Salt Lake Telegram | 1937-02-18 | Page 19 | Braatz Sets World Pin Mark with 33 of 36 Strike Hits

Braa tz Sets-World Mn Mark Cleveland Athlete Overcomes Fault inBackswing By RICHARD McCANN Special to The Telegram CLEVELAND, Feb. 18 You might say that Harvey Braats, who bowled over the sports world and 864 pins the other night for a new world three-game record, is as busy as a B. His life, you see. is full of bills, bowling and basketball. When he gets through with his daily work of handling freight rates and such for a. railroad here, Harvey hies himself to a bowling alley for two hours and then to a basketball court for two, or so, more. Plays Basketball Tall and slim, a jumps aeste tor two basketball teams and bowls In three pin leagues. On nights when he doesn't have anything to do, Mr. Braata, of course, bowl. Comparatively unknown tn tenpln circlea outside of Cleveland, young Mr. Braats is by no means a lucky flash-in-the-pan. He has been splattering pins around for seven years, getting better, bet-ter, as you can see, each year. This season his all-round average In all three leagues is a creditable 199, and only last week he banged out a game of 286 and a set of 714. yH u f : A ( xf ) A flv ! Tf -UP'--! tf I ,:.;'.: .I I. - i I eVK Bwnwjaw-anaw-nvaw enawswasaai awaws a His record of 364 pins, bettering the old mark of 354 set by Otto Stein of St. Louis, three) years ago, le expected to stand a long, long time. After all, it Is only M pins shy of a perfect 900. Most of his fellow Cleveland bowlers bowl-ers don't see how he does it. Braats hasn't got perfect form, they say. He lifU the baU too high on the backstroke. Lots of the boys have tried to correct this fault It would seem that their well-meant efforts were not only wasted, but quite unnecessary. Quiet modest Braatz, six feet two and weighing 170 pounde, is a natural nat-ural athlete, effortless in his movements. move-ments. He has an easy delivery and throws a medium-speed ball. He imparts a sweeping natural curve to the ball "I don't know why, either," says he, "'cause I could never throw a curve in baseball to speak of." Baseball? Does Mr. Braats play that too? "Oh, sure both baseball and soft-ball. soft-ball. Tm an outfielder." Embarrassing Curve Braats finds his bowling curve rather embarrassing at times. He can't throw a straight ball and when the pin In the last row over on the right-hand side the No. 10 pin Is left standing alone, Mr. Braata has to move far over to his left and heave the ball from there to over- Harvey Braats . . . who smashed the world's threc-gama bowling record by spilling $64 pin in Cleveland. How Braatz Set World Record FIRST GAME XXXXXXX XX 7 30 60 90 120 130 180 210 239 259 276 SECOND GAME XXXXXXXX'X XXX 30 60 90 120 ISO 180 210 240 270 300 THIRD GAME XXXX XXXXX X 30 60 90 120 150 180 210 240 288 1 288 Spare. come the hook. Sometimes it works and he gets the wood. But sometimes it doesn't and it costs him numerous spares. Nothing like that happened the other night, however, when he was smashing the world'a record. Hla fast-breaking hook was finding find-ing the head-pin all evening and he had more strikes than the auto Industry, banging out 31 strikes of a possible 38. Only one of these was what the bowlers call a "Brooklyn," meaning on the wrong aide. This occurred in the third frame of his last game. Twenty-two of his strikes cams In a row as he bowled a perfect 300 In his second game and went on to score 10 more consecutive strikes in the third and final game. He might have kept on going with his next two heaves, but his friends, realising he had smashed the record, leaped upon him and thumped his back and wrung his hand so vigorously vigor-ously that ha could hardly hold the 18-pound ball. But he held it well enough to collect a spare to end the evening. Braata is now looking forward to the forthcoming American Bowling congress tournament in New York City, where he wiU roll with the Nickel Plate company team. And, to be sure, the American Bowling congress is looking forward to him.