A Forgotten Pioneer in Sports Television: Phillies Jackpot Bowling (1959–1960)

Abstract

Phillies Jackpot Bowling, a television series broadcast on NBC in 1959 and 1960, played a historic role in transforming the image of bowling and precipitating an era of unprecedented popularity for the game. Professional bowlers competed to roll six consecutive strikes in nine throws and hit a jackpot that reached tens of thousands of dollars. Winning contestants made more money in just a few minutes on the lanes than many baseball and football stars earned over an entire season. In an era when bowling was dismissed as the dull hobby of gamblers and drinkers, Phillies Jackpot Bowling cast the game as exciting and wholesome. The show also marked little-known chapters in the careers of its three famous hosts, Leo Durocher, Mel Allen, and Bud Palmer.

Notes

1 “Frank Clause versus Jim Schroeder,” Phillies Jackpot Bowling, televised by NBC on February 12, 1960, 16 mm. reel, UCLA Film & Television Archive, Television Collection, T4406; and “Inflation Calculator,” http://www.usinflationcalculator.com.

2 Kerry Keene, 1960: The Last Pure Season (Champaign, IL: Sports Publishing, 2000), 188–89; and Chuck Pezzano, “Allen Hit the ‘Jackpot’ with Memorable Show,” Bergen (NJ) Record, June 23, 1996, S18.

3 “The Bowling Schoolmaster,” Scranton (PA) Times, September 6, 1962, 4A, 11A.

4 “Clause Hits 25G Jackpot, Gets Six Straight Strikes,” New York Daily News, February 13, 1960, 27.

5 “Swinging Down the Lane,” Sports Illustrated, March 14, 1960, 50–53.

6 Bayuk Cigars program analysis cards, Program Analysis File, Programs – Sponsored from BAY to BEL, Library of Congress.

7 “Hall of Fame Bowlers,” Professional Bowlers Association, http://www.pba.com/bowlers/hofbowlers.

8 Bart Andrews and Brad Dunning, The Worst TV Shows Ever (New York: E.P. Dutton, 1980), 59–63.

9 Melvin Durslag, “Review: Jackpot Bowling,” TV Guide, December 24, 1960, 27; and Jack Gould, “TV: A Trouper Goes On,” New York Times, September 20, 1960, 79.

10 Andrews and Dunning, The Worst TV Shows Ever, 63.

11 Noel Botham, The Ultimate Book of Useless Information (New York: Penguin, 2007), 183. Negative attitudes on bowling can be traced to America’s colonizers during the Protestant Reformation, when Puritans disapproved of the English aristocracy playing sports such as bowling, fencing, and tennis instead of focusing on devotion to God and community building. See Gerald R. Gems, Linda J. Borish, and Gertrud Pfister, eds., Sports in American History: From Colonization to Globalization (Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics, 2008), 13–14.

12 Joseph P. Blank, “The Big Boom in Bowling,” Rotarian, March 1960, 32–33, 56–58.

13 “Viewpoints,” Bowling Magazine, January 1958, 4, 39.

14 Frank Litsky, “Eddie Elias, 69, Sports Agent and Founder of Pro Bowling,” New York Times, November 19, 1998, B14.

15 Jane Richardson, Eddie Elias (Shelby, MI: Thistle, 2005), 13–15.

16 “Don Carter Heads Professional Group,” Bowling Magazine, June 1958, 39.

17 Litsky, “Eddie Elias, 69, Sports Agent and Founder of Pro Bowling.”

18 “TV Quiz Business Is Itself Quizzed about Fix Charges,” Life, September 15, 1958, 22–23.

19 “Scandal of the Quizzes,” Time, September 1, 1958, 38.

20 “Come and Gone,” Newsweek, October 27, 1958, 88.

21 “TV Begins Scrubbing Its Tarnish,” Broadcasting, October 26, 1959, 41–46.

22 Douglas Gomery, “Talent Raids and Package Deals,” in NBC: America’s Network, edited by Michele Hilmes (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007), 153–68.

23 “TV Heart to Heart,” Business Week, February 16, 1957, 90–92.

