Despite being rejected for sanctioning by the American Bowling Congress under the rules of the day, it is indisputable that the greatest league bowling series in history was Glenn Allison’s 900 rolled July 1, 1982 at La Habra 300 Bowl in La Habra, California.

Supporters have been unwavering in their efforts to earn some kind of official recognition for Allison’s 900, but the rejection has continued with the United States Bowling Congress, the successor to ABC.

A decade earlier, another great bowler walked in almost the same shoes as Allison when Ray Orf stunned the bowling world with an 890 (290-300-300) on Feb. 6, 1972 at Western Bowl in St. Louis, breaking the all-time record 886 (297-289-300) by Allie Brandt on Oct. 25, 1939 in Lockport, N.Y.

The difference between Orf’s 890 and Allison’s 900 was a solid 10-pin Orf left and converted in the opening frame of his session in the Sunday morning adult-junior Mini Mixed League.

As happened with Allison and his 900, Orf saw his 890 rejected after ABC officials flew in from Milwaukee to check the lanes the day after the series was shot. The rejection of Orf’s 890 meant Brandt still was No. 1 in the ABC record book when Allison shot 900.

But while Allison lost his legal battle, ABC paid Orf an undisclosed sum to settle his lawsuit. The settlement precluded both sides from talking about the case, leaving it shrouded in some mystery for decades.

Why was Orf able to gain some measure of “victory” for his 890 while Allison could not?

Ray Orf died on April 20, 2018, and his sons Rich and Steve contacted me a few months later to offer me his extensive files of publicly available information and their cooperation because “we just want the full story to be out there,” Steve said. (I became friends with the Orfs through years of bowling Midwest PBA Regionals.)

So far as I have been able to determine, all of the people who were directly involved in the 890 and its rejection are dead. But I did interview two men who worked at ABC at the time and later became high-ranking executives in the organization, the son of the head of the Greater St. Louis Bowling Association at the time, and some great bowlers who competed with and against Ray Orf.

The two major things missing from the story are the amount ABC paid Orf and the reason it paid him, as there was no copy of the settlement in his files, ABC executives who know why the settlement was agreed to are dead, and Ray and his wife never told their kids the terms or conditions of the settlement, including why ABC settled, Rich and Steve said.

This story isn’t an effort to re-litigate the case, as that isn’t possible anymore, and it’s essentially pointless since anyone who bowls at a high level knows that whatever the lane conditions, Orf’s 890 with a Brunswick BLACK BEAUTY hard rubber ball and Allison’s 900 with a Columbia 300 YELLOW DOT polyester ball both are superior to any series shot in the modern era of high-tech bowling balls and no real rules on lane conditions.

This is simply an effort to tell the story of an important event in bowling history that is not nearly as well known as Allison’s 900, and perhaps shed light on why Orf gained a settlement from ABC.

* * *

Much like Allison, Ray Orf was a great bowler with achievements far beyond his famous series.

A stylish and powerful right-hander, Orf won the PBA All-American Classic on July 22, 1962 for his lone PBA Tour title, cashed in nine of the 18 PBA Tour tournaments he competed in that year, and won the 1974 PBA National Resident Pro Championship to earn a second berth in the Firestone Tournament of Champions. In his first Firestone, he finished fourth in a year they only took three players for the TV finals instead of the usual five, and in the second more than a decade after he competed full time on the PBA Tour he finished eighth.

Orf also amassed six PBA Regional titles, and had several close calls trying to win an Eagle at the ABC Tournament (now the USBC Open Championships).

Several videos of Ray Orf bowling during his heyday are posted at the website for Ray Orf’s Pro Shop.

Three PBA Tour champions who bowled against Orf said he would have won many more PBA Tour titles if he had made that his career, but his sons and others said the lifestyle was not to his liking.

Steve Wunderlich, a 3-time PBA Tour champion from St. Louis, had seen Ray Orf bowl but didn’t get to know him until Orf drafted him to be on his team in the resurrection of the St. Louis Masters Traveling League in the early 1980s.

“Honestly, this is not blowing any smoke,” Wunderlich said. “I believe Ray is the second or third best bowler I ever saw. He was a huge man. He was Babe Ruth-like. He was a 55-gallon drum on skinny legs. And I always compared him to Marshall Holman. His ball hit the lane as smooth and it looked as effortless as Marshall. There was no muscle or force in his game whatsoever. It was a thing of beauty. And it was high power back when that didn’t really exist.”

Wunderlich noted that the early 1980s still was the heyday of St. Louis bowling and the league was filled with PBA Tour and PBA Regional champions — the Burtons, the Webers, Randy Lightfoot, Rowdy Morrow, Ron Williams, Leroy Bornhop, Randy Johnson, Steve Giljum, and more.

Wunderlich recalled one low-scoring night at Crestwood Bowl when Orf blasted 760 and next highest series all of that great talent could muster was around 620.

“Crestwood Bowl was notorious,” Wunderlich said. “It felt like you were bowling against 10-pound pins. He was making them look like toothpicks. I left like three 8-10s and a 5-7 that night. (Orf) was a thing of beauty to watch. I was just in awe. 

“I truly believe that if he had (stayed) on Tour, there is no question that he would have won 20 titles and he might have won 50.” 

Ray Bluth is a St. Louis legend who was a member of the famed Budweisers, won three PBA Tour titles and was elected to the USBC Hall of Fame in 1973.

