{"id":1256,"date":"2015-03-03T14:45:38","date_gmt":"2015-03-03T14:45:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/niemanstoryboard.org\/2015\/03\/03\/annotation-tuesday-michael-j-mooney-and-the-most-amazing-bowling-story-ever\/"},"modified":"2024-10-21T15:15:22","modified_gmt":"2024-10-21T15:15:22","slug":"annotation-tuesday-michael-j-mooney-and-the-most-amazing-bowling-story-ever","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/niemanstoryboard.org\/2015\/03\/03\/annotation-tuesday-michael-j-mooney-and-the-most-amazing-bowling-story-ever\/","title":{"rendered":"Annotation Tuesday: Michael J. Mooney and the Most Amazing Bowling Story Ever"},"content":{"rendered":" \n
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Michael J. Mooney staked his claim in the world of narrative journalism with two stories that ran just weeks apart in the summer of 2012. In June, Mooney, a staff writer at D<\/em> magazine, published a searing account<\/a> of a 62-year-old woman who survived being tortured and raped for 12 days by her former neighbor. (You can read a Storyboard Q-and-A with Mooney about that story here<\/a>.)<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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The next month, he returned with a very different kind of story, the one we\u2019re annotating today: \u201cThe Most Amazing Bowling Story Ever.\u201d The headline isn\u2019t hyperbole. The story made a slew of year-end lists, among them Longread\u2019s \u201cBest of 2012\u201d and Byliner\u2019s \u201c102 Spectacular Pieces of Nonfiction from 2012,\u201d and was included in \u201cBest American Sports Writing 2013.\u201d<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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Michael J. Mooney<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n<\/div> \n
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Mooney has also written for GQ<\/em>, Outside<\/em> and Grantland<\/em>. He most recently profiled Glenn Beck for D <\/em>and an e-book he wrote about Chris Kyle, the subject of the film \u201cAmerican Sniper,\u201d will be released in paperback March 24 by Little, Brown and Company.<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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But it all started, in many ways, with Bill Fong and the amazing bowling story. We talked over the phone. My questions are in red;  Mooney\u2019s responses in blue. If you\u2019d like to read the story without annotations first, click the \u2018Hide all annotations\u2019 button to the right. Let\u2019s start with some questions:<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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How did you find out about this story?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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My editor mentioned it to me vaguely. He actually misremembered it. He remembered it incorrectly but remembered that there was a guy who had bowled a 299 mentioned in the newspaper. I first looked it up and couldn\u2019t find it and didn\u2019t think about it again, but it kind of sat with me and it did come back up in my mind a couple times. And I started looking for it and found the newspaper story. There had been a front page\u2013 a sports story. Front page of the sports section of the Dallas Morning News<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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When you found the story, what did you do after that?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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I actually tracked Bill down at the bowling alley. I think I found the number for him and it didn\u2019t work, and I think I found him on Facebook and he didn\u2019t reply, and then I called up the bowling alley and he was there at the moment I called.<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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So you talked with him briefly over the phone?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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I did. I introduced myself, explained that I thought his story was really interesting, really fascinating. He thought that I was joking with him. He thought that I was playing a prank on him and one of his friends set it up. And I had to go and explain, no I really think your story is interesting in this big, beautiful way. And then he told me, \u201cYou know, that night I nearly died.\u201d And I thought he was kidding with me. And then at some point, I went up there and met with this group, spent the Monday night with them, and kind of watched them and then sat down with Bill, with his notes, and really intensely went through the entire night, game by game.<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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How did you pitch the story to your editor? You said your editor had heard about this but then did you have to pitch it formally to the magazine?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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It wasn\u2019t exactly formally. The biggest problem with the pitch was there was another bowling-related story that I wanted to do, and I still want to do. And he told me, Look, the magazine can do one bowling story maybe every 10 years. So you pick one, one of these. But I picked this one.<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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Were you worried about making people read and care about bowling? Was that something that ever came up?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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That was the biggest worry. Before the story came out, I was a little nervous. I was like, \u201cWhat did I just write? What is this?\u201d But I probably should have worried about that a little more than I did. On some level, it was probably the biggest worry I had, but I was kind of so excited that I got to do the story, you know. I honestly was so thrilled that I was doing the story that seemed like the most anti-formulaic story of all time. It was one night of bowling somewhere in the suburbs two years ago, and nobody famous, you know, was involved. So that Tim Rogers (his editor) even encouraged me to do this, I think, I was really just\u2014I was also intrigued by it, and he was intrigued by it. That\u2019s a good sign. But overcoming the bowling hurdle was\u2026 that\u2019s a big thing.<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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I noticed there\u2019s a documentary in the works. Have you had anything to do with that?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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<\/strong>I am a producer on the documentary, and I think got a writing credit, too. But it is largely the work of Joey Daoud. He is incredible. And there\u2019s some pretty cool news coming about that documentary soon. I don\u2019t think I\u2019m allowed to talk about it yet. (Update: The cool news? That the New York Times is featuring the documentary as part of its new \u201cMade with Kickstarter\u201d project, a series of short documentaries funded, in part, by the online money-raising platform. You can watch it here<\/a>.)<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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What did Bill ultimately think about the story?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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<\/strong>He loved it. People were coming up to him at the bowling alley and asking to autograph it. So in some way, and with the documentary too, in some way he really feels like he\u2019s getting a modicum of the respect that he has always kind of deserved.<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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Were you surprised at how well the story was received? <\/strong><\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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<\/strong>Yeah, of course. It\u2019s ridiculous. It\u2019s still a story about bowling. It\u2019s very ridiculous. Of all the stories I\u2019ve written and worked on\u2014I mean I understand some elements of why people connect to the story. But it is still really surprising, very surprising.<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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Why do you think people connect to it?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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<\/strong>A couple of reasons. I think one, Bill is a really compelling, really interesting, funny, sweet character. And just entertaining to be around, too. But I also think that it is fundamentally about something that is relatable. It\u2019s about trying to do something in the exact right way over and over and over again. This is exactly what I\u2019m trying to do with writing \u2026 So there\u2019s that aspect of it. And it\u2019s also just about this thing everybody can relate to, right? This attempt at perfection and how it\u2019s just more revelatory\u2014it reveals more about people when they do not succeed perfectly. I really am a firm believer in that. Winning a championship doesn\u2019t teach you an enormous amount except exactly how to win championships. Far more people don\u2019t win a championship every year. Way more people don\u2019t succeed in exactly what they want to do, and those are things we need to think about as people.<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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“The Most Amazing Bowling Story Ever”<\/a><\/h2>\nBy Michael J. Mooney