24 “Record Total of 420 Hours of Sportscasts Scheduled in 1959 by NBC-TV Network – 40% Gain over 1958,” May 1, 1959, NBC Trade Releases, PN1992.92.N37N383, Special Collections and University Archives, Hornbake Library, University of Maryland (hereafter cited as UMD Archives); and “NBC Year-end Report,” January 25, 1960, UMD Archives.

25 Raymond Gamache, A History of Sports Highlights: Replayed Plays from Edison to ESPN (Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, 2010), 105–06.

26 “NBC Year-end Report,” January 25, 1960, UMD Archives.

27 Tim Brooks and Earle Marsh, The Complete Directory to Prime Time Network and Cable TV Shows 1946–Present, 7th ed. (New York: Random House, 1999), 122, 717; and Alex McNeil, Total Television, 3rd ed. (New York: Penguin, 1996), 113, 591. Brooks and Marsh wrote that National Bowling Champions and Bowling Stars lasted a combined eleven months, from April to December 1956 on NBC and September to December 1957 on ABC, while McNeil wrote that the series ran for fourteen months, from April 1956 to March 1957 on NBC and September to December 1957 on ABC.

28 Kent Anderson, Television Fraud (Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1978), 132; and “National Live Network Bowling Show,” box 387, folder 50, Wisconsin Historical Society.

29 “National Live Network Bowling Show.”

30 Ibid.

31 Brooks and Marsh, The Complete Directory to Prime Time Network and Cable TV Shows 1946–Present, 717.

32 “TV Bonanza!,” Bowling Magazine, September 1957, 30–32.

33 “Top Keglers to Compete in ‘Phillies Jackpot Bowling,’ New Sports Show with Leo Durocher as Emcee, on NBC-TV Network,” January 2, 1959, NBC Trade Releases, UMD Archives.

34 Richard Sandomir, “Ted Nathanson, 72, Director of NBC Sports and News Shows,” New York Times, June 7, 1997, 11.

35 “Barney Nagler, 78, Writer of the Ring and the Race Track,” New York Times, October 24, 1990, B6.

36 Maxwell E. McCombs and Donald L. Shaw, “The Agenda-setting Function of Mass Media,” Public Opinion Quarterly 36 (1972): 176–87.

37 Gavin Clavio and Paul M. Pedersen, “Print and Broadcast Connections of ESPN: An Investigation of the Alignment of Editorial Coverage in ESPN The Magazine with ESPN’s Broadcasting Rights,” International Journal of Sport Management 8, no. 1 (2007); Jacob S. Turner, “This Is SportsCenter,” Journal of Sports Media 9, no. 1 (2014): 45–70; and Bryan E. Denham, “Sports Illustrated, the Mainstream Press and the Enactment of Drug Policy in Major League Baseball,” Journalism 5, no. 1 (2004): 51–68.

38 Steven A. Riess, Touching Base: Professional Baseball and American Culture in the Progressive Era (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1999), 6–7, 19.

39 Amber Roessner, Inventing Baseball Heroes: Ty Cobb, Christy Mathewson, and the Sporting Press in America (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2014), 14.

40 Michael Oriard, Reading Football: How the Popular Press Created an American Spectacle (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1993), 57–58.

41 David Farber and Beth Bailey, The Columbia Guide to America in the 1960s (New York: Columbia University Press, 2001), 318.

42 Bayuk Cigars program analysis cards.

43 Frank M. Wessling, “Cakewalk for Carter,” Bowling Magazine, September 1959, 36; and J. R. Schmidt, “Carmen Salvino,” in 50 Greatest Players in PBA History (Chicago: Luby Publishing, 2008), 80–81.

44 Carmen Salvino, telephone interview with the author, May 5, 2016.

45 Herman Weiskopf, “He’s Got the Formula Right There,” Sports Illustrated, May 6, 1974, 40–45.

46 Salvino, telephone interview.

47 “McMahon Signs Biggest Pact in Pin History,” Chicago Tribune, January 13, 1952, F5.

48 Junie McMahon and Murray Goodman, Modern Bowling Techniques (New York: Ronald Press Company, 1958), 1, 5.

49 “Junie McMahon’s Last Match,” Dr. Jake’s Bowling History Blog, https://bowlinghistory.wordpress.com/2009/12/27/junie-mcmahon-jackpot-bowling-tv-show/.

