Pin Action: Small-Time Gangsters, High-Stakes, and the Teenage Hustler Who Became a Bowling Champion

The action of the title refers to “action bowling,” in which bettors gamble on head-to-head match-ups. Action bowling was most popular in New York City and the Northeast around the same time bowling was booming in the U.S.—the 1950s and ’60s—and, though it took place in the same alleys where families bowled, it was a late-night affair. Manzione, a native of Brooklyn, action bowling’s capitol, paints the scene of these late night battles and the hustlers, gangsters, murderers, gamblers, and characters, such as Joe the Kangaroo, Fish Face, Ox, and Bernie Bananas, who haunted these smoky alleys from dusk to dawn. While the mayhem and debauchery of action bowling is the central to the first part of the book, Manzione later turns his focus to Ernie Schlegel, a great bowler with a hot temper and a hustler’s spirit who tried to make it on the straight and narrow in the Professional Bowlers Association Tour. Manzione’s account of eccentric people, colorful places, and once-popular pro sport is a strike. (16 pages of color photos). (Nov.)