Now in his 90s, Bluth was sharp as a tack when I interviewed him in 2019 and he recalled Orf subbing for the Budweisers.

“Ray was a great bowler,” Bluth said. “He didn’t travel that much. I think he was more of a homebody. He could have been a great bowler on a great team.”

Barry Asher, a PBA Hall of Famer with 10 titles, was 15 in 1962 when Orf was on the PBA Tour and he got to see him at a stop in his native California.

Asher lit up when asked about Orf: “I could never picture myself throwing the ball as good as Ray Orf. Period! I could never, ever.” 

* * *

Ray Orf was 26 when he became manager of Western Bowl in 1967, moving up from assistant manager when Don McClaren left as manager and bought into Village Bowl across the Mississippi River in Cahokia, Illinois. 

McClaren, who had been a member of the famed Budweisers team, later served as PBA Midwest Region director and was a staunch supporter of Orf’s efforts to secure ABC recognition of his 890. He was working on a book about Orf's 890 when Allison shot 900, and that apparently ended the literary effort.

Orf remained as manager of Western Bowl until 1976, when he opened Ray Orf’s Pro Shop, which Rich Orf still runs today.

In the 5-year period from when Orf took over as manager to the morning he shot 890, the center saw just four perfect games (one by Dick Weber), two 298 games, and zero 800 series, with only 11 series above 750, according to his sons and news reports.

The oiling and lane maintenance procedures that had been developed under McClaren never changed during this time, and all of the honor scores were sanctioned by ABC based on inspections by local association officials, according to his sons and news reports.

On Feb. 6, 1972, Ray Orf got home from closing Western Bowl about 3 a.m. and was up at 7 a.m., which almost led to the 890 never happening. 

Ray tried to get his wife Sandy to bowl with Rich, who was 7 at the time, in the Mini Mixed League that day, but Sandy was pregnant with their daughter Diana and not feeling well.

“Pops did not want to bowl but my mom just found out she was pregnant and back then the doctors did not want women bowling even though she had no complications,” Rich Orf said, adding that normally his parents rotated bowling with him.

“He didn’t want to bowl the morning he shot 890 because he was exhausted,” Steve Orf added. “He pleaded with my mom and wanted her to bowl with Rich instead. So, if pop would have had his way, he wouldn’t have even bowled that morning.”

It’s hard to describe how even more unlikely an 890 was in that era compared to today, when there have been 30-plus 900 series and top players routinely fire dozens of perfect games and 800 series: Even with his formidable skills, prior to his 890, Ray Orf had only six sanctioned perfect games and a high series of 806.

After hustling around the center that morning, Ray Orf had time for one shadow ball on each lane before starting with the 10-pin and spare, then following with a 35-bagger.

He would later tell John Archibald of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that none of his shots crossed over, “but in each game I had some pleasant surprises. The pins were falling all over, no matter what kind of ball I’d throw.

In the third frame of the final game, he thought he was going to leave a 2-4-5 before a “pin came off the sideboard and knocked them down somehow,” he told Archibald. “All the rest of my hits that game were solid.”

“I didn’t really know what was happening until the sixth frame of the last game,” Orf told Denny Dressman of the Cincinnati Enquirer shortly after his 890. “Someone mentioned to me that I had a chance for the world record. I started to get a little tight, but the kids took care of that.”

Orf explained that the hubbub of having the children bowling in the league helped distract and relax him.

“Believe me, if it hadn’t been in a league of that sort, there’s no way I could ever have done anything like that,” Orf told Dressman during a trip to the Hoinke Classic. “When you start a string of strikes on the pro tour or in an adult league, a hush falls over the place and everybody starts watching you. The pressure really builds.

“But when you bowl with kids, there’s always some noise. They didn’t even know what was going on; they were totally unimpressed. They kept making noise and I stayed loose. It was a very relaxed atmosphere.”

Rich Orf, who was averaging 98, totaled 337 (119-120-98) that day, and his dad told the Enquirer that he was “really pulling for him more than I was thinking about my own game.”

Ray told Bowlers Journal in November 1981 that after he got the first strike of the 10^th frame of his final game, “A fellow next to me said, ‘One more.’ And I said, ‘No, I need two more,’ because I was thinking about another 300 game. After I got the second one, though, it suddenly struck me what he was talking about.”

Needing a 7-count for the record, “The last ball was very shaky. I barely tapped the head pin and everything flew off the wall to take out the bucket for my second 300 and 890.”

Ray Orf’s joy would not last long.

* * *

Ray Orf told Bowlers Journal in 1981 that after his 890, it took him an hour to reach long-time Greater St. Louis Bowling Association secretary Cliff Leeker, but Leeker didn’t come out to check the lanes as was the association’s duty.

“He (Leeker) called me at home that night,” Orf told Bowlers Journal, “and told me that a representative from Milwaukee (ABC headquarters) would be flying in the next day, Monday to check them. When I asked why he couldn’t check them himself, he said Milwaukee told him not to do anything, that they would check them.”

However, court documents in Orf’s lawsuit against ABC state that Leeker did come out to Western Bowl on that Sunday, though he was unable to check lanes 21-22 because there were bowlers using them.

But Rich Orf said that even though he was only 7, he remembers Leeker checking the lanes shortly after his dad shot the 890 that day, and that he recently checked with a friend who also bowled in the league that day and was 15 at the time and he “remembers Cliff checking the lanes also.”

