Our first inductee into the CANDLEPIN CORNER  " CYBER HALL OF FAME" is Christo Anton, proprietor of Big 20 lanes in Scarborough, Maine. Chris, as he is better known, has been involved in our game over 50 years!
  A man with great vision, he strove to standardize rules and playing conditions at a time when many houses had their own set of rules.  One of his greatest accomplishments was creating the WCBC Hall of fame in 1964 to honor the best in our sport.  In 1970 his peers honored him, against his own wishes, by inducting him into the hall of fame.  He became the youngest member at the age of 39.
  At the last hall of fame induction ceremony on Sunday, November 7th, 1999, Chris announced his retirement as chairman of the hall of fame committee, which he held for the past 35 years. He was also honored at the ceremonies with the president's cup for his outstanding service and contributions that have bettered the sport of candlepin bowling.
  We had a chance to talk to Chris this summer about his involvement in the candlepin world. We were treated to a great history lesson!

Chris Anton-  Well, my dad had two bowling centers in Biddeford.  I started bowling when I could barely walk. I remember going to the old Huntington 55 tournament when I was in the second or third grade I think. I never rolled a ball all through high school, but after high school we got into some junior events that the state set up and I got going from there.

Candlepin Corner-  We heard that you bowled against some TOUGH COMPETITION in your state tournament days. Please tell us about some of your toughest challengers.

Chris Anton-  I bowled in an era when Charlie Milan was really at his prime. There was Herbie McBride and Don Patchell from Maine too. It was an era When Joe Cawlina and Ronny Crowley bowled, along with Tony Baldinelli and Bruce Shampoux. I haven’t bowled for 22 years now though.
   Fortunately, I was second twice in the word singles. My partner and I finished second in the world doubles by 6 pins. State wise my partners and I won all the events back then, but I quit bowling a long time ago. I couldn’t be in the game and promote the game and chase around in tournaments all at the same time.

Candlepin Corner-You were a co founder of the WCBC in 1960. What goals did you have in mind when this was formed?

Chris Anton-  First was sanctioning of the lanes, because everyone had different specs. Second of all, we wanted to have rules and regulations that everyone would follow. I hate to say it, but it was a very mongrel game at the time. Those were the main motives we had, but we also wanted to organize a world tournament that we could all be proud of!
   One thing I would like to see come back is a monstrous world tournament with all the events. It used to be three weekends, we would go to Maine, Mass, or New Hampshire, and it was great! Those were the good times! Now we are trying to bring that back with singles competition in October here in Saco, Maine. The best male and female bowlers from each association will be congregating there, and we’ll come out with a champion. I think that is great! It’s a start!

Candlepin Corner-  You mentioned bowling was a mongrel game. What were the lane conditions like years ago?

Chris Anton-  Well, the gutters were real deep down the other end. There was nothing over the pins. I think the pinsetters are 28 inches over the plates now. There was nothing to stop the pins from flying out. Now the pins can go up and back and hit more pins as well as the ball. The pins can roll out of the gutter easier now. It does make a big difference now score wise. Back then if you rolled 1040 or1050, you bowled a pretty good game! Today if you don’t hit 1400, you don’t win! Another thing, back then, the pinboys removed all the gutter wood after every ball! The only wood left was the wood on the plate! Hey, some people used to soak the old wooden pins in water over night if they were going to bowl someone that threw a fastball, the pins would soften up and they would get an unfair advantage!

Candlepin Corner-  That brings us to another topic, the CANDLEPIN. You were involved in the evolution of the Garland pin. Could you tell us how that came about?

Chris Anton- Well, Garland Mfg. had a German plastic product that they could extrude through a tube and they talked to me and wondered if it a plastic pin might ever be worth getting into, I said yes of course! It may take some time to perfect it, but let’s get started so we could test it!
   I’ll tell you, we fought like mad to get the new plastic pins accepted. The leagues really moaned and groaned when we put them here on lane10 at first. They didn’t want to bowl on that pin and I told them they might as well get used to it, because that was the coming thing!
   You know, next to the pinsetter, that was the next best invention ever made! As operators we had to change the wooden pins every 2 to 3 months and it became very costly. Plus we had to shave the ends all the time. Then they came out with the plastic coated pins, which were ok for a while, but they broke up too.
   After the new pin came out, we ran a huge world tournament at Sandy’s [now Park Place Lanes]. Well, Massachusetts boycotted the whole tournament because they didn’t want to accept the new pin. It was the best thing with the new pin. When you bowled in a tournament on the old wooden pin, people had the toughest time the first weekend because the pins were new. By the third weekend the pins were well broken in and those people had an advantage! With the new pin, the condition never changed!