\nD<\/em> magazine
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\nWhen Bill Fong approaches the lane, 15-pound bowling ball in hand, he tries not to breathe. He tries not to think about not breathing. He wants his body to perform a series of complex movements that his muscles themselves have memorized. In short, he wants to become a robot.\u00a0<\/a>I\u2019m thinking there are a lot of places you can start this story, structurally, but also in time. Why did you choose this paragraph and this space in time, and how did you come to understand what he thinks about as he\u2019s getting ready to roll the ball down the lane?<\/span>\u00a0I talked to him a lot about this. He is\u2014the robot analogy came from him. That is something he talks about and thinks about. And in some ways it was\u2026 You know somebody who tries not to feel emotion just provokes more emotion. And so, you know, it\u2019s about him throwing the bowling ball. On a really, really basic level, the entire story is about him throwing a bowling ball. So why not start with the way he throws a bowling ball?<\/span> In terms of time, though, why this?<\/span>\u00a0I wanted to bookend it\u2026 I was writing this right when Ben Fountain\u2019s novel came out, \u201cBilly Lynn\u2019s Long Halftime Walk.\u201d And we were talking about it a lot in the office. And it\u2019s largely, you know, you understand that something happened, and you\u2019re going through the book trying to figure out exactly what happened to put these guys in this situation. And I just really liked that dynamic, and so I wanted the story to do that. We knew something incredible happened, but we didn\u2019t know exactly what.<\/span><\/span><\/span>
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Fong, 48 years old, 6 feet tall with broad shoulders, pulls the ball into his chest and does a quick shimmy with his hips. He swings the ball first backward, then forward, his arm a pendulum of kinetic energy, as he takes five measured steps toward the foul line. He releases the ball, and it glides across the oiled wooden planks like it\u2019s floating, hydroplaning, spinning counterclockwise along a trajectory that seems to be taking it straight for the right-hand gutter.\u00a0<\/a>How many times did you have to watch Bill roll a ball in order to be able to nail that description you have of him in the second paragraph there?<\/span>\u00a0I thought about this. I\u2019ve probably seen him roll 50 to 100 times. No, I guess over 100 times. So I watched him practice, and I watched him bowl an entire series of games. Then I watched a video of him bowling quite a bit. And I watched those last couple frames, or the last frame actually, like the last couple rolls, over and over and over again.<\/span>\u00a0 How important was it for you to nail that description?<\/span>\u00a0Yeah, it felt like it was kind of part of his personality. That\u2019s the way we\u2019re going to help build this, help people understand this character– by looking at the way he does the thing he loves doing.<\/span><\/span>\n
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But as the ball nears the edge of the lane, it veers back toward the center, as if guided by remote control. The hook carries the ball back just in time. In a heartbeat, what was a wide, sneering mouth of pins is now\u2014nothing.\u00a0<\/a>Wide, sneering mouth of pins is fantastic.<\/span>\u00a0It just is kind of what it looks like to me. Especially, you know, if you feel like you\u2019re doing battle with those pins. It was a subtle way of trying to kind of establish a nemesis for Bill here.<\/span><\/span>\n
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He comes back to the table where his teammates are seated\u2014they always sit and bowl in the same order\u2014and they congratulate him the same way they have thousands of times over the last decade. But Fong looks displeased. His strike wasn\u2019t good enough.\n
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\u201cI got pretty lucky that time,\u201d he says in his distinctly Chicago accent. \u201cThe seven was hanging there before it fell. I\u2019ve got to make adjustments.\u201d With a pencil, he jots down notes on a folded piece of blue paper.\n
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His teammates aren\u2019t interested in talking about what he can do to make his strikes more solid, though, or even tonight\u2019s mildly competitive league game. They\u2019re still discussing a night two years ago. They mention it every week, without fail.\u00a0<\/a>When you watched him bowl on that night, that one night you went and watched him bowl in the series, were you there solely as an observer or were you also talking to his teammates? Were you kind of doing a little bit of everything?<\/span>\u00a0Yeah, it was everything. I think I had to pull up a chair next to the table, right, because I didn\u2019t want to disrupt their actual seating arrangement, their traditional seating arrangement. They were much less interested in the game that was actually going on that night than talking about this incredible night. And as soon as we started talking about that night\u2014everybody just calls it \u201cthat night\u201d\u2014as soon as we started talking about that night, people from other tables were coming over. You know, it was a big discussion that got around very quickly. It was very easy to find a lot of people who were there that night and people who had thoughts of what was going on.<\/span>\u00a0This was two years later, and it\u2019s still a lot of the same people who bowled in that league, even two years earlier?<\/span>\u00a0That\u2019s their community, that\u2019s their regular Monday night. Everybody at the bowling alley, that\u2019s their thing, right? Plano is a gigantic suburb. Sometimes it\u2019s hard for people to cut out specific lives for themselves, and people who go to this\u2014you know, that\u2019s one of the ways that people do that. It\u2019s a subculture, really.<\/span><\/span>\n

\nIn fact, all you have to do is say the words \u201cThat Night\u201d and everyone at the Plano Super Bowl knows what you\u2019re talking about. They also refer to it as \u201cThe Incident\u201d or \u201cThat Incredible Series.\u201d\u00a0<\/a>How did you get those descriptions?<\/span>\u00a0Honestly, just being there, talking about it. It comes up very quickly. So you know, people were pointing out, oh he was there, he was there. People were coming over to our table. I was able to talk to probably 10 or 12 people who were there that night and remember it very vividly, within an hour of being at the bowling alley.<\/span><\/span>
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It\u2019s the only time anyone can remember a local recreational bowler making the sports section of the\u00a0Dallas Morning News. One man, an opponent of Fong\u2019s that evening, calls it \u201cthe most amazing thing I\u2019ve ever seen in a bowling alley.\u201d\u00a0<\/a>When did you know that this would end up being a special story? Did you know that in the reporting phase?<\/span>\u00a0When you work on stories, the kind of stories that we like to do, at the moment, every story is really special. You know, I don\u2019t want to work on a story if I can\u2019t find a way to make it special at the time. I would love to say, “Yeah, I totally knew at the moment when I was talking to these guys that two years later, I\u2019d be talking about it with Nieman.” But no, it\u2019s still pretty astounding how far the story has gotten. At the moment, the funniest part was when Bill was asking me about other stories that I\u2019ve written and other people I\u2019ve interviewed. Basically like, who\u2019s the most famous person you\u2019ve ever interviewed? And I think I said Mikhail Gorbachev. When I said Mikhail Gorbachev, then Bill was like, ‘Ah now I understand why you\u2019re doing this story.’ I still don\u2019t completely understand what that was, but that was what completely explained it to him.<\/span><\/span>\n
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Bill Fong needs no reminders, of course. He thinks about that moment\u2014those hours\u2014every single day of his life.\u00a0<\/a>We get to the end of this first section and I\u2019m thinking about the lead again and wondering were you ever tempted to lead with the night you were there, watching, rather than\u2026<\/span>\u00a0The other way around.<\/span>\u00a0Lead with the night in question, right? The incident, or whatever, rather than leading two years later. And what ultimately made you choose the approach you chose?<\/span>\u00a0I don\u2019t think I did consider starting with the original incident. I like stories that are bookended, and it goes back to that Ben Fountain book. I just really liked the dynamic, the way that that sets the reader up to freely go through it fast. It really propels a story, when you know something exciting happened and you don\u2019t know exactly what it is.<\/span><\/span>\n
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Most people think perfection in bowling\u00a0is a 300 game, but it isn\u2019t. Any reasonably good recreational bowler can get lucky one night and roll 12 consecutive strikes. If you count all the bowling alleys all over America, somebody somewhere bowls a 300 every night. But only a human robot can roll three 300s in a row\u201436 straight strikes\u2014for what\u2019s called a \u201cperfect series.\u201d More than 95 million Americans go bowling, but, according to the United States Bowling Congress, there have been only 21 certified 900s since anyone started keeping track.\u00a0<\/a>Were you surprised at the low number of certified 900s, when you found that out?<\/span>\u00a0Pretty early on, I looked that up, and the United States Bowling Congress is here, in a suburb of Dallas. I was really surprised. Because there\u2019s a couple of videos of other people who have had 900. And when you think about it, you know, at first it depends on your perspective. When you think a 300 is rare, then you never even think about a 900. When you think the sheer number of people who bowl, how many games somebody can bowl, just the sheer number of bowling games that take place, then 300s, yeah okay. Every single bowling alley, every single night, somewhere probably. And then you gotta think just statistically, these have to be more common. And so I was really surprised.<\/span><\/span>\n