Leeker told Chuck Pezzano in a story in the Sporting News in April 1972 that “I saw no reason why the score should not be recognized. Those lanes were okay as far as I was concerned and I’ve been around this game for 20 years.”

But Pezzano’s story doesn’t specifically state that Leeker checked the lanes on the day Orf shot the 890.

Orf also told Bowlers Journal in 1981 that in the phone call with Leeker after his 890, “I asked about the lanes and he told me to go ahead with our normal maintenance procedures, which we did.”

That meant the lanes ABC’s Roger Tessman inspected had been bowled on and oiled since Orf’s score, making any data gathered in an inspection not specific to the actual conditions Orf bowled on. Perhaps this played into ABC’s decision to settle with Orf? (In Allison’s case, ABC’s inspection also took place the next day, but the lanes had not been conditioned or bowled on.)

“I’m a little surprised to learn that they told him to go ahead and redo the lanes,” said retired ABC/USBC executive Jack Mordini, who I interviewed in 2019 and again in 2020.

Mordini, who eventually became assistant executive director of ABC in 1997 and served as a vice president of USBC after it was formed in 2005 until his retirement in 2009, joined ABC in 1970 in membership services and was working in that department when Orf shot his 890.

“There was a requirement to pull the pins out of play to make sure that they were compliant,” Mordini said. “That requirement, of course, went away. So it’s entirely possible that back in the early ‘70s they didn’t have the requirement not to redress the lanes. A few years later the requirement was that the lanes had to be inspected within 24 hours and could not be redressed prior to the inspection. Someone would have to look through the rulebook and determine when that requirement was initiated by ABC.”

That requirement that the lanes had to be inspected within 24 hours and could not be redressed prior to the inspection was in place by the time of Allison’s 900.

Tessman, who was then manager of the ABC Rules Department and later became the head man of ABC, flew down the morning after Orf's 890 to conduct the inspection. Orf told Bowlers Journal that Tessman checked the lanes that afternoon, then came back after midnight and spent more than two more hours doing more checks.

“I have never seen any check take that long in all the years I had been managing,” Orf said. “I didn’t know what the hell he was doing. I don’t think he did either.”

Orf told Bowlers Journal that Tessman returned Tuesday morning and took him to lane 36 of the 36-lane center: “He did not feel there was enough oil on the outer five or six boards, but in no way did he say that he thought it was illegal. He just said the lanes were not oiled evenly all the way across. Which I agreed to, because I did not want them oiled evenly all the way across.”

There actually was no specific rule regarding lane dressing in 1971-72, just general rules for lane specifications. Here is a link to the entire “ABC Constitution Specifications and Rules: 1971-72,” courtesy of the International Bowling Museum and Hall of Fame, where staff will research and copy items for a fee.

There are four PDF pages attached to the bottom of this story from that rulebook that are the pertinent ones for approving centers and scores.

Article 7, Section 3, Subsections 2 and 3 are the key specifications Tessman would cite in his report:
2. The lane surfaces shall not be altered or conditioned to create a ball path or otherwise affect the course of the ball by the use of abrasives or any other materials or methods. (For example, and without intending any limitation of the rule, the resurfacer, owner or employees are specifically prohibited from creating grooves or tracks in the lane to form a continuous ball path even though within allowable surface tolerances.)
3. Any modification or adjustment of lane maintenance equipment to create the conditions described in item 2 is specifically prohibited.

There were no scientific measurements of lane oil at the time — just human judgment using visual, tactile and smear (by fingers) tests.

“At that time we didn’t have the lane analyzer,” Mordini said. “We didn’t have the tape readers. We didn’t have all those things that have historically been developed to measure the frictional characteristics of the lane surface. So it was just a visual, smear, and tactile test.

“Not only was the examination non-scientific compared to what we do today but certainly the means of applying dressing to the lanes in those days was much less scientific than what we have today, or have had for the last 25 years. They used to just use a fly sprayer, and they would clean the lanes as best they could.

“Those were the days when lane blocking using oil was really in its infancy. There were other methods that were used in order to fix lanes, if you want to call it that. One was to sand a groove in the lane. With shellac in the old days, you could see where the shellac had worn out and the players could play to that as a groove. And some people believe it or not, put a piece of horse hair or string to guide the ball to the pocket and then would lacquer it or shellac it in place.”

Mordini said the hair or string created a “block” that was “even better than oil, because once the ball hit up against that it could never cross over it.”

Lane machines like the Brunswick B-90 Orf used at Western Bowl were far removed from today’s machines that apply precise microliters of oil to each board.

Orf told Bowlers Journal that “The line was heavier on the twentieth board, blended out a little lighter to the fifteenth, a little lighter to the tenth, and lighter from there out to the gutter. Which was by the book. But when he told me he had to send the score with his report to the High Score Committee, which at that time was throwing out everything in sight, I felt I was in trouble.”

Because he had never had a score thrown out at Western, Orf told the magazine that he used the same maintenance procedures he always had between his 890 and Tessman’s inspections, and he showed Tessman his B-90 that featured the outer areas of the brush cut off, preventing oil from being applied to the outside boards.

According to Tessman’s lane inspection report that is in Orf’s files and also attached to the bottom of this story as a PDF, the lanes had received two coats of lacquer in the early hours of Wednesday, Feb. 2, 1972.

Western Bowl did its lane maintenance just once a day between 2 a.m. and 5 a.m., according to the report.