Candlepin Corner- You were also the driving force in creating the WCBC “Hall of Fame” in 1964. What was the inspiration that got you started and kept you so involved in this for the last 35 years?

Chris Anton-  Well, it’s simple, this sport was really not recognized enough! The newspapers at that time did a good job for us. There was a writer here, Vern Putney, who did a great job getting bowling in the papers. The Worcester Telegram was great. We did have some TV exposure, but many people looked at this game like it wasn’t a national game, that ten pins was the game that they kept hearing about.
     I personally felt that we had a lot of people in this game that deserved to be recognized for what they had done! These were men and women who broke the barriers on the lanes, The papers, sports writers, TV personalities, and alley operators that had really given of themselves to bring this game where it is now. I felt it would be great if we generated a hall of fame for them.
     I got a lot of support from the World Candlepin Bowling Council at the time. Each state put up so much money to cover the expenses, and that’s how it all got started.
  We used to have a monstrous awards night in Maine and we added the Hall of Fame dinner to that. We had about 300 to 350 people there at those dinners, and we had the inductions at the same time. A lot of people appreciated it too, the ones that had gone unrecognized for so many years.
   Hey, did you realize that we have more bowlers than golfers! Bowling was either the top or second nationally in participants. So why not recognize the best! After all ten pins and duckpins had a hall of fame, so who were we not to have one!

Candlepin Corner-Where is the Hall of Fame located today?

Chris Anton-Well, we had a location at the New England Sports Museum. Unfortunately we don’t have a site any more.

Candlepin Corner-We saw the site when it was open. It was very nice. There was a pinsetter display there, and the Hall of Fame names were on pillars .It was really something to see.

Chris Anton-Yeah it was! And it cost the industry a lot of money to have it go down the drain like that too!

Candlepin Corner-Do you think the display will ever return?

Chris Anton-We hope so. One member of the MBA has a vision of having a bowling center with the Hall of Fame in it, along with meeting rooms for the ICBA. It would be a joint venture with all the states contributing to it. It’s a great vision, now what we need is cooperation. I think it may materialize some day, who knows?

Candlepin Corner- Is the ICBA today’s version of the WCBC?

Chris Anton- Yes, it is. You see what happened with the World Candlepin Bowling Council was that it became very political. Maine had 3 votes, NH had 3 votes MASS had 6 votes; the Canadians weren’t involved yet at that time. So it became a real power struggle. MASS at the time wanted to control everything. Either you did it their way or they didn’t want to play! It was like the new candlepin, they didn’t like it so they boycotted it! So it caused a lot of friction and the WCBC broke up.
  The WCBC was what got involved with the Pro Tour. They were the ones who sanctioned it and supported it. We met with the Pro Tour one summer to set up guidelines that they accepted and we accepted and that’s how that all went.
  Because of a few levelheaded people, a candlepin bowling association was started which lasted a few years. And then Nick Genimatis, who was very instrumental out of NH, a few from MASS, as well as myself, decided to start easy and get the association cranked up again.
  We had our annual meeting in July and we had 68 operators there, and that was great. The ICBA is going to support the Hall of Fame; they will support the tournament in Saco, ME, in Oct. They support the rulebooks and records that come out every year. The ICBA has the “LEARN TO BOWL” school. There are videos out now for advertising. It’s a lot easier for one association doing it for everyone instead of everyone doing it themselves their own way. Plus it gets more expensive on your own.

Candlepin Corner- Is there anything big happening in the ICBA lately?

Chris Anton-Well, I’ll tell you, the best thing that happened in the last year or so was accepting Ralph Semb’s 245 single because that wasn’t right what happened to him! The lanes [Community Lanes] had been sanctioned, but because the lanes didn’t belong to the MBA, MASS wouldn’t accept the score. It was a legitimate match on the WNECA Pro Tour. They had the foul lights on and everything. I put a letter out saying as far as I was concerned That was a WORLD RECORD!

Candlepin Corner-Putting the rest of the candlepin world aside, how have you survived in this business yourself all of these years?

Chris Anton-Well 80 and 90 hour weeks are nothing around here. I start Sept 1st, and I don’t get out of here till June 1st. Heck, even Christmas, I’m here ½ a day! Most of us that own a small business have to do it. I was never home one night to help my kids with their homework.I managed to catch their sports activities though. I’d run to a basketball game and run back to work, or I’d run to a Saturday football game and run back to work.That was the problem with most alley operators, we just had to work so many hours.
  You know, when we first started here, bowling was only 30 cents a game! So really, how many employees could you hire?