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Bill Fong\u2019s run at perfection started as most of his nights do, with practice at around 5:30 pm. He bowls in four active leagues, and he rolls at least 20 games a week, every week. That night, January 18, 2010, he wanted to focus on his timing.\u00a0<\/a>You have a lot of details that come from Fong himself, and specifically talking about that night, it\u2019s phenomenal that he remembers some of the things that he does, and I\u2019m curious what was it like interviewing him.<\/span>\u00a0 It was interesting. He has notes.\u00a0So he has very thorough notes, that it\u2019s essentially like finding a source with a diary. Except in this case, the diary consisted largely of numbers. And then you have the fact that when adrenaline is flowing, that\u2019s when humans generally have the most\u2014that\u2019s when memories are kind of burned into place. And he had a lot of adrenaline that night. And a lot of people did. So, talking to him, he was in moments elated and proud. This is still a great accomplishment. He does know that. He\u2019s been told it so many times, and he was also really sad because in so many ways, especially looking back — his life up to that night — and it did not go the way that he really, really wishes it had gone.<\/span><\/span>\n
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Timing is everything. <\/a>Speaking of timing, you really delay letting the reader in on Fong\u2019s backstory. How he got interested in bowling and his childhood and all of that. Why did you set the story up that way?<\/span>\u00a0So this is a slotting game. If I wanted to bookend it with the night that I was there and kind of make it about these people recounting the story, then I had certain elements that I had to get at some point. You have to explain the whole 900. You have to explain his background. You have to, at some point, get to, and I will talk about it in a bit, but you have to get to the fact that he almost had a chance at a Texas record before. He had a chance at a really incredible night and then completely cracked. And then you have to get to the stroke. And inside of all of that, or through all of that, the story of that night. So it was really just slotting what goes first\u2026 You know you have to explain the 900 before the rest of the stuff. And then I wanted to break it up in terms of his games that night. So it\u2019s the night that I was with him, in the beginning and the end, and his three games throughout the middle of that. And then to each one of those games we attach something else, some other concept or backstory or something else. In the first one, it\u2019s this explanation of 900. In the second one, it\u2019s his backstory and his buildup. In the third one, it\u2019s the kind of notion of perfection and how rare it is and how ethereal it is.<\/span>\u00a0Did you outline the story?<\/span> I did. I\u2019m a religious outliner.<\/span>\u00a0Give me an example of how you go about outlining.<\/span>\u00a0I think for this story, it was actually sitting down talking with Tim. And it was, you know, Roman numeral one, talking to them. Then it was two, first game. Three, second game. Four\u2026 And then underneath each one, what we\u2019re going to get at in those sections. And it was probably on the back of\u2014Probably the first time I did it was on the back of any kind of scrap paper, and then at some point, I kind of sat down and built a more thorough outline in my notebook.<\/span><\/span>\u00a0When your timing is right, when your arms, legs, and torso all move in rhythm toward the lane, you have better balance. When you\u2019re balanced, you\u2019re also more accurate. And when you\u2019re accurate, your decision-making also improves. By contrast, if your timing is off, your balance is off, and you don\u2019t hit your targets. There are too many variables to assess, too many elements to gauge, and you can\u2019t possibly make the best decisions. <\/a>So, do you bowl at all?<\/span>\u00a0Not competitively, but I have gone bowling somewhat regularly since I was really young, since I was in daycare probably. And especially in college, I spent a lot of time with one of my best friends one summer. We basically went to the school bowling alley almost every single day. We bowled 13 games one day, actually.<\/span>\u00a0So in terms of understanding what Bill was talking about, that wasn\u2019t difficult for you?<\/span>\u00a0Oh yeah, no, no. I still had no idea about the\u2026In no way was I an analytical bowler. So when he started talking about oil patterns, I had to really research a lot of that stuff. I didn\u2019t even realize that a lot of bowlers kept notes the way he did. Of course, there are a lot of people who keep track of the high records in each state and all sorts of things like that that I, as a recreational bowler, never even considered.<\/span><\/span>\u00a0Fong knows a hot streak is all about timing. So in practice that night, he breathed, he tried to erase all thoughts, and he tried to make his approach with each body part functioning as programmed.\u00a0<\/a>You keep coming back to this idea of the robot bowler. So I\u2019m assuming that it was what Fong said he was trying to do?<\/span>\u00a0Yeah, this is his analogy. He understands that to be successful, you essentially have to shut down distractions, emotions, anything that might differentiate one particular roll. And so he really wants to be a robot when he\u2019s bowling, which then of course, when he has this very, very human ending\u2026 I think it was even more poignant.<\/span><\/span>\n
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That night, he didn\u2019t roll many strikes in practice. There was nothing to make him think this night would be anything special.\n
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Fong\u2019s team, the Crazy Eights (he picked the name because eights are lucky in Chinese culture), <\/a>When you\u2019re talking about the team name, it\u2019s the first mention that he\u2019s Chinese, or is of Chinese extraction. Was that a deliberate decision to hold off on that? Or that\u2019s just where it came up?<\/span>\u00a0That\u2019s really the first place it came up. Being Chinese is a big part of Bill\u2019s identity, and it comes up pretty regularly in conversation. I think going through the story, that\u2019s just the first time that it came up in terms of a place where I would have mentioned it. It was just a natural question that I asked him. Why is the team named that?<\/span><\/span>was assigned lanes 27 and 28, one of Fong\u2019s favorite pairs. The left lane, 27, hooks more, he says. The right lane, 28, tends to be more direct.\n
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Frame one was on the left lane. As always, he was last in the bowling order, the anchor position. He watched his teammates roll and noticed each one throw a ball that hooked early and missed the pocket, the sweet spot between the head pin and the three pin on the right, the place that gives you the best chance of getting a strike. So when it was Fong\u2019s turn, he opted to roll a deeper hook, to stay outside and ride the edge of the gutter a little longer.\n
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The result was a loud, powerful strike. His ball slammed into the pocket with a vengeance, obliterating all 10 pins. His next roll, on 28, was another violent strike. All four of the first frames were robust strikes, actually. But his teammates barely took notice.\n
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\u201cTo tell you the truth, that wasn\u2019t that unusual,\u201d says JoAnn Gibson, a sweet Southern woman who enjoys the company more than she does the actual bowling. <\/a>Were you surprised that Fong\u2019s teammates weren\u2019t necessarily as serious about bowling as he was?<\/span>\u00a0No, I\u2019m not surprised that anybody is not as serious about bowling as he is. Nobody is as serious about bowling as he is, that I\u2019ve ever met probably. I was a little surprised by the interesting variety, by the real true dynamic that they have in terms of people who\u2026 It really is just kind of a fun Monday night out to Bill. He has different teams for every single night of the week. Yeah, he seems so serious about it that he wouldn\u2019t necessarily work well with people who weren\u2019t as serious. The really interesting aspect of it is that this incredible feat happened on a Monday. He has so many more serious teams, even more serious leagues. This would be like a hardcore fantasy football player playing in a casual office pool. Or an amateur professional poker player playing in a home five-dollar game. He just likes getting the rolls in. The fact that it happened on a Monday of all the places, of all the times, is just one of those small, little details I found interesting.<\/span> Did he talk about that much? It seems like somebody like Bill would really want that to happen on a serious night, where the really good bowlers would recognize him. Does that make sense?<\/span>\u00a0He was happy that there happened to be a lot of the people in the bowling community there, who happened to be there that night. Or, at some point, somebody called them and they showed up, or they heard about it very quickly. On the other hand, he, in some ways, is glad that they weren\u2019t there, right? He does think of this as a devastating moment. It\u2019s still hard for me to remember that, and it\u2019s hard for a lot of people to remember that. That it still is a devastating time for him.<\/span><\/span>\n
