Duckpin Bowling

Climb down the stairs past the neon blue and canary yellow walls and you'll find a slice of hon heaven. Short, squat pins fly here and there as midget balls glide along the wooden boards. But it's not just duckpin bowling, the game invented in Baltimore in 1900, that most of the clientele seek at Taylor's Stoneleigh Duckpin Bowling Center. They're drawn by the down-home, slap-on-the-back flavor of the 52-year-old alley. What makes the place unique, patrons say, is that this haven for a working-class game is in the middle of a Baltimore County neighborhood better known for its soccer moms, bagel shops and tree-lined roads.

Thirty years ago Sam Rothman put a duckpin bowling ball into his daughter's hand. Anita Rothman, now of Carney, has never put it down for long."My dad started me bowling at the old Northwest lanes on Reisterstown Road," she said. "My first league was at Fair Lanes Pikesville. I've never lost my love for duckpin bowling."Not even when cancer struck in 1991. After surgery, Rothman returned to the lanes."I just wanted to enjoy bowling again," she said. "I missed a lot of the 1991 season and I just wanted to get back in competition after the surgery.

Baltimore has well-known sports mascots and decades-old marvels of culture and kitsch: Orioles and Ravens. Hons and Hairspray. But the port town is home to another, less celebrated, phenomenon: duckpin bowling. Charm City, after all, is where the sport began. It was in the early 1900s, at the old Diamond bowling alley on Howard Street, that the duckpin game began. Today, Baltimore players have their own association, the Baltimore Duckpin Bowlers Association, and the sport even has a national regulatory congress.

Edwin Ashley Horn, 94, vending company owner Edwin Ashley Horn, former owner of the Eastern Distributing Co. and a duckpin bowling official, died Aug. 25 of a heart attack at his Parkville home. He was 94. He owned and operated the vending machine company from 1941 to 1969 and also managed tavern shuffleboard leagues throughout the city. He was president of the National Duckpin Bowling Congress from 1943 to 1945 and participated in tournament bowling from Atlanta to New England. In 1939, he was ranked ninth nationally in the men's category.

Leroy M. "Lee" Wooden, a financial supervisor who worked for the City of Baltimore and was a Vietnam War veteran, died of cancer Aug. 29 at his Parkville home. He was 58. Born in Baltimore and raised in Cedonia, he was a 1969 graduate of Northern High School, where he played football. He enlisted in the Army and served in Vietnam from 1969 to 1972. He was later active in the American Legion and the Veterans of Foreign Wars. He also held veterans' posts at the city War Memorial. After working with his late mother, Ruth Wooden, in their carpet-cleaning business, he joined city government and was a financial supervisor in the Department of Housing and Community Development for 20 years.

Jousting as the State SportEditor: In his Nov. 3 column, ''State Sport Should Be Revised to Require Less Snorting, Drooling,'' Michael Olesker proposes that our fine state sport, jousting, should be dethroned and replaced with duckpin bowling.In my opinion, duckpin bowling lacks the dignity, beauty, honor and merit that accompanies jousting, and Mr. Olesker's ludicrous suggestion lacks any credibility.The admirable sport of jousting, which was voted Maryland's state sport in 1962, probably originated in France in the 11th century.

A year has passed since Jack DeVault won a golf tournament.What does that have to do with bowling?On DeVault's return from the golf course that day, he stopped into Joe Rineer's Mount Airy Lanes, just in time for the ninth annual Wayne Logue Memorial Handicap Tournament.What could be more naturalfor this 136-average bowler than to sign up to bowl? What could be better than to throw games of 138, 189 and 176 for a 503 series and first place?Now, I'm not suggesting you have to win a golf tournament the same morning to win the 10th annual Wayne Logue Memorial Handicap Doubles Tournament.

Right wing Brian Willsie has signed a free-agent contract with the Washington Capitals. The one-year deal brings Willsie back to the Capitals, for whom he scored a career-high 19 goals and added 22 assists in 2005-06. Willsie, 32, has 52 goals and 56 assists in 380 career NHL games for the Colorado Avalanche, Capitals and Los Angeles Kings. All-Star Game: The game earned its lowest-ever television rating. The National League's 3-1 victory Tuesday night on Fox earned a 7.5 fast national rating and 13 share.

A sphere of hard rubber and plastic about the size of a softball flies down the hardwood lane and slams into 10 stubby pins that scatter like ducks at the sound of a shotgun blast.Duckpins! Maryland's state sport!John Stude, who has been pushing for years to have lacrosse named the state team sport, erupts in laughter at the suggestion. "I don't know of any Olympic duckpin team, but we sent a lacrosse team to the Olympics in 1932," he says.Mike Virts, the nation's leading jouster, chuckles at the idea that anything such as bowling, duckpins or whatever could replace his sport on the list of state emblems.

Pitching a baseball and throwing a duckpin bowling ball could place a lot on strain on your arm, because baseballs are thrown overhand and duckpin balls underhand. That stretches arm muscles in different directions.But Larry Schillenberg of Chesterfield solved the problem with little difficulty. He throws the baseball with his left hand and the bowling ball with his right hand."I started bowling when I was 7 years old," he said. "And right-handed worked just great, but when I picked up a baseball it felt wrong to play the game that way, so I switched to the left hand [for baseball]