Orf told ABC that because of the high lineage of 65 to 80 games per lane per day, it was necessary to develop a dressing procedure which would provide a “bowlable” condition, and this is how he detailed it, according to the report:

• Lanes, gutters, gutter caps and mouldings (sic) are dusted daily.
• Twice a week dressing is applied with a hand spray from the 48 foot mark to within 5 feet of the foul line. Gun is held at waist level from 48 feet to 15 feet from foul line at which point it is lowered to knee level and held in this position until it is cut off within 5 feet of the foul line.

The lanes are then long buffed with a rotary machine in a four pass pattern down the right side to 48 feet across to the left side and forward to the foul line back down the left center to 48 feet and up the right center to the foul line.

• On days lanes are not hand sprayed (Mr. Orf acknowledges that this is generally 6 days a week because there is normally not enough time to hand spray and buff more than once a week), a Brunswick B-90 machine is used with settings to apply dressing from the foul line to 35 feet and buffed to the 45 foot mark.
• Lanes are chlorinated on a monthly basis. (Note: Chlorinated refers to cleaning with a solvent I recall using in the 1970s.)

According to the report, Orf told ABC the bristles on the transfer brush of the B-90 had been cut off 9 inches at each end, to prevent a build-up of dressing on the right and left outside 9 boards.

After the lacquer coating was applied the prior Wednesday, the lanes were hand sprayed and buffed for Thursday’s leagues, and then only the B-90 machine was used after that up to Orf’s 890 the following Sunday.

Other inspections also were done, including checking the pins, which weighed between 3 pounds, 3½ ounces to 3 pounds, 5½ ounces.

Interestingly, Rich and Steve Orf said their father told them the BLACK BEAUTY ball he shot the 890 with was never checked by ABC. This was just before the era of the soaker and the beginning of ball hardness rules, but there were limits on circumference of a ball and weights: 16 pounds total, 3 ounces top or bottom, 1 ounce side and finger/thumb.

Tessman reported that in examining lanes 21-22 and several other pairs in the center “the first 13 boards from the right gutter were nearly dry with only a trace of dressing evident. There was a light film on the 14^th through the 17^th boards, a heavy concentration on the 18^th through the 29^th boards and a minimal amount on the 30^th through 42^nd boards to a point approximately 45 feet from the foul line.”

(Tessman also found a depression in excess of .040 in the lane surface, and for his return inspection after midnight that Orf complained took so long he was accompanied by Verne Santens, the president and eventual owner of the resurfacing firm Celucoat that worked on Western Bowl. The determination is that the readings were based on the edge boards being high, and did not “establish a pattern which could be looked upon as an attempt to create a path to the pocket through the use of abrasives in the resurfacing process.”)

In the meeting on Tuesday, Tessman cited Article 7, Section 3, Subsections 2 and 3 in advising Orf that due to the cut brush on the lane machine and the resulting dressing distribution it probably would be necessary to refer the score to the ABC High Score and Awards Review Committee.

“This apparently startled him,” Tessman wrote, “and he advised that while he was surprised to find the outside 12 to 13 boards as dry as they were when we inspected the lanes, he did not feel that the lanes were ‘blocked’ when inspected or when his scores were bowled. He indicated that it was not his intention or desire to create a ‘block.’ ”

On hand for the inspection Monday and the meeting Tuesday were Leeker and Greater St Louis Association President Edward Sweeney Sr.

Among the ABC officials who read Tessman’s report was Burt Kellerman, who otherwise wasn’t involved in handling Orf’s 890 but was the ABC official who flew out to check the lanes Allison rolled 900 on.

Kellerman started at ABC in 1964 as a field representative and worked the ABC Tournament every year, later becoming assistant tournament manager before moving into the resource department after Ken Hurley took over the top spot of Executive Secretary-Treasurer from Al Matzelle, who succeeded long-time leader Frank Baker and was the head man from 1972-77. Hurley was head man from 1977-82, and was succeeded by Tessman. Kellerman served as Tessman’s No. 2 until retiring in 1989.

“I told him, ‘Roger, what you found and your recommendation is the same thing I would have recommended without even checking the lanes,’ ” Kellerman said in a 2019 interview. “His report was very concise and accurate and it was a tough decision.”

Orf told Bowlers Journal in 1981 that he had “nothing but respect for Tessman,” who he called “an honorable man.”

But he disagreed with Tessman’s report, writing in a letter to Baker that he felt his oil ratio was not above 2-to-1, “which you agree is legal.” And he said that “I know from experience with full brushes in a B-90 run on a daily basis, a terrible oil build-up on the outside of the lane occurs, providing an un-bowlable condition.”

“The ABC never did say the lanes were illegal,” Orf told John J. Archibald of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch a decade after his 890. “They said that because the brushes were cut in a certain way, they had to assume that the outside boards had less oil than those in the middle and this caused what is known in bowling as a ‘block.’

“I was honest with the ABC people. I could have removed the brushes and prepared the lanes strictly according to the book, but I felt I had nothing to hide.”

Archibald later reported that it is “common knowledge that numerous 300 games have been approved by the ABC’s local representatives at bowling centers in St. Louis where the short brushes are used.”

Orf told Archibald that he believed his B-90 machine was inspected only because his score was a world record.

