe Antenora, made a terrible mistake.
The PBA decided to include a PBA bowler's earnings in an ABC Masters Tournament into his season and career highlights but for some strange reason the PBA refused to give the Masters champion a PBA title. I insisted you couldn't recognize money won in a Masters but not a title won in the Masters.
I wrote against the unfairness of that two-face ruling to no avail because nobody seemed to care.
But if someone cared back then they maybe Williams still would be chasing Earl Anthony's 43 win total instead of the PBA recognized 41.
For you see my friends, the ABC under the leadership of late Darold Dobs became friends with the PBA in the late 1980s and even sponsored a Milwaukee tour stop in 1990. Then not long later the PBA started to recognize the Masters not only as a title but as a major title.
Walter Ray Williams won the 2004 Masters and it counts as one of his 41 titles.
The late Earl Anthony won the Masters in 1977 and 1984, after his first heart attack, but neither Masters win was included in his 41 titles so expertly recently listed by the International Bowlers Journal.
Of all the sports I have covered over the past half century, bowling does the worst job of putting all the key facts together.
For example, if you weren't around before the new owners took over the old PBA in 2000, you might not know who really has won the most major titles.
I sure don't. In my book Don Carter is the all-time champion with 11 major titles by my count. There may be more that I can't discover.
Carter, who was voted the greatest bowler ever in a 2000 poll, won four U.S. National All-Star events, five World Championship titles, one ABC Masters and a PBA National Championship.
The old BPAA National All-Star, a forerunner to the BPAA U.S. Open, was the hardest tournament in history to win because it consisted of more than 400 bowlers and a 110-game format.
The late Dick Weber also won four National All-Stars and I believe those should be added to the 26 listed besides his name if you were wise enough to keep an old PBA Media Guide. Even when AMF honored Dick Weber during Bowl Expo it failed to list his four All-Star titles because AMF probably didn't know where to look.
After all, there was some great bowling events and some great bowlers long before the PBA was introduced...and the Masters (started in 1951) was a great tournament long before the PBA officially recognized it as a PBA title won.
As I said in the beginning, that's my thinking and I'm sticking to it. However, I don't disagree with those who disagree with me because Walter Ray Williams' feat should not be diminished by criticism of old PBA policies.
Besides, I for one admit I don't know all the facts and may be having a bad senior moment.
Email address: Evans121@aol.com
Column
By Dick Evans
I don't want to create a controversy nor do I want to say someone is right and someone is wrong, but there is definitely something wrong with bowling records in my mind. Walter Ray Williams performed a great feat last Sunday by chalking up his 41st PBA tour title. He has been the dominant bowler for more than a decade and deserves every honor thrown his way for an awesome career.
But long ago the PBA, then headed by the late Eddie Elias and Joe Antenora, made a terrible mistake.
The PBA decided to include a PBA bowler's earnings in an ABC Masters Tournament into his season and career highlights but for some strange reason the PBA refused to give the Masters champion a PBA title. I insisted you couldn't recognize money won in a Masters but not a title won in the Masters.
I wrote against the unfairness of that two-face ruling to no avail because nobody seemed to care.
But if someone cared back then they maybe Williams still would be chasing Earl Anthony's 43 win total instead of the PBA recognized 41.
For you see my friends, the ABC under the leadership of late Darold Dobs became friends with the PBA in the late 1980s and even sponsored a Milwaukee tour stop in 1990. Then not long later the PBA started to recognize the Masters not only as a title but as a major title.
Walter Ray Williams won the 2004 Masters and it counts as one of his 41 titles.
The late Earl Anthony won the Masters in 1977 and 1984, after his first heart attack, but neither Masters win was included in his 41 titles so expertly recently listed by the International Bowlers Journal.
Of all the sports I have covered over the past half century, bowling does the worst job of putting all the key facts together.
For example, if you weren't around before the new owners took over the old PBA in 2000, you might not know who really has won the most major titles.
I sure don't. In my book Don Carter is the all-time champion with 11 major titles by my count. There may be more that I can't discover.
Carter, who was voted the greatest bowler ever in a 2000 poll, won four U.S. National All-Star events, five World Championship titles, one ABC Masters and a PBA National Championship.
The old BPAA National All-Star, a forerunner to the BPAA U.S. Open, was the hardest tournament in history to win because it consisted of more than 400 bowlers and a 110-game format.
The late Dick Weber also won four National All-Stars and I believe those should be added to the 26 listed besides his name if you were wise enough to keep an old PBA Media Guide. Even when AMF honored Dick Weber during Bowl Expo it failed to list his four All-Star titles because AMF probably didn't know where to look.
After all, there was some great bowling events and some great bowlers long before the PBA was introduced...and the Masters (started in 1951) was a great tournament long before the PBA officially recognized it as a PBA title won.
As I said in the beginning, that's my thinking and I'm sticking to it. However, I don't disagree with those who disagree with me because Walter Ray Williams' feat should not be diminished by criticism of old PBA policies.
Besides, I for one admit I don't know all the facts and may be having a bad senior moment.
Email address: Evans121@aol.com