Up Lanes and Down Aisles

Look! If the Masters golf tournament were to be played in the L.A. area this week, would you be scrambling all over the brokers’ row, trying to find tickets?

If Michael Jordan were in town for a playoff game, would his picture be all over the paper?

When Tiger Woods was here last week, the cops on Sunset Boulevard turned you back from Riviera because the lots were all full.

Well, the greatest players in the world in the nation’s biggest participant sport--enjoyed by 40 million to 50 million--are in town for a major showdown. And there are plenty of good seats left.

Tiger Woods and Greg Norman may not be here. But Walter Ray Williams Jr. is.

Walter Ray is only the best bowler in the world right now. And he’s no better than a co-favorite to win the AC Delco Classic at the Cal Bowl in Lakewood this week.

That’s because Mike Aulby, David Ozio, Bob Learn Jr. and Tom Baker, the defending champion who had nine strikes in a row in last year’s title match, are on hand. A blue-ribbon field for a blue-ribbon event.

Not all of us have golfed, played tennis, shot baskets or tried to hit the breaking ball, but I dare say, most of us have bowled. It’s as American as Rip Van Winkle, as ancient as the Bible, and a winter’s night in the East would be more bearable because the friendly neighborhood lanes would be packed with everyone from a stenographers’ pool to the hustlers waiting on the sidelines for some pigeon to come along for the plucking.

It’s a happy sound, that of a bowling alley. The crash of pins, the thud of the ball starting its 60-foot journey to the pins--or the gutter--means fun, recreation, a happy, noisy night out for weekend rollers. Americans love noise.

It’s a far more difficult proposition for the 120 or so contestants in the AC Delco. First of all, these are guys for whom a nine is a disastrous score. In fact, a nonstrike is like bogey to a great golfer. This is not league night at Laurel Lanes. There are millions of dollars at stake here.

Fred Couples never lined up a shot or a two-break putt with any more care than a bowler. First of all, there are the lanes. The lanes are the adversary.

“Sometimes, you have to test them with a bad shot,” Williams warns. “It may tell you more than a good one.”

The lanes are oiled like a race car. Cal Bowl has an aluminum sheaf under them and, if you are to succeed, you have to calculate what that--and the oil residue--does to the speed and location of your ball.

You think Greg Maddux has a good curveball? You haven’t seen a curve till you’ve seen a 16-pound ball go from one side of the lane to the middle of the pins. Stan Musial couldn’t get a bat on one of those.

Williams’ repertoire runs more to the fastball. He wants to get those pins flying. (There are no knuckleballs or changeups in bowling. You want the ball to come in hot and destructive.) If he were a golfer, Williams would be said to have one of the great swings on tour, a long, fluid sweep of the arm and extended follow-through. Sam Snead with a bowling ball.

You know how you and I go up to the lane and pick a ball out of the trough and throw it? Not these guys. They travel around with 20 or so bowling balls in their trunks or trailers and they calibrate them as carefully as Wernher von Braun did a ballistic missile. The first suspicion they’re out of round, out they go and the bowler must drill new ones. If your thumb wobbles in the hole, you must tape it--or redrill the ball. Tolerances are minimal when you are trying to make every game perfect.

Williams has bowled 40 perfect games in competition--Bob Learn has 58--but it’s consistency that has been his hallmark. He averages well over 220 and probably will become the first bowler to go over the $2-million mark in lifetime earnings. First prize this week at Cal Bowl is $48,000.

Williams has had a bowling ball--or a horseshoe, he’s also a champion at shoe pitching--in his hand since he was 11. He is the reigning PBA player of the year, a title he has won twice before.

The only trouble with Williams is he wears this beard. Makes him all too recognizable. I mean, you have this dream of being hustled in a bowling alley some night by this con man and he’ll invite you to pick a partner and you’ll say, “OK, I’ll take that guy with the beard over there.”

And the hustler will smirk sweetly and say, “Oh, no, you don’t! That’s Walter Ray Williams, the best there is!”

While I’ve got your attention--I do, don’t I?--I’d like to interject a personal note if I may. Team Murray underwent a roster change, a lineup revamp last Monday. The beauteous Linda McCoy signed on. We got married.

Federal Judge Mariana Pfaelzer performed the ceremony at the home she shares with her husband and our old friend, Frank Rothman. Frank is general counsel for the NFL, no less.

A word about the new recruit, the bride. First of all, she’ll bat cleanup. I’ll move up in the order where I’ll mostly bunt and take. She goes to her left as well as anybody in the game, bats right, fights out of a crouch, has a great jump shot and is a Gold Glove fielder.

We were both free agents--12 1/2 years--and came in well under the salary cap. She outdrives me on the golf course, but I’m better at emptying the dishwasher and we’re about even when it comes to vacuuming. She’ll be sending in the plays, I expect. But, of course, I have the right to audibilize at the line of scrimmage (I think).

Jerry Reinsdorf thinks he pulled the coup of the year signing Albert Belle for the White Sox?

Fergetaboudit! I signed the real pennant winner. The Unreal McCoy. I wish I could have invited you all to the wedding, but home plate at Dodger Stadium was busy.