“There are houses in the St. Louis area that make a deliberate effort to provide an illegal scoring condition, but the ABC approves scores there week after week,” Orf said. “There are three settings for the amount of oil distribution on the machines that prepare the lanes: low, medium and high. Mine has always been set at low, and any bowling proprietor will tell you that you cannot establish a ‘blocked’ condition with a low oil setting, no matter what kind of brushes you have.”

It was true that while Western Bowl didn’t have many honor scores, the St. Louis area was a hotbed of big scores, with Elvin Mesger long holding the record for 300s and 800s, and Barbara Thorberg setting the women’s season average record with 222 at Crest Bowl. (Mesger actually was from Sullivan, Missouri, about an hour southwest of St. Louis, but he bowled some of his honor scores in St. Louis.)

Wunderlich agreed that cut brushes on a B-90 lane machine were common in the area, but that far more was being done.

“Not only were there a lot of great bowlers but there were a lot of proprietors playing a lot of games with the lane conditions,” Wunderlich said. “There was a guy named Greg Campbell at Crest Bowl. He figured it all out: he was using two different kinds of lacquer. He did soft lacquer gutter to gutter and then he came back with a hard lacquer 10 to 10, so even when the oil disappeared they were still walled up. He rotated the pins I think once a month. He urethaned the side boards. He was doing everything.

“I remember the day I got a Shore-D, I went there. I was 16 and I didn’t know how to bowl yet. I got there at like 8:30 at night and started practicing. I bowled six games and averaged 240. I didn’t know what a wall was. I didn’t know how to use oil.

“There were a couple of bowling centers in St. Louis that were known for scores. (Western Bowl) wasn’t one of them.”

If cut brushes were cheating in the climate of that day and the way the rules were then, it was less blatant cheating than those methods.

* * *

Shortly after the inspections at Western Bowl after his 890, Orf, McClaren and Santens went to Milwaukee to meet with ABC officials Baker, Tessman, Matzelle, and Ken Hurley, who was Rules Department Manager.

Two days after that meeting, Baker informed Orf that his score would be referred to the ABC High Score and Awards Committee.

Orf’s appeal to the Committee on March 19, 1972 failed, as did a final special appeal, making his 890 the first world record score ever denied. (Allison's 900 would be the second.)

Orf told Bowlers Journal in 1981 that he “felt that there had been a predetermined decision after being in the (Committee) room for five minutes. Every time I tried to talk, I really felt they weren’t listening.”

Orf told the magazine that one of the members of the Committee told him privately that “I feel sorry for you. You did this at the wrong time,” referencing the heightened scrutiny over lane dressing and award scores at the time.

If that was true, Mordini wasn’t in on it.

“I was somewhat of a neophyte at that time but I never saw any kinds of discussions along those lines,” Mordini said. “We weren’t looking to draw a line in the sand or to make an example. The rules were what they were. They were established by our delegates. Our responsibility as a staff was just to uphold those rules. We weren’t trying to send any kind of a message. We would much rather have approved those scores than rejected them. When (Jeremy) Sonnenfeld shot his 900 (in 1997, the first approved by ABC), everybody celebrated the fact that it finally had been done within the guidelines of the rules of the organization.”

The Committee announcement said Orf’s 890 lanes had been “improperly conditioned through an inadvertently unaccepted distribution of dressing,” Pezzano reported in the April 1972 story in The Sporting News.

In an April letter from Baker to Orf’s attorney, James D. Cullen, Baker stated that the one spray-gun-and-buffer treatment after the recoating followed by the use of the B-90 with cut brushes prior to the 890 “prompted all of us from ABC to observe that the combination … was bound to create the dry condition on the outside boards and build-up of dressing on the center portion of the lane.”

The obvious question is whether the lanes would have been acceptable to Tessman and ABC after more than the single post-lacquering spray and buffing. If not, presumably the other scores at Western also would have been tossed had Tessman inspected them instead of Leeker or other local association officials. But if so, Orf simply was a victim of bad timing and an atypical, unintentionally illegal condition with his 890.

Mordini said it’s possible the re-coating could have been a factor, but even without it, if a score was shot after “two or potentially three days when he wouldn’t be cross wiping, it’s entirely possible that there could have been a buildup of dressing in the center of the lane beyond the specifications that we had.”

All of this may seem quaint or comical or trivial in light of what league bowling has become, but it was very serious in 1972, especially considering that Orf managed Western Bowl.

Orf certainly was not appeased by the use of the word “inadvertently,” as he told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that “The ABC has labeled me a cheat. They have not heard the last of this. How can I face my customers after this? How can I face my wife and kid? Ray Orf, the Cheat!”

Bluth said simply that Orf “got screwed! I don’t think he was a cheater at all.”

“My dad was spoken about as a cheater many times, because he was the manager of the bowling center where the score was shot,” Steve Orf said. “That’s what really bothered my father.

“Pops would always tell us, ‘Who’s going to shoot an 800 series without a little bit of help?’ It wasn’t a graveyard. But in the Bowlers Journal article you’ll read where he says. ‘I’ll go to my grave believing that my lanes were not blocked,’ and he did.”

* * *

Ultimately, Ray Orf hired the St. Louis law firm Cullen was part of to represent him for a $4,000 retainer and 50% of whatever he might win in a case against ABC.

The lawsuit charged that ABC’s ruling was “made in bad faith and in a capricious, arbitrary and unreasonable manner.” Orf sought recognition of his 890 and damages of $225,000, or damages of $500,000 without recognition.

An original rough draft of the lawsuit — the files don’t have an actual final copy — is attached to the bottom of this story as a PDF, with point 5 missing.

