Pin Action: Small-Time Gangsters, High-Stakes Gambling, and the Teenage Hustler Who Became a Bowling Champion (10 page)

Bowling arenas were constructed as homes for some NBL teams. Texas oilman J. Curtis Sanford, the visionary behind
the establishment of college football’s Cotton Bowl in 1937, pumped $3 million into the construction of the Bronco Bowl to house his NBL team, the Dallas Broncos. With 72 lanes, the establishment was the largest bowling alley in the country at the time. Another arena called Thunder Bowl—home of the Detroit Thunderbirds—went up in Allen Park, Michigan, with stadium-style seating for spectators capable of holding thousands of fans. Similarly ambitious digs went up in Bloomington, Minnesota, and Forth Worth to house the Twin Cities Skippers and the Fort Worth Panthers respectively. Elsewhere, famed theaters such as the Midland in Kansas City and the Paramount in Omaha were transformed into bowling arenas. Those venues became home to the Kansas City Stars and the Omaha Packers. Masarro’s New York Gladiators sought to make their home atop Grand Central Station, “where it had hoped to perch like a city pigeon,” as one 1961
Sports Illustrated
story about the NBL’s inception put it. Instead, in a turn of events that foreshadowed the ill-fated league’s demise, they ended up 20 miles away at a stadium in Totowa, New Jersey. Other NBL teams included the San Antonio Cavaliers as well as California’s Fresno Bombers and the Los Angeles Toros.

The NBL barely lasted through its first season, from October, 1961 through July, 1962, when then-commissioner Ed Tobolowski officially declared the league defunct. The NBL failed to land a much hoped-for television contract and never lured the likes of Dick Weber or Don Carter—then the rock stars of the sport—away from the PBA and other, more lucrative endorsements and commitments. Those names might have helped the NBL garner the star power it sorely needed to succeed. Weber and Carter made as much money bowling as pro athletes made in any other sport in those days, including marquee stars such as baseball’s Yogi Berra, Stan Musial or Mickey Mantle. Rumors swirled about bribes offered by NBL
executives, one of whom allegedly tried to propitiate Don Carter by offering him a pig farm. Carter must not have cared much for pigs; he never did bowl in the NBL.

Masarro’s participation in the NBL meant he learned as much about great bowling as he learned about great characters even before he descended into New York City’s action bowling underworld. The NBL may have failed to attract Weber and Carter, but it still boasted competitors who were as dazzling in their skill as they were in personality—future Hall of Famers such as Carmen Salvino, Steve Nagy, Billy Golembiewski, Joe Joseph, Therm Gibson, Ed Lubanski and others. None of them were as inimitable as “Buzz” Fazio out of Akron, Ohio—Buzz being short for the name given him by his Sicilian parents, Basilino. Fazio converted the nearly impossible 7-10 split not once, but twice, on his way to winning the prestigious Masters tournament in 1955. He defeated two tumors, survived a car wreck that cost him his spleen and nearly a leg, and a barber who accidentally sliced his bowling thumb down to the bare bone while wiping off a shaving blade in his lap one day. (Fazio somehow finished the final stretch of the renowned All-Star tournament anyway.) Fazio’s antics included leaping to click his heels together in mid-air after throwing a great shot and crashing down to his hands and knees at the foul line to wish his ball where he needed it to go. Fazio fell so in love with bowling as a 16-year-old kid in Akron that he would slip down the coal chute of a place called Butchel’s Recreation before dawn, feel around in the dark of the building’s cellar to find his way into the place, then set up some pins for himself and bowl alone before his friends arrived.

