Candlepin Bowling is a fun sport to be enjoyed by all people of all ages.It can have its fierce but safe competition by the uniqueness of being 100% offence requiring no physical contact with your opponent.

This book I hope will be entertaining while being informative. It will not try to tell you how to bowl but it will point out some facts of the game that you may not have been aware of and thus help improve your performance.

Candlepin Bowling is probably the most exacting sport in which almost everyone can participate. "Ted" Williams once said that one of the most difficult accomplishments in sports was to hit a round ball with a round bat. No argument with that but I would like to add, putting a 4 1/2" diameter round ball weighing 2 lbs. 6 oz. into 10 round Candlepins with a total weight of 25 lbs. spaced 12" apart and knocking them all down is of equal difficulty.

The Ultimate: In Golf many players have scored a hole-in-one, in Ten-pin Bowling hundreds of bowlers have rolled a perfect 300 game, in Baseball, players have pitched no-hit, no-run games and many have hit bases loaded home-runs all reaching the ultimate in their specialized sports field. Now in Candlepins the ultimate, a "300 game" has never been attained and probably never will. The reasons for this goal being 99 44/100% unattainable is that the consistency of exactness required and variables encountered are next to impossible to harness over the 10 consecutive frames that constitute a string, at present (1999) the official high single is 245, set in 1984.

This book has been written in hopes of stimulating and/or renewing interest in Candlepin Bowling. It is aimed at you, the bowler with information to improve your game on your own. It should also project, especially to people outside of the sport, how intricate and demanding it is to consistently score about 100.

Candlepins, invented in 1890, can be a stronger game in the future with all out backing. The dedication and skill required to excel in Candlepins has seldom been explained, appreciated or recognized.

Hope your future is Well-Marked.

Jim Fairhurst