50 Salvino, telephone interview.

51 “Junie McMahon’s Last Match.”

52 Salvino, telephone interview.

53 J. R. Schmidt, The Bowling Chronicles (Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, 2017), 37–38; Salvino, telephone interview; and Bayuk Cigars program analysis cards.

54 “McMahon Is to be Treated at Home,” Bowling News, August 22, 1959, 4.

55 Salvino, telephone interview.

56 Schmidt, The Bowling Chronicles, 38.

57 Bayuk Cigars program analysis cards; and “Carter Supreme,” Bowling Magazine, September 1958, 24–25, 69.

58 Nielsen Television Index, Second Report for January 1959. The Nielsen average audience rating for the second episode of Phillies Jackpot Bowling on January 16, 1959 (4.8 million, see page 51), exceeded the ratings for NBC’s NBA game broadcasts (3.5 million, see page 39), CBS’s NHL game broadcasts (2.5 million, see page 64), ABC’s All-Star Golf (1.5 million for the first half-hour and 2.7 million for the second half-hour, see page 64), and ABC’s Bowling Stars (3 million, see page 38).

59 Salvino, telephone interview.

60 Melvin Durslag, “The Artful Dodger Returns,” TV Guide, May 13, 1961, 14–15.

61 Richard Sandomir, “Mel Allen Is Dead at 83; Golden Voice of Yankees,” New York Times, June 17, 1996, B9.

62 Bayuk Cigars program analysis cards.

63 Pezzano, “Allen Hit the ‘Jackpot’ with Memorable Show.”

64 John J. Archibald, “The Greatest?,” Bowling Magazine, September 1958, 36–37, 82–83.

65 Bayuk Cigars program analysis cards; “Inflation Calculator”; Allen A. Kopperud, “Kops Komments,” Bowling News, February 21, 1959, 2, and “Strikes Only Net $12,000 for Carter,” Bowling Magazine, April 1959, 48.

66 Don Carter, Don Carter’s 10 Secrets of Bowling (New York: Viking Press, 1963), 95.

67 Nicholas Hirshon, “Alley Bowled Over,” New York Daily News (Queens News Insert), May 27, 2008.

68 “Billy Welu versus Dick Hoover,” Phillies Jackpot Bowling, televised by NBC on March 27, 1959, 16 mm. reel, UCLA Film & Television Archive, Television Collection, T4406.

69 “Dick Hoover Rolls Six Straight Strikes and Wins $12,000 Prize on ‘Phillies Jackpot Bowling,’” April 6, 1959, NBC Trade Releases, UMD Archives.

70 Bayuk Cigars program analysis cards.

71 Douglas Martin, “Bud Palmer, 91, Jump Shot Pioneer, Dies,” New York Times, March 23, 2013, B8.

72 Bayuk Cigars program analysis cards; Carmen Salvino and Frederick C. Klein, Fast Lanes (Chicago: Bonus Books, 1988), 73; and Tom McLaughlin, foreword to Andy Varipapa’s Quick Way to Better Bowling by Andy Varipapa (Garden City, NY: Garden City Books, 1952), iii–iv.

73 Nielsen Television Index, Second Report for April 1959, 32; and Chuck Pezzano, “Stars Roll for $trike$,” Bowling Magazine, September 1959, 43. Phillies Jackpot Bowling reached 4.048 million viewers on April 10, 1959, and 4.18 million viewers on April 17, 1959.

74 NBC, “All-star Keglers Compete for Prizes on Phillies Jackpot Bowling,” Advertisement, Buffalo Courier-Express, March 6, 1959.

75 Kopperud, “Kops Komments.”

76 “Bowling Named ‘King of Participation Sports,’” Bowling Magazine, May 1959, 53.

77 “Television Gives Cleveland Mothers Time to Spare,” TV Guide, June 27, 1959, 28–29.

78 “Bowling Publishers Organize,” Bowling News, May 9, 1959, 1.