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\u201cBowlers like Bill can roll off mini-streaks like that all the time,\u201d says Tom Dunn, a more serious bowler who sometimes flirts innocently with JoAnn.\n
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Both Gibson and Dunn have bowled with or against Fong in this league since the Clinton administration. They\u2019ve been teammates for nine years. James Race, who, with his perpetual smile and polite demeanor, reminds the other teammates of Mister Rogers, came a few years later. They don\u2019t really hang out much outside the bowling alley, but no matter what\u2019s going on in life, they go to Plano Super Bowl for a few hours on Monday nights.\n
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Fong\u2019s fifth roll of the night wasn\u2019t so beautiful. His approach and release seemed the same\u2014he was becoming the robot\u2014and the ball hit the pocket, but the pins didn\u2019t go down quickly. The 10 pin was wobbling upright, teetering, when Fong got what is called a \u201cmessenger.\u201d From the left, one of the pins he\u2019d just sent bouncing came back across the lane, clipping the 10 just enough to knock it off balance. <\/a>How did you get these details, considering it happened two years earlier?<\/span>\u00a0So they are singed into his memory, right? And this is something I\u2019m worried about. It\u2019s not on video. A lot of the records show exactly where the splits were, but if it\u2019s a strike, it\u2019s a strike. It\u2019s hard to tell just on the written record, on the printout sheet, what exactly happened. He has all of these little notes in his records that he\u2019s kept. I wouldn\u2019t say he remembers each frame, but he probably, of the 36, probably has a very, very, very good recollection of almost all of them, along with these little notes. And other people on his team remember a couple of these things. So, somebody else would say, \u201cOh the time that it looked like the seven and 10 were both going to stay up,\u201d and then, \u201cOh it looked like you were going to cut in too deep.\u201d And then nope, still a strike. And more as they went on, right? So fewer from the first game. His teammates vaguely remember the first game. It was only toward the end of the second game and then the third game. It\u2019s a lot of like, \u201cOh man, do you remember that? Oh man, you remember that one?\u201d<\/span><\/span>\u00a0When he got back to the table, his teammates congratulated him, but Fong called it what it was: a lucky strike.\n
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In the sixth frame, he had another loud, devastating strike. Then another. Then another. With each throw, he could tell it was a strike from the moment it left his hand. He\u2019d watch as the pins were there one second, then gone the next. \u201cIt felt like driving and catching a green light, then the next one, then the next, then turning, and still catching every green light everywhere you go,\u201d Fong says.\n
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Before he knew it, it was the 10th frame. Back on the right lane, he again tried to swing the ball wide, let it run along the outside of the lane, next to the gutter. The first two rolls of the 10th frame both tucked into the pocket just as Fong hoped, and both were solid strikes.\n
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On the last roll, though, something happened. He could tell from the sound of the pins. As the clutter at the end of the lane cleared, he could see the nine pin (the second from the right on the last row) still standing. He watched the chaos of the flying pins, each rotating right past the upright nine. Fong craned his neck, watching, hoping. Until one of the pins popped up from its side and swiped the nine down.\u00a0<\/a>Did you ever worry in the writing of this story that maybe, just maybe, memories weren\u2019t clear as to what happened that night? I\u2019m just curious how they remembered all this, but it seems like it was a communal thing. By the second game, everybody was kind of fully invested in what was going on. And so they\u2019re validating each other\u2019s memories in a way, you know?<\/span>\u00a0Yeah, that\u2019s exactly what it is. So you know, I wasn\u2019t there that night, but this is the way that these people have remembered it. And there was nobody arguing over each frame, so however they\u2019ve come to these conclusions, this is established how it went that night.<\/span><\/span>\n
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\u201cThe best way to describe the first 300 was just \u2018powerful,’\u201d Race says.\n
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One of the Super Bowl employees announced Fong\u2019s name and score over the loudspeaker, something Fong is a particular fan of. There was a round of applause.\n
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\u201cSometimes, when you have a lot of 300s, or if you get more than one in a week, they won\u2019t announce it,\u201d he says.\u00a0<\/a>I love that he really wants his name to be announced when he bowls a 300.<\/span>\u00a0And it\u2019s also his kind of humble-braggy way of saying how often he gets 300s. That they don\u2019t always announce his 300s. That\u2019s a very Bill Fong thing to say.<\/span><\/span>\n
\nThe night was just beginning.<\/a>You knew the structure as you sat down to write because you had outlined. Did you know the cliffhanger? Because there are kind of cliffhangers at the end of each section as well. Did you know what those were before you started writing?<\/span>\u00a0I knew some of them. So I knew that when things were just beginning, I knew that there was going to be something similar to that in that very spot. Fewer as the story goes on, I think. Those were the kind of things that just happened; those were the decisions that are just going to happen when you\u2019re actually typing.<\/span><\/span>
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\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n
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Aside from bowling, Bill Fong hasn\u2019t had\u00a0a lot of success in life. His Chinese mother demanded perfection, but he was a C student. He never finished college, he divorced young, and he never made a lot of money. By his own account, his parents didn\u2019t like him much. As a bowler, his average in the high 230s means he\u2019s probably better than anyone you know. But he\u2019s still only tied as the 15th best bowler in Plano\u2019s most competitive league. Almost nothing in life has gone according to plan.\u00a0<\/a>Was it hard to get Fong to talk about his past, given that nothing has gone according to plan?<\/span>\u00a0Yes, that was one of the most difficult parts. And there\u2019s some reference to him having smoked pot when he was younger, and he was really worried about that at first, too. He just didn\u2019t know\u2014and it was actually, when I was talking to him, when he was putting a lot of these things together, realizing how much of his life had built up to these moments. So, him talking about bowling, he can go on forever. He would much rather talk about bowling than his own personal history, I think.<\/span>\u00a0Did you interview him outside of the bowling alley to get that information? Or was that all in the bowling alley as well?<\/span>\u00a0No, I talked to him outside the bowling alley, and we talked on the phone quite a bit, too. I think a lot of that stuff actually came in the phone conversations.<\/span>That first paragraph\u2014it\u2019s not long but it tells you a lot. Did you feel like you had to pack a lot in given space considerations?<\/span>\u00a0It wasn\u2019t really space, although I knew they were just not going to dedicate an enormous amount of space to a story about bowling, no matter what. I just wanted to keep the story moving as fast as possible. And I wanted it to be in scene as much as possible, so I wanted to hit these background bits as hard as I could and get people a very clear picture of Bill as fast as possible.<\/span><\/span>\n
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He likes to say he got his approach to bowling from the hard-hitting alleys in his native Chicago, where he went to high school with Michelle Obama. He was one of the few kids from Chinatown interested in bowling at the time. Despite his strict mother and the fact that his friends were all on the honor roll, little William preferred sports. He dreamed of being a professional athlete one day. He wasn\u2019t big\u2014too short for basketball, too slender for football\u2014but he\u2019d run up and down the block as a boy, racing imaginary friends.\n