After banging heads with guys like Fazio in the NBL, no amount of skill or bluster was going to rattle Masarro in a crack-of-dawn doubles match at Gun Post Lanes in the Bronx, and Schlegel knew it. Lemon bowled with a guy named Phil
Lamenzo, and the match was on. Lamenzo was a decent bowler, but a lot of guys were decent bowlers until their wallets told them otherwise. Lemon liked to play a particular part of the lane out in Long Island—the third arrow, closer to the pocket, where his accuracy served him well with a straight shot up the 15th board and into the pocket. Out in the Bronx, though, Lemon was learning the hard way that the inside shot he liked out on the Island didn’t play so well in New York City. There are many reasons why the lane conditions might be different in one part of town versus another. Sometimes the lane surface was older than in other bowling alleys; over time, the wear of many games and harsh weather—the stultifying humidity and heat of a New York City summer, or the brutal cold snaps and blizzards in the winter months—would cause grooves, warps, or other idiosyncrasies. Or the lanes at some bowling centers might have topographical quirks—subtle grooves, slopes or humps in the lane perceptible only to the most observant eye. And even then, you really had to know what you were looking for. Sometimes the ball’s reaction as it proceeded down the lane would tell the story. If no one could get their bowling ball to hook on one lane, and everyone always had trouble throwing it straight on another, no matter what time of day or how much oil had been put down, that could say as much about the composition of the lane as it might about a given bowler’s ability. A slight downward slope in the lane, however imperceptible, would increase the speed of the ball which had the same effect as throwing the ball too hard; the ball is less likely to hook as much as a bowler would like it to. The harder a bowler throws the ball, the farther the ball will skid down the lane before it gets into a roll and then, finally, hooks back toward the pocket—or “grabs” the lane, as some bowlers say. Just as a downward slope in a lane’s topography causes the ball to accelerate and therefore hook less than
desired, an incline in a lane’s topography, however slight, slows down the bowling ball, which may cause the ball to get into a roll sooner than the bowler would like and therefore hook too much.

Schlegel’s understanding of these variables was one of the things that made him great. He memorized the contours and idiosyncrasies of every lane he bowled on throughout the five boroughs. He knew every warped board, every topographical quirk, every blemish and bend. Because he bowled in a different bowling alley every night of the week, he accumulated an immense store of knowledge that he used to his advantage.

Action bowlers commonly insisted on bowling on a specific pair of lanes if they were going to agree to a match; if the opponent refused, the match was off. If he agreed, he soon would learn why his adversary wanted to bowl on that particular pair of lanes—because he knew those lanes better than anyone in the house. Sometimes, though, a bowler who agreed to bowl on another player’s favorite pair and beat him could end up winning a lot of money, because a bowler who thinks he cannot be beaten on a particular pair of lanes is a bowler who is more prone to betting like a fool. Schlegel knew which pair he loved in every bowling alley he entered, and he made sure to bowl only on pairs that gave him an upper hand. That is an advantage gamblers did not have at the racetrack or in a game of cards. You don’t get to decide if it’s going to rain the day of a horse race and affect the outcome by muddying the track, just as you don’t get to decide when you will get a royal flush—unless, of course, you’re the Iggy Russo of poker. But action bowlers often did get to decide what pair of lanes they would agree to bowl on for money, which also was to decide implicitly the lane conditions on which the match would commence. That is an advantage any gambler gladly would take.

Sometimes these idiosyncrasies were manufactured by con men who deliberately manipulated the lanes to their advantage. In the 1950s, when lane surfaces were coated with lacquer, some bowlers would place a horse hair on the seventeenth board—the board leading directly into the pocket—and paste it to the lane’s surface with a coating of lacquer. If you threw the ball straight and weak enough, it would catch that horse hair and be guided directly into the pocket for a strike. Such schemers also sometimes manipulated the approaches as well as the lanes. If a bowler noticed his opponent’s sliding foot landed on the eleventh board, for instance, he would slide hard on the eleventh board with the rubber heel of his sliding shoe, leaving a streak on the approach that would cause his opponent to stick. When a bowler would stick once, it would be in his head for the rest of the match. Take out a bowler’s footwork and you take out his entire game.

For whatever reason, the lanes in New York City did not play the way they played out on the Island, and Lemon was struggling to adjust. Schlegel was noticing that, too. But, like any good businessman, he waited until after he had pocketed some of Lemon’s money before advising him of the problem. Lemon struggled just enough for Schlegel and Masarro to come out on top.

Even as he struggled, Lemon bowled well enough to keep things close. Then Masarro, who himself was a hell of a bowler, took on Lemon in a singles match. Lemon, still decent to figure out how to play the lanes in a house he had never bowled in before, eventually lost the match. Schlegel was betting on Masarro the whole time, knowing Lemon did not stand a chance playing the third arrow at Gun Post. Then Masarro got greedy and cut Schlegel out of the betting. He wanted all the money to himself. That was all Schlegel needed to hear to know
it was time to let Lemon in on the little secrets of how the big boys played the lanes in New York City.