79 Salvino and Klein, Fast Lanes, 73.

80 J. R. Schmidt, “Harry Smith,” in 50 Greatest Players in PBA History (Chicago: Luby Publishing, 2008), 102–03.

81 Carl Richard, telephone interview with the author, June 24, 2016.

82 Pezzano, “Allen Hit the ‘Jackpot’ with Memorable Show.”

83 “100 Top Bowlers of the 20th Century,” Dr. Jake’s Bowling History Blog, https://bowlinghistory.wordpress.com/2013/10/04/100-top-bowlers-of-the-20th-century/.

84 Pezzano, “Stars Roll for $trike$.”

85 Emil Lence, “Emil Lence’s Woodhaven Lanes,” Advertisement, Long Island Star-Journal, July 28, 1959, 15.

86 Gordon S. White Jr., “Busy Alley Builder,” New York Times, August 4, 1959, 22.

87 “Champions Reveal Strike Specialties at Mammoth Woodhaven Bowling Lanes,” Woodhaven (NY) Leader-Observer, July 30, 1959, 1.

88 “Queens’ Biggest Plant Now Woodhaven Lanes,” Long Island Daily Press, July 30, 1959, 28; and White Jr., “Busy Alley Builder.”

89 Bayuk Cigars program analysis cards.

90 Bernie Beglane, “Bowler’s Corner,” Long Island Star-Journal, August 20, 1959, 24.

91 Pezzano, “Stars Roll for $trike$.”

92 Richard, telephone interview.

93 “Inflation Calculator”; and Pezzano, “Stars Roll for $trike$.”

94 “Roger Maris,” Sports Reference LLC, http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/m/marisro01.shtml; and Pezzano, “Stars Roll for $trike$.”

95 “Bob Allison,” Sports Reference LLC, http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/a/allisbo01.shtml; and Pezzano, “Stars Roll for $trike$.”

96 “Don Demeter,” Sports Reference LLC, http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/d/demetdo01.shtml; “Ron Fairly,” Sports Reference LLC, http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/f/fairlro01.shtml; “Joe Pignatano,” Sports Reference LLC, http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/p/pignajo01.shtml; and Pezzano, “Stars Roll for $trike$.”

97 Archibald, “The Greatest?”; and Pezzano, “Stars Roll for $trike$.”

98 Salvino, telephone interview.

99 “Gold of TV Lures Stars of ‘World,’” Bowling News, November 28, 1959, 6.

100 Pezzano, “Stars Roll for $trike$.”

101 Robert Boyle, “A Guy Named Smith Is Striking It Rich,” Sports Illustrated, November 25, 1963, 36–38.

102 Pezzano, “Stars Roll for $trike$.”

103 Bayuk Cigars program analysis cards; and “TV Bonanza!”

104 Bill Lillard, telephone interview with the author, May 11, 2016.

105 Bayuk Cigars program analysis cards.

106 Gordon S. White Jr., “‘Cranker’ Earns Big Pin Money,” New York Times, January 19, 1960, 43.

107 Bayuk Cigars program analysis cards.

108 “Ann Maloney Foe of Leader,” Albany (NY) Knickerbocker News, February 9, 1960, B11; and “Cities Pro Men Ignored for TV Show,” Bowling News, December 26, 1959, 9.

109 “Cities Pro Men Ignored for TV Show”; and Bayuk Cigars program analysis cards.

110 Bayuk Cigars program analysis cards.

111 “Claus [sic] Wins $25,000 Prize,” New York Times, February 13, 1960, 14.

112 “‘The Bowling Schoolmaster.’”

113 Bill McCormick, “From Blackboard to Bowling,” Jamestown (NY) Post-Journal, November 3, 1960, 38.

114 “Frank Clause versus Jim Schroeder.”

115 Ibid.

116 “TV Bonanza!”

117 “Clause Hits 25G Jackpot,” New York Daily News, February 13, 1960, back page.

118 Gordon S. White Jr., “Old-timer Recalls Lanes of Slate,” New York Times, February 16, 1960, 47.

119 AMF, “Frank Clause Rolled Bowling’s Richest Strike!,” Advertisement, Bowling News, March 19, 1960, 3.

120 ’The Bowling Schoolmaster,’; and Frank Clause, How to Win at Bowling (New York: Fleet Publishing Corporation, 1961).