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When Fong was young, his parents divorced. He remembers the man who would become his stepdad taking his mom out on dates to a local bowling alley, where they could bring the kids. He noticed that when he was bowling, he wasn\u2019t thinking about whatever was going on behind him. His mind could focus on the ball, the lane, the pins\u2014and the rest of the world would disappear. He had never been captivated by anything like that. <\/a>How long did this story take you to report and write?<\/span> I reported it over about two weeks while I was working on some other stuff. I was actually working on this story at the same time I was working on a crime story about a woman who was kidnapped and tortured and eventually escaped. And I actually wrote this story in the hotel room while I was covering that trial. So in a Holiday Express in Parker County somewhere was where I actually wrote almost all the story.<\/span>\u00a0Total writing time?<\/span>\u00a0Honestly, I think I wrote the majority of the entire draft over one night.<\/span>\u00a0Do you write as you report or do you wait until you\u2019re completely done reporting?<\/span>\u00a0You will never be completely done reporting. That\u2019s the hard part. I write when I have to write. I wish that I was more disciplined, and a lot [of writers] I know are really, really great at being able to pound out a certain number of words every single day. But, you know, generally my deadline or when I need to hand a story in\u2026 I\u2019m writing a couple of days before that. And sometimes it’ll be staring at a screen for a couple of hours or days until everything just falls into place. And then sometimes it\u2019s not. Sometimes, you need to hammer it out. It\u2019s weird. It\u2019s like bowling. I never know exactly what\u2019s going to hit the strike. I know I can type, if I\u2019m going on a good day, I can do six, seven thousand words in a day. But that is followed and preceded by a lot of days of despair and not typing.<\/span><\/span>\n
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While still courting Fong\u2019s mother, his stepdad promised that if the boy ever got a score higher than 120 he\u2019d buy him his own ball. \u201cHe never did,\u201d Fong says. \u201cI bought it myself.\u201d\n
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After his mother remarried and moved away, he still had his siblings, his quiet, hard-working father, and his bowling. He joined the high school team. He went to the public library and checked out stacks of books about bowling theory. After a stint in college, he found himself smoking a lot of pot and staying out all night bowling, trying to hustle people out of small bets. He\u2019d leave the alley after the sun came up, go out to breakfast, sleep until 6 pm, and then repeat the process.\u00a0<\/a>Can you talk about that interview, in which you got all that information? There\u2019s so much there. I\u2019m curious how you sorted through it and figured out what was relevant to the story and what wasn\u2019t.<\/span>I wanted to cull all of that information for the things that were most important to his personality and our understanding of what happened to him that night. So how important bowling is for him, how important his success is to him, how driven and kind of disappointing a lot of his life was. You know, those are the key things I wanted to get to before we got back into the bowling. Talking to him about things\u2014he feels like his background, being from Chicago\u2026 The hard streets of Chicago were where hardcore bowlers come from, especially in his mind. Basically like, Rucker Park. From his perspective, the most important parts of his background were just the Chicago kind of born-and-bred aspects. The fact that he went to high school with Michelle Obama in Chicago, in his mind, tells people all they need to know about his bowling history, too.<\/span><\/span>\n
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At 22, he got married and his wife encouraged him to \u201cgrow up.\u201d He realized he wasn\u2019t ever going to become a professional bowler like the men he watched on TV every week, and he took a job cutting hair.\n
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\u201cIt was just something I could always do for money,\u201d he says. \u201cI like the artistic side, but it\u2019s not my passion.\u201d\n
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Soon he gave up bowling and took up golf. It was a lot like bowling\u2014timing, balance, accuracy\u2014and he\u2019d heard that with 10 years of practice, anyone could become a top-level golfer. He read books about golf, took a job at a pro shop, and learned to cut his own clubs. For 10 years, through career changes, through his divorce, through his move to Dallas (several family members had moved to Texas for various reasons and he\u2019d always enjoyed visiting), Fong played golf. His younger sister was by then a standout on the Baylor University golf team. But after all those years of playing nearly every day, he still wasn\u2019t a scratch golfer. He couldn\u2019t take the frustration, and he swore off the game for good.<\/a>This is interesting, that someone would put so much effort into something and then just quit. Did he ever consider giving up bowling a second time in his life?<\/span> No. He has never thought of giving up bowling that I know of. He basically regrets having given it up for the time that he did. And really feels like he\u2019s being punished. He really feels like that pin was punishment for that time away… To my knowledge, he has never considered giving it up again and regrets having given it up the first time.<\/span><\/span>\n
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He remembered how much he\u2019d enjoyed bowling. He didn\u2019t miss the up-all-night-gambling lifestyle, but the game itself, shutting out the world and making himself robotic\u2014those things he missed. <\/a>In terms of going back to the whole robot theme, does he, outside the bowling alley, does he want to be a robot as well? Or no.<\/span>\u00a0I don\u2019t know. I don\u2019t think so. And honestly because he doesn\u2019t spend an enormous time outside the bowling alley. He would be in the bowling alley constantly. And now he has a bowling shop, so he\u2019s constantly thinking about bowling. I think he\u2019s dedicated his life to bowling in a monastic way.<\/span><\/span>\n
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He joined a few leagues and bowled in tournaments all over North Texas, but no alley felt to him quite like the Super Bowl in Plano. There\u2019s something about the friendly faces, the way a great strike sounded there. It felt right.\n
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After 14 years, he knows all 48 lanes. He equates it to the way Tiger Woods knows the holes on his home golf course. Fong has rolled on each of these lanes dozens of times over the years, and he keeps detailed records.\n
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\u201cNo two lanes are the same,\u201d he says.\n
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He documents which lanes hook better and which seem to suck the ball into the gutter. He notes any tiny divot and nearly imperceptible slope, any imperfection he can find. Lane five, for example, has a higher strike percentage when people throw straighter. On lane 16, the oil tends to swirl closer to the pins.\n
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In the years she\u2019s known Fong, Gibson has had very few conversations with him that didn\u2019t involve ball movement and oil patterns, though she admits most of the technical bowling talk flies right over her head. But she smiles, not wanting to offend anyone. \u201cThis really is Bill\u2019s life,\u201d she says.\u00a0<\/a>I can\u2019t tell if she thinks that\u2019s wonderful or if she thinks that\u2019s sad.<\/span>\u00a0Yeah, I can\u2019t tell either.<\/span>\u00a0What do you think?<\/span>It\u2019s both, right? It is both wonderful and sad. To a lot of people a life dedicated to bowling seems very sad and empty, but to Bill, he really does love bowling. He likes the pains of it, likes the technicality of it, likes the success, likes the glory, in whatever measure he can get it. And then when a lot of his teammates came to visit him in the hospital and a lot of his opponents and a lot of people from the bowling community kind of showed that they do care for him so much, I kind of thought of it as back to the wonderful part of it. It really was like, look at this life he\u2019s built out of bowling. He didn\u2019t even realize in some ways how appreciated he was.<\/span>\u00a0Well I wonder why would we think of bowling, dedicating your life to bowling, is being any less cool than dedicating your life to running or baseball, you know?\u00a0I don\u2019t know, bowling\u2019s got a bad rap, I think.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0It does. It has kind of a blue-collar, Midwestern, Americana association to it. For better or for worse. Although I think bowling is one of the few things that really unites an enormous amount of Americans. Whatever your race, creed, politics, gender, a lot of people at some point in their lives have thrown a bowling ball down an aisle, down some sort of alley.<\/span><\/span>\n
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\u201cLooking back,\u201d Fong says, \u201cI guess bowling just always filled whatever emptiness I had.\u201d\n
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\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n

