Skip to content

A town square for an unsquare town

redbankgreen

Standing for the vitality of Red Bank, its community, and the fun we have together.

HITTING THE POCKET WELL

Bowlboy1

Earlier this year, 39-year-old Billy K. Sims became the 50th bowler elected to the Monmouth County USBC Bowling Association Hall of Fame, a 73-year-old organization. A six-foot-five lefty who lives in the Oak Hill section of Middletown, Sims was county Bowler of the Year in 2001. He’s rolled 35 perfect games, 24 series of 800, and tallied 11-strikes-in-a-row 10 times.

We met up with Sims recently at Memory Lanes in Red Bank and watched him knock down our ten Human Bites questions without breaking a sweat.

What do you do for a living?
I’m a printer at a business forms company in Cranford.

Do you bowl for prize money?
Yeah, there’s pots and prize money in the leagues, stuff like that. Not a lot. Just enough to keep you going. If you bowl really well, depending on the league, you can walk out at the end of a night with a couple hundred bucks. You basically want to win enough to keep paying for it, so you don’t have any out-of-pocket money. That’s basically all I try to do.

I bowled one PBA stop like 10 years ago at Carolier. It was a lot of fun. You realize how good those guys really are.

I know people who can still describe in some detail the first time they entered a movie theater, or the first time they entered Yankee Stadium. Do you remember your first experience of walking into a bowling alley?
No, not at all. It was so long ago. It was probably when I was about five that my uncle took me. There were probably lots of cigarettes back then. Since I was 9, I’ve been bowling.

Are you a competitive guy?
Ugh. Yeah. Very competitive. Losing’s not bad. If I lose because of my own doing, I get mad at myself. But you can’t really get mad at anybody else. I second-guess myself a lot.

Do you dream about bowling?
No. No. Once I’m outside the bowling alley, I try not to think about it, because I am so competitive, I don’t want to think about it or even talk about it. Last year, I was in a bowling alley like four nights a week. It’s basically you get home from work, you shower, and you go bowling. It gets to be too much.

Strike

So I guess you don’t have bowling nightmares.
I have more nightmares about it than dreams. You get beat in a tournament, and you just relive it over and over again. But nothing major.

If you’re not watching someone bowl, can you tell if they hit a strike or a spare by the sound?
You can tell if they hit the pocket well. You can leave a lot of corner pins if you throw it well. But you can definitely tell if somebody throws it well. It’s a lot louder.

How much does your ball weigh?
Sixteen pounds, that’s the max. It’s got a good hook. People tell me I throw a big hook. That’s a good thing. As long as you can control it, that’s a good thing. What it does is create a better angle to hit the pokect. Bowling’s basically geometry. You just have to figure out angles to carry the corner pins. The corner pins are the tough ones. For righties it’s the ten pin, for lefties it’s the seven pin.

What are your goals as a bowler now?
Growing up, I wanted to shoot 300, and I wound up doing that by the time I was 20. Then it was to bowl 800 — that’s averaging 267 over three games; 800 is harder, because you have to bowl well over three games, even if you have a miss, whereas for a 300 you only have to bowl well for one game. Let’s see, then I won titles, then bowler of the year, and now the hall of fame. That was definitely a goal. It means a lot to me. It’s an honor, if there are only 50 people in it.

Now I just try to bowl with my friends in the tournaments and win titles. Other than that, I don’t really have goals.

Finally, which is more important, comfortable shoes or good food?
Look at the size of me! I’m going to have to say good food.

Email this story

Remember: Nothing makes a Red Bank friend happier than to hear "I saw you on Red Bank Green!"
redbankgreen Classics
Partyline
RAINBOW OVER RED BANK
Saturday, before and after the storm that rolled through town. (photo by Partyline contributor Thomas Doremus)    
Mini Ballers Bring the Heat at Fusion Basketball School
As the temperatures heat up, so does the competition in the mini baller clinic at Fusion School of Basketball. These little tykes are intens ...
DOZENS OF PLEIN AIR ARTISTS “PAINT RED BANK”
Plein air artists take over town for first ever "Paint Red Bank" event. (click to read)
RED BANK: SIGN ON ICONIC DANNY’S STEAK HOUSE COMES DOWN
The sign hanging from the shuttered Danny's Steak House comes down ten months after a manager reported Danny's Steakhouse would be back "bet ...
FOR YANKEES FANS, GOOD TRASH PICKIN’
A collection of framed photographs of Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Joe DiMaggio and other New York Yankees greats was placed curbside along with a ...
RED BANK: NEW HANDICAPPED PARKING, WEST SIDE MEETING PLANNED
New handicapped parking sign West Side advocate had pressed for is installed, with meeting planned to discuss other concerns. (click to read ...
SUNSET AT SUMMER’S START
Crazy sunset clouds shot from Monmouth Boat Club on the Friday evening at the start of Memorial Day weekend, the unofficial start of summer. ...
SIDEWALK GOES FROM WORST TO FIRST
P (photo by Brian Donohue) What had been, in our estimation – and apparently in the eyes of the several people who have emailed and te ...
RED BANK: PEERING FROM ON HIGH, ACROSS THE DECADES
Roofers on the Azalea Red Bank top off the project in the shadow of a sculpture depicting another generation of construction workers who toi ...
BRICK FACELIFT CONTINUES ON MONMOUTH STREET
A million-dollar brick sidwalk makeover of Monmouth Street in Red Bank continues.
JAY AND SILENT EAGLE
A very loud blue jay squawks at an indiferent bald eagle in a treetop alongside the Swimming River in Red Bank this week. (Partyline photo b ...
PIZZA LOVING SQUIRREL SPOTTED IN RED BANK
Pizza squirrel spotted in Red Bank. (click to read)
GET YOUR MA SOMETHIN’ NICE AT THE RED BANK FARMERS MARKET
It’s a beautiful and sunny Mother’s Day for the first instance of the farmer’s market, held every Sunday, beginning in May ...
SIGN? WHAT SIGN?
Folks in Red Bank Wednesday exercising their riparian rights to access tidal waters first encoded into Roman law in 500 AD and later adopted ...
FANTASTIC MR. FOX
Partyline contributor captures photo of backyard fox.
STRIPER RUN AT MARINE PARK
An angler pulls in a striped bass from the Marine Park bulkhead Tuesday evening. (photo by Partyline contributor Boris Kofman)  
COLD AS CANADA? CHECK.
A pair of goose sculptures propped atop an air conditioning unit on River Street in Red Bank.
SUNRISE OVER A GLASSY NAVESINK
Sunrise over the Navesink River, seen from NJ Transit Train 3320. (photo by Partyline contributor Karly Swaim)  
A BLAST FROM THE PAST
NJ Transit "heritage" locomotive makes an appearance at the Red Bank station.
RBFD SNUFFS OUT SMALL APARTMENT FIRE
A small fire that started in a light fixture at the Colony House apartments in Red Bank was quickly put out by members of the Red Band Volun ...