Candlepin Corner-You mentioned your dad, Sofokli A. “Mike” Anton, another member of the Hall of Fame, at the beginning of our interview, could you tell us a little about him?

Chris Anton-Oh, my dad... he would have been 95 in a few weeks. He came over on a boat when he was 5 years old. He peddled bread and milk as a kid. He went to school and graduated from high school.
  My grandfather was the one that built the alley in Biddeford .He had a ten-lane house, and upstairs, he had a monstrous hall over the lanes that had boxing wrestling and roller skating. He even had a pool hall there too. That was his vision, and he couldn’t read, write, or speak a word of English!
  Then my dad took that over, and in 1939 he bought a two-story garage. The upstairs was wide open with no posts, so he put a bowling alley up there. That was actually the first modern bowling alley at the time. That was right before the war.
  In 1949 my dad bought this land here and he wanted to build a 20-lane center. He had the vision that all of America was going to be on wheels. He didn’t want to build in town because he knew people were going to want to get out of town to do things. People would eventually go out of town to eat and shop .Hey, look at the malls! Same with car lots! They are all out of town!
   Everyone thought this place was going to be a white elephant at first. I just got out of high school at the time, the Korean War just broke out and we couldn’t get the steel for this place because of the war. But we finally opened up and this is our 50th year! My dad always kept up with the times too. He was the first to require mandatory bowling shoes. We were the first in Maine to change over to the machines. We had them on one end at first, but we changed them all shortly after.  Hey did you know that we used to have ten pin and duckpin here too? We had all three games when the pin boys were still around. You could take your pick of what you wanted.
    My dad also started the first TV show in Maine. It ran for 13 years. It was a great show, highly watched. It was a great hour. You stayed on till you lost. I was the state champ at the time, so I started the first show on Oct.8th, 1960. I won the first 12 weeks, and then they took me off! Then they said if I qualified again I could win three, then they would put me in a pool and when the next guy would win three, we would bang heads with each other. It worked out good, you know.
   We even had a summer show at 11pm at night! You try bowling at 11pm sometime! Especially on LIVE TV too! Heck, it would be 11:45, and your opponent hadn’t even showed up yet! Oh yeah, it was really something back then!

Candlepin Corner-Now that sounds like a cool TV show to us! Speaking of bowling shows, we are down to one show in our area, WNDS channel 50. It is a very good show, but why are we running out of programming for our great game?

Chris Anton-Well, the problem is they claim the people watching the shows aren’t the ones buying the merchandise. You have to realize that channel 5 out did the Bruins, the Celtics, and the Red Sox! Tell me why somebody doesn’t want to buy a show!

Candlepin Corner-Do you see any changes happening in the sport today?

Chris Anton-Well the price of bowling is changing. We just can’t operate at prices set five years ago. Our costs are higher.
      One of the biggest things that worry me today is that no one is building any new alleys. I was just talking to Bill Bolton the other day; they had about 166 members in the MBA about 20 years ago. Now they are down to 58! That’s scary! Many sold out their properties for something other than bowling. The properties were worth more and owners wanted out.

Candlepin Corner-What do you think the biggest challenges are against the candlepin world?

Chris Anton-Well, the malls are a big part of it. But, do you know what the first thing was that hurt us? Professional football! We saw a 25% drop in business when they started televising football on Sundays. That was way back in the 50’s too!
   But today as far as league bowlers, the younger ones just don’t want to commit. There is too much for them to do. Heck, we have over 100 seniors here on Tuesday afternoons, and they never miss!

Candlepin Corner-Last question, what do you think Justin P. White, the inventer of our game, and Jack Monsey, the father of candlepins would think if they walked into a modern bowling alley and saw no pin boys, plastic pins, glow bowling, laser lights and loud music?

Chris Anton-I think it would be the same as any of the older people think about football, that players are throwing the ball too much now, or even baseball, whether the balls are juiced up.
   They would be thinking the same way, that it really wasn’t bowling any more. That this isn’t what they had in mind. But we all have to understand; we all have to roll with the times! That’s the way it is!
    I think they might be a bit heart broken, but I don’t think they had the vision of candlepin bowling being where it is today and doing the things it does.
    Back then, bowling was in basements, there was card games and gambling and cigar smoke everywhere. You guys weren’t even around yet!

We would like to thank Mr.Anton for taking time out of his busy schedule to chat about old times with us.
Candlepin Corner
 

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