\nThat night, people were still coming\u00a0over to congratulate Bill Fong on the 300, when he did something unimaginable: for his second game, he switched bowling balls.\u00a0<\/a>Was it obvious to you, when you learned that he changed the balls before that second game, that that was how you were going to lead that section?<\/span>\u00a0I think so. I think it was pretty surprising to me and especially when I thought about from the perspective of wanting to repeat success over and over and over again. And it just seemed like an interesting, strange twist. I need to be able to relate his night bowling to general readers as much as possible. And so, little things like that help a lot. And generally, in the editing process, it was kind of a surgical removal of a little bit of bowling here, a little bit of bowling there. And that was most of the editing process on the backend.<\/span>\u00a0Can you talk about the editing process? Maybe the evolution the story went through in that process?<\/span>\u00a0Tim is an incredible editor. He trusted me to write the story, thought it was kind of an entertaining little tale. And then sat with me and we outlined it together. Honestly, it was a lot of his ideas on where to slot things. Once I kind of thought of the Ben Fountain-inspired beginning. Sometimes the draft, the story has to be completely rewritten from top to bottom five, six, seven times. This was one of those that was lucky enough that it didn\u2019t really. On the first draft, most of the stuff was there. It was just kind of cutting out a couple hundred words of bowling.<\/span><\/span>
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He remembered, two weeks earlier, practicing on lanes 27 and 28. He remembered that after a few games, the oil pattern on the right lane shifted. So to start game two on the right lane, he switched to his more polished ball, the one that hooks less and rolls straighter.\n
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Someone on another lane saw him making the change. \u201cIs Bill Fong switching balls?\u201d the man called out to his friends incredulously.\n
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Fong heard him and turned around.\n
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\u201cYep,\u201d he said.\n
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The man called back to him: \u201cYou\u2019re crazy!\u201d<\/a>That\u2019s a great little exchange that offers a glimpse into this world. How did you get that?<\/span>So Bill mentioned it really off-handed, almost exactly describing that exact way. And I didn\u2019t realize who he was talking about until I was talking to one of his other buddies who was there that night, and he was telling me like, \u201cI saw it out of the corner of my eye,\u201d and he recounted the exact same thing verbatim to me. And I\u2019m like, alright, done. You know, this is excellent.<\/span>\u00a0So they both remembered it exactly the same way.<\/span>\u00a0Independently. Exactly verbatim. I mean obviously not independently, they\u2019re friends. But me talking to them in completely separate times in separate places. And I wasn\u2019t asking specifically about that. I didn\u2019t even realize that was the guy who had said that.<\/span> Does that show something about that night, you think? In terms of how these people\u2026 You use the phrase \u201cseared into memory.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0I thought it was pretty interesting, and I also really liked using the audience there as a kind of reflection of what was going on. Early on in the story, the fact that people were talking about this event, and we don\u2019t know exactly what happened. And then at various points in the story, it\u2019s Bill interacting with other people or the audience, whether it\u2019s shaky phones or calling each other. So there\u2019s some kind of reflection about, some sort of three-dimensional aspect of what\u2019s going on. I like doing that when I can because in some ways it goes back to why old sitcom creators like having a studio audience. The little, subliminal cues that kind of signal audiences what to do.<\/span><\/span>\n
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Fong grinned and turned back toward the lane. He stepped forward and unleashed a solid, thorough strike\u2014his 13th of the night. Then he stood there, arms wide, shaking his head. His gutsy move had paid off.\u00a0<\/a>Can you talk about recreating the scene that kind of follows him through that first ball that second game? How did you get those details from Fong? Notes I\u2019m assuming, but how else?<\/span>He remembers it really well. He\u2019s stared at his own notes for hours, I\u2019m sure. And his teammates remember it pretty well. And his friends, who were there and saw him switch balls, remember it pretty clearly, too.<\/span><\/span>\n
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Dunn remembers the feeling in the air. \u201cBecause he started out by switching balls, and that was so incredible, the second game was definitely more emotional,\u201d he says.\n
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Throughout the second game, Fong continued using his more aggressive ball on the left lane, and the more polished, less aggressive ball on the right lane. And the strikes kept coming.\n
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It seemed like even members of the other team were smiling when Fong was up to roll. Fong himself was laughing and smiling, pointing and calling out to friends at other lanes. He remembers shrugging a lot. \u201cI felt loose as a goose,\u201d he says.\n
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As he sent strike after strike down the lanes, he began to feel magical. Literally, the way he was commanding the balls to turn and burrow into the unsuspecting pins, it felt a little like he was moving heavy objects with only the power of his mind. In the fourth frame, both the seven and the 10 pins stayed up just a bit longer than he wanted. As he gestured with both arms, they fell. Something similar happened in the eighth frame.\u00a0<\/a>That\u2019s another detail that I think anybody\u2019s who\u2019s bowled can relate to.<\/span>\u00a0Yeah, and it slows down time. In their memories, they describe these things happening in slow motion basically. Because I think at the moment there was so much blood flowing and adrenaline going that it was really tense there.<\/span>\u00a0When you say slows down time, it slows down time for the people who are watching it, but are you thinking from a writer\u2019s standpoint as well? From a story\u2019s standpoint? And why there?<\/span>\u00a0Yeah. In terms of a montage, I want to get through that as much as possible as fast as possible, while still slowing down for little moments that people are going to be able to relate to. You can\u2019t show every ball that he rolls in that game. But you also don\u2019t want to just rush through it. You need those instances where everything slows down a bit. Right, those have to stand in, in a lot of ways, for the rest of the game.<\/span><\/span>\n
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\u201cIt was like Moses parting the sea,\u201d he says. \u201cI\u2019d move my hands and everything would get out of the way.\u201d\n
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Soon the other bowlers began stepping back when he was up, taking extra precaution not to get in his way. \u201cNobody wants to mess up a streak like that,\u201d Dunn says.\n
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By the 10th frame, Fong found that most people around him wouldn\u2019t make eye contact for fear they would be the last thing he would see before rolling a dud. On the first roll of the last frame, he had what he calls a \u201chappy accident.\u201d For the first time that night, one of his powerful throws missed its mark ever so slightly. But because the oil was now evaporating on the left lane, too, the ball found the pocket for a perfect strike. Noticing what happened on the first roll, he adjusted his position and finished the game with two more powerful strikes, Nos. 23 and 24 of the night.<\/a>Would this story have been possible without Fong\u2019s extensive note-taking?<\/span>\u00a0I don\u2019t think so. It would be really, really hard to try and examine 36 frames of bowling two years after it happened without really extensive notes.<\/span><\/span>\n
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Once again, Fong got to hear his name called from the speakers. And again he took a moment to shake hands with the line of people waiting to congratulate him. A few were embarrassed that they hadn\u2019t come over after the first 300. People were delightfully confused, shaking their heads as they patted Fong on the back.\n
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\u201cNever seen anything like it,\u201d they said. \u201cBack-to-back 300s.\u201d\n
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And Fong shook his own head. \u201cMe neither,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/a>Here, you don\u2019t really end on a cliffhanger. There\u2019s really nothing hinting at something more incredible happening. Was that done on purpose, and if so, why?<\/span>\u00a0At this point in the story, we don\u2019t have to push as hard. It\u2019s not like it\u2019s a mystery as to what happened. Exactly how it ends is still a mystery, but we\u2019ve established a lot. At this point, you either want to know or you don\u2019t. Here is where you\u2019re going to stop reading the story or you\u2019re not.<\/span><\/span>\u2022 \u2022 \u2022<\/span>\n
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There\u2019s almost never a time when\u00a0every decision you make is correct and every step is in the right direction. Life, like bowling, is full of complicating factors, unpredictable variables, plenty of times when there is no right answer. But Bill Fong had some experience with near-perfection prior to the night. He\u2019d had another amazing run two years before that. He\u2019d bowled a 297, then a 300.<\/a>Why did you wait until this late in the story to let the reader know he\u2019s kind of done something like this before?<\/span>\u00a0This just goes back to that slotting. This is just where this had to go. We\u2019re either stacking a bunch of various background all in one place, or we kind of have to sprinkle it out throughout the story. And this just seemed like the most logical place to put it. It\u2019s also foreshadowing, obviously. But this just seemed like the most obvious place to put that.<\/span><\/span>\n