Orf eventually reached a settlement with ABC that included an undisclosed payment.

A joint news release put out by ABC and Orf included statements reiterating that the lane conditions were “inadvertently not in compliance with ABC specifications,” that “ABC has never questioned the integrity of Mr. Orf,” that Orf did not do the lanes, and that “This rejection should not reflect unfavorably against Mr. Orf as to his bowling ability or personal integrity.”

The release is attached to the bottom of this story as a PDF.

Both Mordini and Kellerman said they had no knowledge of a settlement, though Mordini said that “The scuttlebutt that I had heard was that they agreed to cover his attorney’s fees up to that time.”

Orf’s sons said the 890 was not ever brought up at the family home because it was such a sore spot with their father.

“The only time anything was ever said within the family pertained to a new car that my father bought around 1975,” Steve Orf said. “It was the only new car that my father had purchased up to that point in his life. He could not afford anything but used vehicles. … I remember my mother saying on occasion that this car was all dad had to show from his ordeal with the ABC.”

Ironically, the Ford LTD turned out to be a lemon that went through two transmissions within a year and had all kinds of other issues, Steve Orf said, adding that his dad traded it in for a used vehicle as soon as the warranty expired.

A few weeks before his 890, a 298 had been shot and approved at Western Bowl, something Orf in a 1982 interview told Archibald “would have been a big point if we had gone to court. But I had to settle. It was costing me $50 an hour for attorneys’ fees, and the ABC knew I couldn’t afford that. No reputable law firm was willing to take the case on a contingent basis, so I had to compromise.”

Steve Orf said his dad talked about how rough the financial pressure was in owing the law firm $2,900 after paying $1,100.

“Financially he couldn’t afford it,” Steve Orf said of the legal fight. “When they offered him the settlement it was almost to the point where he had to take it.”

Beyond his reputation, Orf put such a high value on his lawsuit in part because the rejection of the 890 may have cost him a lucrative contract with Brunswick to have a ball named after him, his kids said.

“(Don) Carter signed a $1 million contract with Ebonite — the first person in any sport to sign a contract for $1 million,” Steve Orf said. “Dick (Weber) signed a deal with AMF for a ton of money. Shortly thereafter he built Dick Weber Lanes in Florissant.

“Brunswick was in pursuit of my father. He bowled that record with a Brunswick BLACK BEAUTY. They did not have a name on a bowling ball. Ebonite had Don Carter and AMF had Dick Weber. His name was going to be on a ball. That was already in conversation.

“Pops went on the Tour in ’62 and he was on Brunswick’s advisory staff … so you know he already had a pretty good relationship with them. … He told us they were going to offer him the deal to put his name on a ball.”

Not long after, Brunswick came out with the Judy Soutar Crown Jewel, the Johnny Petraglia LT-48, and the Tommy Hudson LT-51.

There also was value in appearances and his name in other business ventures, perhaps even a Ray Orf’s Lanes.

It also might have cost Orf a spot in the national Hall of Fame — Brandt was inducted in 1960 with arguably less of a record than Orf beyond their big series.

The terms of the settlement that prohibited either side from talking publicly about it nearly led to Orf suing for a breach of settlement and slander after Hall of Famer Andy Varipapa said during an appearance on KMOX-TV in St. Louis that “Mr. (Frank) Baker told me he caught him (Orf) cheating on the lane dressing,” Archibald reported in the Post-Dispatch.

Orf told Archibald he wanted to “get to the bottom of it. I want to know if Mr. Baker really told Varipapa I was cheating. I’ve kept my part of the bargain, but it sounds like the ABC may not have.”

But the law firm that represented Orf advised him that the prospects of winning the case were not good, and would take it only for $50 per hour, not on a contingency basis. Orf could not afford that so he never pursued a lawsuit.

He did, however, get an apology from the Rex Golobic, president of the National Bowling Council, the agency Varipapa was representing in his appearance in St. Louis.

Golobic referenced an article by McClaren in the Missouri-Illinois Bowling News and wrote to Orf that “Mr. McClaren’s suggestion that the National Bowling Council apologize to you is a most reasonable proposal. I assure you that the National Bowling Council was totally unaware that this subject would ever come up and we are at a total loss as to why Andy would say such a thing. On behalf of the National Bowling Council, I very much regret that it occurred. It is our understanding that absolutely no responsibility was ever attributed to you when the American Bowling Congress did not accept your 890 series.”

* * *

There has long been a feeling in some circles that ABC protected Brandt’s 886 from being eclipsed until it couldn’t anymore as lane conditioning rules became too lenient.

Asher said he was aware of what he called “the good old boy rule that nobody breaks Allie Brandt’s record” and suspected ABC would not sanction Orf’s 890 or Allison’s 900 when they were shot.

“What was aggravating at the time was that all scores were sanctioned until you did something special,” Asher said. “When Glenn shot 900 I could have told you they weren’t going to sanction it. I knew it.”

Rich Orf said that when Allison’s 900 was rejected “I think that was a relief for my father because it was like, ‘OK, now I know it’s not personal.’ somebody with the ABC was protecting that record for Allie Brandt.”

Kellerman and Mordini both denied that ABC protected Brandt’s record — or any record.

“Records are made to be broken,” Kellerman said. “We didn’t protect anybody’s score.  We made our decisions based on the facts and the rules as we knew them at that time.”

