BallReviews
General Category => Miscellaneous => Topic started by: trash heap on July 01, 2014, 04:23:23 PM
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Just digging around and saw this ball.
Roto Star, Trak-ker
Plastic/Urethane Cover
January 13, 1983
http://www.bowlingballvault.com/companies/21-roto-grip/1001-trak-ker
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They say memory is the third thing to go... I don't recall the first two ;)...
You may be correct, but I think Ebonite had a Earl Anthony Magnum (?) model that was urethane/polyester in '81-82. And there is always the concrete like polyester/rubber concoction Columbia Orange Dot the was around '80-'81?
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I remember several of these balls back in the day for some of our top bowlers. Roto has always been a different type of company and I didn't use this ball, but had the RC5, UC2, X2 and blue poly that came as a right hand or left hand ball. Several of their early releases was for RH or LH and it was stamped on the ball as well as marked on the box. It had the side weight, finger weight and top weight that you would get if you followed the drilling instructions!
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Ebonite had a rubber/polyester ball in the late 70's but I don't remember the name. It was a dog that cost Earl a lot of money on tv.
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Ebonite had a rubber/polyester ball in the late 70's but I don't remember the name. It was a dog that cost Earl a lot of money on tv.
I think that was the Magnum series.
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I was about to say Orange Dot too but since someone beat me to it....
The Earl Anthony dog ball i think would be the Mag 11..
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Orange Dot was indeed a Columbia. Not sure it was a hybrid material, but it was also a dog. Mag 11 sounds right on the Orange ball Earl threw. The blue polyester Roto was made by Columbia, and was just a blue yellow dot according to a Columbia staffer at the time. However, the quality control was a bit better, than on the yellow dot runs. Also the Roto Grips had very had top weights, and the label was actually off set so that a label drill would yield positive side weight. Thus the reason they were stamped for right handers or left handers. The label was offset for each to have positive side weight. Manufacturers were trying a lot of material in shells about that time. The problem was that nothing worked as good as the real soft polyester that had been limited to a 72 hardness ( 75 on tour ) in 1977. The result of that rule was that it was hard to find anything much under 80, which was worthless on the carry down that was so predominant on the early generation epoxy urethane lane surfaces.
This bit of history may seem like pure trivia 35 years later, but it was the inability of lane men to put out a playable shot for the medium hardness polyester balls that led to an epidemic of lane blocking. While their was plenty of lane blocking going on even prior to 1970, the best bowlers weren't clamoring for walled conditions. Even more important, most of us felt that we could develop a better game on higher scoring conditions in those days.
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...Mag 11 sounds right on the Orange ball Earl threw....
The orange ball that Earl threw was actually a Magnum 6.
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A friend of mine did have a Magnum11. The one he had was a dark grey color and hit like a cheese puff.
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It was two Magnums that was hybid I bought both I think it was 11 and 12 or 10 and 11 can't remember back that far.
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All of the magnums were pretty bad. However nobody but Columbia was making anything that you could score with until AMF revolutionized the game with the urethane Angle in 1981.
I think there was a short period of time when Ebonite even let Earl throw yellow dots in the qualifying rounds, then use Ebonite in the finals on TV