NORTH CANTON —When a couple of senior players asked Charles “Butch” Ferrell how he was able to get Jim Pencak to bowl with him during this weekend’s PBA50-PBA60 Park Centre Lanes Central Region Doubles, the Painesville right-hander had a simple answer.
“All I did was ask him,” Ferrell said following Friday’s practice session for the event at Park Centre Lanes, laughing.
Pencak, a four-time PBA Tour champion, still holds the Professional Bowlers Association record with 16 straight televised match victories and an all-time winning percentage of 22-8 (73.3 percent) — all accomplished from 1989 through 1992.
Pencak, 64, hasn’t bowled a PBA event — either regional or Tour — in quite a while.
The former Parma right-hander has lived in Milton, Pa., for the past seven years and runs the sales department for Keystone Sporting Arms, creators of the Davey Crickett single shot .22 caliber youth rifle.
But he has remained active on the lanes, bowling in two leagues and also in a sport-shot league during the summer. His “significant other,” Sherri Hoffman, serves as senior tournament director for the Pennsylvania USBC.
“During the six weekends of that event I ended up subbing a lot of times for teams with injuries,” Pencak said. “I’ve bowled a bunch of events in Pennsylvania with (neighbor) Andy (Neuer). I still bowl the state tournament there and I go to nationals still with friends from Ohio.”
Neuer’s son, Anthony, is nicknamed the “Ginger Assassin” on the PBA Tour.
But how Pencak and Ferrell reconnected for this event was strange.
Pencak and Hoffman were on their way back to Pennsylvania from visiting in Ohio when they apparently passed Ferrell and his wife on Interstate 90.
“My phone goes off, and it’s Jim Pencak calling me. He just wanted to ask if that was me he had just passed,” Ferrell said. “We got to talking and I said that in a few months, there was a PBA50-60 doubles event coming up and was wondering if he was interested.
“He just said give him the date and he would see if he was available. A couple of days later he said he was able to bowl.”
It’s not the first time the two have teamed up in tournament play.
“We share information on the lanes all the time, and we’ve always been that way,” Pencak said. “We’ve tried to share it with others on our teams and they sometimes don’t see to understand the value of that.”
“If we see something and they don’t, why wouldn’t you try it if something’s not going well?” Ferrell asked.
Pencak joked that “Butch is costing me about $700 this weekend.”
“I didn’t even have any shirts with my same on it. So I had to get new shirts, the entry fee, the hotel. …,” Pencak laughed. “But I wouldn’t miss it for the world. I’m seeing a lot of guys that I’ve known my whole life really.”
Pencak has seen the Aulby39 oil pattern during his summer sport shot league, but said it won’t be much help.
“My home house has old lane panels and the typography is different,” Pencak said, adding contacts from Storm and 900 Global helped him get some new 14-pound equipment. “I can play with anybody from an age standpoint, but the difference comes in bowling on a house shot as opposed to this.
“I have to make crisper, better shots. It kind of takes me out of my game because I still hit the ball a little too hard although, as Buch says, I still throw it slow.”
So how do the pair plan to compete in the field of 26 teams this weekend? Ferrell answered that by hearing about another 50-and-older tournament going on Sunday.
“They tagged me about the Ohio Matchplay Tournament at Legacy (Coshocton). John Shreve said guys were signing up in case they didn’t make it to Sunday,” Ferrell said. “Well, we plan to make to Sunday. I guess I’ll go bowl if I don’t make it.”
Do people still come up to Pencak to talk about the old days, when he won three times in one year including in Cleveland and the PBA National in Toledo?
“They do in the age 30 somethings and older. The 20 somethings and less, not so much,” Pencaks laughed, talking about his 1989-90 run. “When they ran the old PBA classics, a lot of my shows were on there and on ESPN. They’re not there anymore.
“But you can see most of them still on YouTube. Those were some fun times.”
The pair hope to add to their fun this weekend.
NOTEBOOK
PRO-AM NIGHT: Park Centre held its second Dick Behra-Fred Smith Pro-Am Friday night with 64 bowlers taking the opportunity to bowl with the pros. Players bowled three 9-pin, no-tap games with three different pros on the tournament pattern.
THE FIELD: Twenty-six teams are set for Saturday’s 10 a.m. eight-game qualifying block for the event. The field will then be cut to the top eight for eight games of match play Sunday, which will include bonus pins for team and individual wins (super senior, senior). Total pinfall will determine the final standings. Sunday’s match play beings at 9 a.m.
PRO-AM SPONSORS: Sponsors for the pro-am include Ten Back Pro Shop, Howlin Bird, Chili’s, Key Bank, Sarchione Auto Group, MJ Miller, Bierly Litmann and Heighway Awards, with Special Olympians bowling free thanks to the sponsorships.
PAST CHAMPIONS: Brad Angelo, who finished second year ago with Tom Adcock, again is bowling with Bo Goergen after the pair won this event in 2021. Also back is PBA50 Player of the Year Troy Lint and Darryl Bower, who won the title in 2020. Defending champions Parker Bohn III and Sam Maccarone were unable to participate due to scheduling conflicts. Tom Carter, who has two wins in the event, is not participating.
NOTEBOOK: Admission both days for the event is free. … Another PBA member-nonmember event scheduled for Wabash Lanes in New Philadelphia this weekend was canceled several weeks ago. … The oldest pro-am participant was 93-year-old Akron right-hander Carl Frame, who also won a pro-am title when the PBA Tournament of Champions was held at AMF Riviera Lanes years ago. He threw a strike as people looked on following his introduction. … Proceeds from the pro-am will be used toward a college scholarship event in 2024. .. There were three no-tap 300 games shot during the pro-am, including Renae Burns, Shannon Jones and Nathan Sommers. Burns also topped the night with an 851 series, her other games being 278 and 273.