But first he tried to warn Masarro.

“Wait a minute! John, I brought these guys here! I gotta get a piece of the action,” Schlegel said. “What the fuck are you doing?”

Masarro wasn’t having it, so Schlegel turned to Lemon.

“Hey, can I bet on you?” Schlegel asked him.

Lemon looked at him like he was nuts.

“Bet on me?” Lemon said. “Why? I can’t find a shot at this place.”

“Hey, this is action. I bet on whoever I think has a chance to win,” Schlegel said. “I brought you here. They just cut me out, and I’m pissed. So now I’m betting on you. Now listen, you’re playing the lanes too far inside. Why don’t you move outside a little bit, closer to the second arrow, around the ten board, and play the lanes there. See what happens.”

Schlegel knew damned well what would happen—he was coaching Lemon to play that trusty “track” he himself manipulated against Bill Daley. The part of the lane that made Lemon money at bowling alleys in his native Long Island might not work as well at bowling alleys in New York City, but Lemon’s talent enabled him to play the track as expertly as anyone in all of New York. Once he got Lemon lined up, Masarro, good as he was, had no chance against a guy with the kind of talent Lemon possessed. Schlegel also knew that Lemon possessed the very intangibles that made him great himself; Lemon had those things people call “it factors.” He had the drive, the determination, the work ethic, the obsession, the streak of vengeance in his cool and calculated resolve when circumstances demanded that he either make a great shot or lose everything. One man’s talent is another’s killer instinct; Lemon, like Schlegel, had enough of both to spare some. If he found himself bowling
a guy who was as talented, or a guy who had him nailed on a particularly difficult pair of lanes, Lemon was the kind of competitor who willed his way to victory somehow. For guys like Schlegel and Lemon, competition was a matter of pride and self-respect. It was a matter of believing that no one was better than they were. It was a matter of knowing that as surely as they knew their own names.

Lemon moved outside as Schlegel advised and proceeded to crush Masarro. Game after game, bet after bet, Masarro had no answer. The real winner, as always, was Schlegel. Schlegel had made lots of money betting on Masarro earlier; now he was making money betting the other way and advising Masarro’s opponent. Masarro knew it, and he let his fists show Schlegel how he felt about it. He took a swing at him.

Schlegel ducked. Then he pulled a knife.

“You do that again and I’ll have to fuckin’ stab you,” Schlegel said.

Masarro shut his mouth.

“Yeah,” Schlegel said. “What do you think, I come here with fuckin’ nothing?”

That knife Schlegel pulled when circumstances called for it would eventually land him in more trouble than he cared to manage. For now, though, it was one way to make sure he kept his money in the same place where Fish Face preferred to keep his—in his pocket. After that night, Schlegel took Lemon all over New York City, bowling as his doubles partner everywhere they went, and winning at every turn. Lemon was Schlegel’s secret weapon precisely because he was a weapon few had seen before. To New York City kids, bowling out on Long Island was like bowling out on Mars. It took time for people in New York City to figure out what Lemon was all about. And when they did, as was the case with Ralph Engan and would be the case with Schlegel himself, they ran out of
fish. Nobody was willing to take them on. The gig was up, but the $3,000 they made in the meantime easily was enough to make their time as a duo worthwhile, brief as it may have been. In 1965, $3,000 was an embarrassment of riches to anybody (roughly $22,000 today), no less a couple of street kids barely out of their teens.

The status Gun Post Lanes enjoyed as the gathering place for gamblers and gangsters from far and wide proved just as brief as Schlegel’s partnership with Lemon. Wherever the action found a new home, the cops who cleaned out the old one always seemed to come around again. The night they came around to Gun Post Lanes was one no witness would forget.

The lights that glowed through those French windows flanking the front of the place caught the attention of a couple of plainclothes cops on the beat. There is something about the sight of so many teenagers waving fistfuls of cash that catches a cop’s attention, especially when it happens to be four o’clock in the morning. One cop took a seat at the lunch counter next to Johnny Kourabas while the other had a look around. Kourabas knew there was something about the guy that didn’t belong; this was not your usual gambler waiting to arrange a match. Then he heard the other cop advising people to make sure they kept their hands nice and high in the air, and Kourabas knew the gig was up.