121 George Sullivan, foreword to Clause, How to Win at Bowling, 10.

122 Salvino, telephone interview.

123 Pat Parrish, “Strikes to Spare,” Jamestown (NY) Post-Journal, March 5, 1960, 17.

124 John Dell, “Time Out: Sport of ‘Sports’ Now Family Game,” Philadelphia Inquirer, April 29, 1961, 27.

125 “A Shot at $25,000,” Ebony, April 1, 1960, 85–86, 88–89.

126 Bayuk Cigars program analysis cards; and “Lindemann Wins $14,000,” New York Times, April 9, 1960, 19.

127 Glenn Allison, telephone interview with the author, June 15, 2016.

128 Nielsen Television Index, Second Report for April 1960, 35.

129 Blank, “The Big Boom in Bowling.”

130 Bud Palmer, “Jackpot Bowling,” Popular Bowling, September 1960, 18, 20, 61.

131 Gordon S. White Jr., “Good Team, Anyone?,” New York Times, March 22, 1960, 42; and “New NTA ‘Play’ Unit to be Headed by Miner,” Broadcasting, April 11, 1960, 103.

132 Val Adams, “‘Hallmark’ Lists ‘Macbeth’ for TV,” New York Times, April 26, 1960, 75; and Bob Johnson, “Now He Co-Stars with a Bowling Ball,” TV Guide, November 12, 1960, 24–27.

133 Andrews and Dunning, The Worst TV Shows Ever, 63; and Val Adams, “C.B.S. Postpones Bergman TV Play,” New York Times, May 5, 1960, 71.

134 Bayuk Cigars program analysis cards.

135 Joe Lyou, “Gold Mine in Hollywood,” Bowling Magazine, September 1961, 32, 76–77.

136 Durslag, “Review: Jackpot Bowling.”

137 “Inflation Calculator”; Bruce Pluckhahn, “Therm Hits the Jackpot,” Bowlers Journal International, November 1993, 221; J. R. Schmidt, “Gibby’s Big Jackpot,” Bowlers Journal International, September 2003, 40–41; and J. R. Schmidt, “The Best Bowling Show … Ever,” Bowlers Journal International, November 1993, 216–17.

138 Andrews and Dunning, The Worst TV Shows Ever, 60.

139 “The Ritz Brothers Guest on ‘Jackpot Bowling’ Starring Milton Berle,” YouTube video, 8:07, from Jackpot Bowling Starring Milton Berle televised by NBC on January 23, 1961, posted by “Kovacs Corner,” April 23, 2014, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Lq7jrOaYj0; and Schmidt, “The Best Bowling Show … Ever.”

140 Schmidt, “The Best Bowling Show … Ever.”

141 McNeil, Total Television, 423–424.

142 “Swinging Down the Lane.”

143 Blank, “The Big Boom in Bowling.”

144 “Readers Digest Reports on Bowling’s Popularity,” Bowling Magazine, April 1960, 39.

145 Ed Burt, “Bowling Bubble Bursts in Queens,” Long Island Post, August 1, 1963.

146 Blank, “The Big Boom in Bowling.”

147 Gamache, A History of Sports Highlights, 106.

148 McNeil, Total Television, 386.

149 Rex Lardner, “Bowling’s Big League: A $14 Million Gamble,” Sports Illustrated, October 30, 1961, 44–46, 51–54.

150 J. R. Schmidt, “The (Short) History of the National Bowling League,” Bowlers Journal International, July 31, 2015, http://www.bowlersjournal.com/the-short-history-of-the-national-bowling-league/.

151 Brooks and Marsh, The Complete Directory to Prime Time Network and Cable TV Shows 1946–Present, 616; Todd Camp, “Pin It on Bowling,” Fort Worth Star-Telegram, June 28, 1996, FW3; and “National Television Schedule,” https://www.pba.com/Television.

152 Dick Evans, “Don Carter,” in 50 Greatest Players in PBA History (Chicago: Luby Publishing, 2008), 68–69; Schmidt, “Carmen Salvino,” 81; and Schmidt, “Harry Smith,” 103.

153 Nicholas Hirshon, “Hopes Pinned on Landmark,” New York Daily News, June 24, 2008, XQ4.