There certainly was no joy in rejecting scores — only grief, added Kellerman, now in his 90s and living at Harbor Village Senior Community in the Milwaukee area.

“We were sued eight or nine times over score rejections, not only from the pros but from average bowlers too who thought they should have gotten their awards,” he said.

“They were difficult decisions to make but they weren’t made capriciously or arbitrarily. They were based on the facts as best we could determine them. And the bowlers all had a voice at the time.”

Mordini said ABC wasn’t “trying to protect anybody. It was just that we were trying to validate scores to uphold the integrity of the sport. Nobody was pleased to have to reject that score (890). They gave him the opportunity to appeal it to the high score committee. Unfortunately for Ray, they upheld the original decision to reject it. But it wasn’t anything that ABC did with any glee or with any malice to try and protect Allie Brandt.

“Some of the people on the outside think that the ABC enjoyed rejecting scores. We really did not. We hated it for obvious reasons. These people are our members. It creates a lot of bad will with the proprietor and with everybody else. … That’s one of the reasons why (Tessman’s successor) Darold (Dobs) started to pull back the inspection process and make things — I don’t want to say looser — but to change the potential that a score would be rejected. 

“Nobody likes to have to reject a score. We knew that there would probably be a lawsuit. None of that is good for the game. The hubbub was that we need to examine this score and see what we find and hopefully, if we can approve it, we can approve it and if we can’t it’s our responsibility to maintain the integrity of the sport so we have to do what we have to do.”

Brandt, who died a few months before Allison slammed his 900, told Ken Blankenship of the St. Petersburg Times in November 1972 that his 886 didn’t generate much enthusiasm due to it coming during the Great Depression.

“Why, right now I’m getting more attention about it than when I rolled it,” Brandt said.

Blankenship wrote that when Brandt was asked how closely the lanes were checked after his 886, he “skirted the question, delving more into the publicity comparisons.”

But Mordini said when Brandt shot the 886, there was no examination of the lanes, though the pins may have been looked at.

The 886 was shot in the era of pinboys, which is something that often raised suspicions with big scores since pinboys were known to knock over pins for bowlers. I heard many stories along those lines from men like Dick Weber, but I never heard any specific allegations regarding Brandt’s 886.

The diminutive Brandt, a PBA charter member who once finished second in the BPAA All-Star (the forerunner to the U.S. Open) and was an All-American in 1946-47 (but not the year he shot 886), became friends with Orf through the PBA Tour in the early 1960s.

Orf told Bowlers Journal that Brandt was “a fine man and a great bowler” and his sons said the two remained friends after Orf’s 890.

Bluth competed against Brandt and said he was a “second arrow shooter … pretty accurate and good speed control.” 

* * *

There also are many knowledgeable observers who think the rejection of Orf’s 890 and especially Allison’s 900 damaged bowling because they meant the record and the first 900 didn’t belong to all-time greats who could have helped bowling gain positive coverage at a time when bowling was much bigger and the major media paid more attention to the sport.

Instead the focus of stories was on stars having their scores rejected for alleged cheating they disputed.

Sonnenfeld, who rolled that first sanctioned 900 in 1997, is a highly regarded player who won a team all-events Eagle at the ABC Tournament in 2001. But he’s not a Hall of Famer like Allison or a PBA Tour champion with the stature of Orf.

And this doesn’t even take into account the differences in ball technology and lane condition rules from 1972 and 1982 to 1997 and today.

“I believe those two scores being turned down are the biggest travesties in the game,” Wunderlich said of Orf’s 890 and Allison’s 900. “Not only were they bowled in environments where they weren’t a dime a dozen, but if you knew Ray, he was a quiet Dick Weber. He was just that nice a guy. Everybody liked Ray. And he could have been a great spokesman for the game.

“And, I would argue, only to be outdone by Glenn Allison because he had more charisma. Glenn was just this humble guy that went around and did his business, real soft-spoken but with a lot of personality. Can you imagine Glenn Allison on The Tonight Show? How much fun he could have been and how much he could have done for the game? Ray wouldn’t have been near as charismatic in that environment, but he certainly would have been a great representative for the sport.”

It’s a fair argument that Allison is more of a legend for having his 900 rejected and becoming a cause célèbre.

Orf didn’t have that pleasure, at least not after Allison’s 900.

Mordini said he doesn’t wish Orf’s 890 and Allison’s 900 “had been passed,” but he does wish they “could have been passed.”

“You wouldn’t have an article to write, unfortunately," Mordini said, "but there wouldn’t have been all the hubbub and unhappiness and the bad press and the animosity in some cases between proprietors and the governing organization. If we could have done away with the whole issue of lane dressing and denying of scores and things of that nature, the relationship between the proprietors and the governing body would have been a lot better than it was in those days.”

Mordini remembers that when he got to work on Feb. 7, 1972, there was “quite a hubbub” at ABC Headquarters, which also would be the case in 1982 after Allison’s 900 and 1997 after Sonnenfeld’s 900.

“As a bowler, I think you’ve got to rejoice in that like anything that happens in sport when a record gets broken,” he said. “The caveat, of course, is that it complies with the then-existing rules. So everybody’s first reaction is, ‘Congratulations. Well done!’ Unfortunately, we were in a time and a place where scores had to be rejected. As I said, it was not fun for anybody.”

* * *

Leeker’s role — or lack thereof — in the 890 also seems like it could have played a part in ABC’s agreement to settle with Orf.