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Someone mentioned to him that with another great game he could beat the Texas state series record, which was 890. Fong can admit it now: he choked in that third game. He could feel himself thinking too much, slipping out of the zone. Soon he was out of rhythm and his balance was off. That night he shot a 169 in the last game; he didn\u2019t even break 800 for the series. It was exactly what he was trying to avoid after his two straight 300s.\n
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So this time, before game three, he approached a friend who was bowling a few lanes down. Fong mentioned that he was thinking about switching balls again, using the less aggressive ball on both lanes in the final game. His friend, who had plenty of 300s under his own belt,\u00a0was surprised but gave him simple advice: \u201cTrust your instinct.\u201d\n
\n
When that first roll of the third game produced another strike\u2014another risky decision rewarded\u2014Fong felt like he was floating. He wasn\u2019t drinking, but he felt a little drunk.<\/a>I love this detail, especially after having read the story multiple times, because it foreshadows what is coming up. That was a conscious thing for you to do as a writer?<\/span>\u00a0It was both. I don\u2019t think originally it was conscious. When he told me about it, certainly, I didn\u2019t think about it in terms of the stroke. When he was first telling me, I\u2019m asking questions like: \u201cHow do you feel at that moment? How are you acting when you\u2019re not up there bowling?” \u201cWhat are you doing?\u201d And he\u2019s like, \u201cYou know, I\u2019ve never felt lighter, I felt drunk. Felt like I was floating around.\u201d And you can even see in the video from those last frames, he does look a little drunk. And so obviously then, what I was thinking about\u2014I think by the time I actually typed it up, I probably was pretty conscious of how that foreshadowed the ending because\u2026 it matches the back part of his story perfectly. It\u2019s sad to think about it, right? It\u2019s happy to think about him floating around and drunk and happy if it\u2019s this kind of run that he\u2019s on. It\u2019s more sad to think about it in terms of the thing that potentially threw him off and threatened his life.<\/span><\/span>\u00a0Both his teammates and his opponents bowled as fast as they could to get out of his way. By the time he struck in the fifth frame, he realized he would almost certainly break the coveted 800 mark. He was relieved.\n
\n
By the sixth frame, a large crowd had formed behind Fong. Dozens of people had stopped bowling to watch. Texts were sent and statuses posted to Facebook, and the audience grew.\n
\n
\u201cWe were more nervous than he was at the time,\u201d Gibson says. \u201cIt was almost like he was putting on a show up there.\u201d\n
\n
<\/a>How many people did you talk to for the story? Because Fong is definitely kind of a loner, it seems. And we mostly hear from his teammates. Did you talk to other people? Did you talk to his family or other friends or anybody like that?<\/span>\u00a0I didn\u2019t talk to his family. I talked to all of his teammates, and I talked to a bunch of people from the bowling alley that night. Probably like 15 to 20, including two or three of his really, really close friends. And they\u2019re all bowlers, obviously.<\/span> His close friends?<\/span>\u00a0Yeah, I mean his close bowling friends. People he knows through the bowling alley. One of which actually passed away only a couple weeks after the story came out. Yeah, it was one of Bill\u2019s best friends in the world.<\/span><\/span>\n
\n
Each time he approached the lane, the entire bowling alley went silent. Every time he let fly another roll, there were audible moans from strangers and shouts from the crowd: \u201cThat\u2019s it, baby!\u201d Each time he struck, the room erupted with applause. In all his life, Bill Fong had never heard anyone cheering him like that.\n
\n
He had 33 straight strikes entering the 10th frame of the third game. Out came the cell phone cameras. There were whispers, but as soon as Fong picked up his ball, it was dead quiet. He turned to look at the crowd behind him, now well over 100 people, densely packed from the end of the snack bar to the vending machines 80 feet away.\n
\n
That\u2019s when the magic left him. Fong began to feel nervous, like the world was watching him pee. He felt the buzz\u2014whatever it had been\u2014leave his body. As he stood in front of lane 28, he felt numb. He tried to push through it.\n
\n
He lined up and threw a ball without much hook on it. As soon as it left his hand, Fong began waving at it, trying to will the ball left. It connected with the pocket but without the usual force. As the other pins dropped, the nine pin stayed up for what seemed like ages. But just as the gasp of the crowd reached a crescendo, one of the pins rolling meekly across the lane bumped the nine just enough to tip it. The room exploded with cheers and whistles. The sound was enough to shake one of the cameras now capturing the moment.\u00a0<\/a>How important were the videos shot on camera phones for you to recreate those last three rolls?<\/span>\u00a0That was really important. And not just that, but also to kind of confirm some of the earlier stuff too… Especially recounting those last couple frames, that was everything. Because Bill really does not like talking about that.<\/span>\u00a0Does he remember those last three frames?<\/span>\u00a0Given what he might have been going through, he does. He does remember them, yeah. And it is basically like hearing somebody talk about getting shot…\u00a0I\u2019m really glad I had the video. When I first started the story, I just assumed there would be video, and then at some point when I couldn\u2019t find the video, when I couldn\u2019t just find it somewhere posted, I was a little worried. And it\u2019s also just a fantastic story, right? I just really wanted to make sure that this video just confirmed that all of these things even happened, and it wasn\u2019t some sort of conspiracy against me, given all the recent bad news in journalism, especially now. I watched that video 50 or 60 times easily.<\/span><\/span>\n
\n
Fong looked dizzy as he walked back to the ball exchange. For the first time that night, he began sweating profusely. But he realized the mistake he\u2019d made on his last throw, and the second roll was much cleaner. Again there were shouts from the audience as the ball blazed down the lane, zipping back in time to smash the pins apart in a powerful, driving strike. And there was even more cheering as all 10 pins fell. Thirty-five strikes down, one to go.\u00a0<\/a>The subhead in this story is, \u201cIn a bowling alley one night, Bill Fong came so close to perfection that it nearly killed him.\u201d Do you feel like that gives away the ending?<\/span> Yeah, I do. I am very trusting when it comes to headlines and deckheads. The editors, that\u2019s their jobs. They know what they\u2019re doing. They\u2019re really good at that. The print headline for this story was \u201cNear Miss,\u201d [and] I\u2019m really glad they ended up using a different headline on the web because I honestly don\u2019t know if the story would\u2019ve the traction that it got under \u201cNear Miss\u201d\u2026 I don\u2019t know if it bothered me or not. It didn\u2019t give away every aspect of the ending, and it worked out pretty well in terms of people getting the theme of the story.<\/span>\u00a0Right. I think \u201cThe Most Amazing Bowling Story Ever\u201d is clearly a headline written for search engine optimization, but it is a great headline, you know?<\/span>\u00a0Yeah. I was really glad. I think I first saw that\u2014it was like a cover tag on the print issue, and I think they just used that for the web head. I liked it more than \u201cNear Miss.\u201d It\u2019s a little presumptuous, but it\u2019s certainly the most amazing story I\u2019ve ever heard about a bowling alley. It baffles the mind to think of a bowling story that would\u2014that\u2019s actually about bowling\u2014that would be more incredible than this.<\/span><\/span>\n
\n
Before his final roll, Fong wiped his ball with his towel. He heard a woman\u2019s voice behind him, a stranger, saying, \u201cWe are having fun, aren\u2019t we?\u201d He lifted the ball to his chest and stood calmly for a moment. Then he took five steps and released the ball toward perfection.\n
\n
It looked good from his hand, arcing out the way so many of his great strikes that night had, cutting back to the pocket just in time. Several people started applauding before the ball even reached the end of the lane\u2014that\u2019s how good it looked. But this time, as the pins scrambled, something unimaginable happened. The 10 pin, farthest to the right, wobbled. But it didn\u2019t fall.<\/a>I still get goose bumps reading this paragraph. And I\u2019ve read it, I don\u2019t know, four, five, six times maybe. What was it like writing\u2014can you remember writing that specific paragraph? Or that entire section?<\/span>\u00a0I don\u2019t really remember\u2026 I mean you go into the trance where you\u2019re actually typing stuff up from your outline. Watching that video though, I think I knew exactly how it was going to go. Because it is just devastating to watch. You could hear all the cheers, and then it turns to that moment where you hear everybody simultaneous moan, \u201cOhh..\u201d And it\u2019s just so, so sad.<\/span><\/span>\n
\nSome of the people in the room couldn\u2019t process what they\u2019d just witnessed. How could the last roll, like the 35 before it, not be a strike?
