Assuming you bowl on the typical house shots that most of us see, I'd suggest the Fanatic in the Brunswick line or the Jackpot in the Radical lineup.  Both are everyday balls that react well and hit well for me.  I'm 55 years old with similar speed.

A small jump up in price gets you the Quantum Fire Pearl that's been a great addition to my bag.  Don't be afraid to lay any of these out fairly strong.  Best of luck to you.

Well if you're jumping from a yellow dot....

I'd get a urethane! You'll probably see close to the same reaction maybe even check out a Brunswick Fanatic  BTU.

Can go wrong with strom, 900 global and hammers urethane offerings.

Storm pitch black, hammer black urethane and the 900 global boo-yah pretty much are your other options.


Reactive will not be anything near the performance or quality that your used to.  They will hook more than you are wanting, most likely. 

One thing to remember is that you're not bowling on the same conditions as 25 years ago.  Today's lane conditioners are more slick than ever and we're putting more of it down. 

Although there are some fine urethane balls on the market, they typically are there to fill in an arsenal rather than be the first choice (unless you bowl on some very dry lanes).  No one ever complains that their ball hooks, but they do get angry when they spend good money and their ball is allergic to oil, so to speak. 

Every ball needs to find adequate friction to change direction.  Urethane is a much slower response than reactive resin.  Is that bad?  No, it's just different.  Your first ball back should be something versatile as possible, then you can gradually build around it with other balls that give you an array of looks on the lane, in my opinion.

Notclay,  +1000