Orf’s court documents state that ABC rules “place the sole responsibility for investigating a high score on their local affiliate and not a staff member of the American Bowling Congress.”

Article 7, Section 1 does reference lane inspection by the local association secretary or an appointed representative, but that appears to be in reference to sanctioning the center, not inspecting after scores. Article 7, Section 1 is attached to the bottom of this story as a PDF.

Kellerman said the local association did check the lanes after Allison’s 900 and his trip was for verification.

“I was in Chicago with my wife,” he recalled. “We went to see Yul Brynner in ‘The King and I’ and I got the call from Roger Tessman and he told me to get to O’Hare and fly out there. What happened there is that the local association made the usual inspection and found what in their opinion did not meet our requirements. So that’s why I went out there: to verify their findings or not. And unfortunately, they did not meet the ABC requirements.”

For what it’s worth, USBC Hall of Famer John Wilcox rolled an 885 — a pin shy of Brandt’s record — later in 1972 that was sanctioned without ABC officials making a trip to inspect the lanes.

And local officials had handled inspections after two other record scores in St. Louis: the Budweisers’ 3,858 in 1958, and the 1,614 doubles score by Nelson Burton Jr. and Billy Walden in 1970.

And while Leeker told Pezzano that “I saw no reason why the score should not be recognized,” in depositions for Orf’s lawsuit, he aligned himself with ABC’s rejection of the score, according to Orf’s sons. (Leeker’s testimony isn’t referenced in any of the court papers in Orf’s files.)

The sons said that after he retired as St. Louis Association secretary and Allison had rolled his 900, Leeker came to Ray Orf’s Pro Shop and apologized to Ray for not siding with him.

Leeker “broke down and said, ‘Ray, I’m sorry I didn’t team up with you.’ ” Rich Orf said.

The implication of that is that “if the (ABC) home office doesn’t come into town that score is approved,” Rich Orf said.

Cliff Leeker Jr., who was 68 when I interviewed him last year, said his father did talk to him about Orf’s 890 before he died in 1998, but he didn’t recall there being anything specific about what happened right after the score was shot.

Leeker Jr. said he never heard his dad express any negative sentiments about ABC taking over the inspection of the 890 or disagreeing with ABC’s rejection of it.

“I never heard anything about that,” said Leeker, who back in those days helped on lane inspections for the association during the summer, taking on some of the tougher physical tasks for older association officials.

And Leeker Jr. said he didn’t think his dad would have been vulnerable to pressure from ABC to support its stance if he didn’t agree with it.

“He wasn’t making a lot of money” as association secretary, Leeker said. “And he was already retired from the Post Office, so I don’t think it would have hurt him too much if they would have forced him out anyway. I don’t remember. I think he just felt bad for Ray, because I know that he liked Ray a lot. But that doesn’t mean he would ever lie for him. I know that. He felt the lanes were OK and I don’t know why the ABC didn’t want it to be passed.”

Leeker Jr. said he still can picture in his mind a newspaper story immediately after Orf’s 890 that featured a picture of “Ray sitting at home in like a lounge chair with this huge grin on his face.” And he said he had “no doubt that Ray could bowl an 890 even if the lanes weren’t, as the ABC determined, blocked or whatever. Ray was just too good of a bowler.”

Leeker Jr. noted that Orf was honest with ABC about Western Bowl’s lane maintenance procedures: “He wasn’t trying to hide anything. He didn’t think he was blocking the lanes. The guy from the ABC obviously felt he was.

“If he did block the lanes on purpose, once you’ve bowled 890 wouldn’t you have changed them? That shows that he felt that everything was on the up and up.”

At any rate, Orf’s sons said once Allison had shot 900, their dad didn’t care anymore as he no longer was the record-holder in his mind.

And Ray Orf held no grudge against Leeker, though Rich Orf said their grandmother “laid into (Leeker) and told him how guilty he should feel,” when he came to the pro shop to apologize.

“My dad didn’t hate him,” Steve Orf said. “My dad shook his hand. They got along fine.”

* * *

On Sept. 26, 1985, at Clarkston's Lancer Lanes in Clarkson, Idaho, left-hander Terry Stricker fired 890 (300-300-290) to again break Brandt's record, but his score also was not approved due to lane dressing violations on the right side, Stricker asserted in this story. (I don't have any official information).

However, since it came after Allison's 900 it didn't get near the publicity, and I had forgotten about it until former USBC CEO Roger Dalkin reminded me of it after reading this story on Orf's 890. Stricker's career highlight was winning $100,000 for finishing second in the 1984 High Roller.

Then short oil was adopted and the race to the bottom with lane conditioning rules began, leading to the 3-unit rule that reactive resin balls rendered essentially meaningless and that stood for decades until USBC eliminated it last year.

Pat Landry tied Brandt’s record in 1988 with 886, and Tom Jordan finally officially beat it with a sanctioned 899 in 1989.

With the relaxed lane conditioning rules, there was little question both scores would be passed.

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(Note: I owe a huge thank you to all who are quoted in this story — and a few who offered private advice — for their help and patience in enduring my repeated pestering to clarify details and make sure this story is as accurate as possible. In addition, bowling historian Eric Hartman was an invaluable fact-checker and resource, PBA50 Tour player and Orf family friend Father John Brockland a fact-checker and transcriber, and the International Bowling Museum and Hall of Fame enabled me to purchase photographs of the 1971-72 rulebook.)