\n
Strangers fell to their knees. It was hard for anyone to breathe.\u00a0<\/a>How did you get that detail, especially the breathing?<\/span>You could probably watch them fall to their knees maybe in the video, but the breathing one, I can\u2019t remember. In the video… you can hear them gasp. You can hear people just gasp. And then somebody actually told me, that was actually one of the details that I had in my notes, that when they were watching\u2014I don\u2019t remember if that was a direct quote or not\u2014they said, \u201cI couldn\u2019t breathe. After he\u2026 he kind of spun away and was walking away. I\u2019m guessing I just couldn\u2019t breathe watching him.\u201d Like wow, that\u2019s a great line.<\/span><\/span>\n
\n
Fong turned and walked to his right. He was empty. Blank.\n
\n
His friends, the ones who were prepared seconds ago to tackle him in celebration, grabbed him and held him still. As he stood there, Fong wanted to say something\u2014anything\u2014but he couldn\u2019t make a sound.\u00a0<\/a>I\u2019m curious what you did writing-wise to make sure the reader gets to this point in the story, in terms of narrative engine, setting up early so you know they\u2019ll get to this point.<\/span>This is what everything was building up to. This is why you start with a bookend beginning. Why you kind of slowly build into something. Why you want to get things going as fast as you possibly can. Why you want to add in a bunch of reasons to care about these characters, this character in particular. And little things that might have readers relate to these people. That\u2019s everything that went into that right at these moments.<\/span><\/span>\n
\n
\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n
\n
Sitting around the table two years\u00a0after that night, Bill Fong and his teammates still argue. Fong truly believes that the last pin could have made his life perfect. \u201cIt would have made all the difference,\u201d he says. With a 900, he theorizes, he might have made SportsCenter, and he would surely have sponsors. He thinks he might have had a chance to join the pro tour. At least, he figures, he\u2019d be the best of all time at something, with the name Bill Fong immortalized above even the legends of the game\u2014and he wouldn\u2019t be just a regular guy.\u00a0<\/a>We go back to the night you\u2019re there. So we\u2019re jumping two years into the future. Why do you do that here and not just push straight through to the big surprise at the end?<\/span>\u00a0Well, probably the most common question I got about this story with writers is how and why I didn\u2019t mention the stroke earlier. For me, that was never really a question, you know? Medical stories or illness stories are really hard to make not follow the same kind of tropes, right? So if you mention the stroke early in the story, it\u2019s a stroke story. It\u2019s not a bowling story; it\u2019s not a story about perfection. It\u2019s about somebody who had a stroke. And it\u2019s really hard. Really good writers can do it, but it\u2019s really a challenge to make that, if it\u2019s about that, to avoid clich\u00e9s and tropes. And I generally like chronology. I might start out of chronological order, but generally I try and have things come in chronological order. So it was never really a question of where it was going to go for me. I just wanted to come back and put this in present tense a little bit so that we kind of have some recovery time. That hits really hard, and I kind of wanted to debate over what that was before we get into this other twist.<\/span><\/span>\n
\n
\u201cThat pin makes me like the Rodney Dangerfield of bowling,\u201d he says. \u201cI get no respect.\u201d\n
\n
He goes over that last roll in his mind all the time. He watches the shaky cell phone video.\n
\n
\u201cIt looked so good as it left my hand,\u201d he says.\n
\n
When that 15-pound sphere collides with the pins, so many things happen so fast that there\u2019s no way of knowing exactly what went wrong in those milliseconds.\n
\n
That hasn\u2019t stopped Fong from searching for some reason. He wonders if he could have practiced more. He blames the 10 years he was away from bowling. Like that single pin represents the Bowling Fates punishing him for his insolence.\n
\n
His teammates disagree. They don\u2019t think that pin would have made much of a difference in Bill Fong\u2019s life at all. What he did was amazing, something that will come up in conversation around the Plano Super Bowl for years.\u00a0<\/a>This is a lovely, subtle sentence that drives home exactly Fong\u2019s point, that his life hasn\u2019t changed, that it wasn\u2019t amazing, that it\u2019s just the fodder for another Monday night at the Plano Super Bowl.<\/span>\u00a0That\u2019s interesting that\u2019s how you think of that. In this world, his life did change, right? We don\u2019t know. We honestly don\u2019t know what would\u2019ve happened if the pin had fallen or not. There\u2019s a lot of people\u2014or not a lot. There\u2019s a couple people who\u2019ve bowled 900. I don\u2019t know if any of them immediately got pro sponsorship or went on tour. But in this world, in this subculture, in this community, it is the greatest feat that has been accomplished. They still talk about it with reverence. Does he open a pro shop? Does he open his own bowling shop if he doesn\u2019t roll that series? I don\u2019t know. He and I have discussed that, and he doesn\u2019t know, one way or the other. It\u2019s hard to say. I don\u2019t know. <\/span><\/span>\n
\n
\u201cIt was mind-boggling,\u201d Gibson says.\n
\n
The fact that he missed perfection by the last pin on the last roll\u2014that makes the whole thing more human, less robotic. And that, somehow, makes it seem almost beautiful. Besides, they argue, Fong still holds the Texas state record. And because there have been only 21 perfect 900s, he is technically tied for the 22nd greatest night in the annals of bowling history. (There have been only 11 899s.)\n
\n
His life is also better now. Around the time of the 899, Fong got a part-time job at the pro shop at the Super Bowl. Recently, he opened his own place down the road, Bowling Medic Pro Shop. A lot of people from his four leagues come by to have him drill their balls. Sometimes he cuts their hair, too.\n
\n
There\u2019s also this: that night, after the 899, his friends bought him a few beers. He doesn\u2019t usually drink, but at the time, he felt like the best day of his life had just turned into the worst. After a beer or two\u2014and at least an hour of excited congratulations from strangers\u2014he felt dizzy. When he got home, he went into the bathroom and vomited in the toilet. The walls were spinning.\n
\n
It turns out Bill Fong was having a stroke.\u00a0<\/a>Did you have discussions with editors or Tim about whether that should go there or somewhere else in the story? Or was he on board with that, too?<\/span>Yeah, I think he was on board with it too. I think we both just kind of assumed, for some reason, that that was about where it was going to come. The hardest part for that was the actual convincing, right? How do you bring this into, \u201cOh by the way\u2026 In the entire thing he was having a stroke.\u201d So, \u201cThere\u2019s also this.\u201d That\u2019s the transition. Which I love. It\u2019s a great transition. It comes in that paragraph before, \u201cThere\u2019s also this.\u201d I mean it\u2019s really simple, but it accomplishes what it needs to accomplish. Of all the amount of time I\u2019ve spent writing, I probably spent more time on that very sentence, just debating what that transition was going to be. That sounds a little bit like Tim. That may be even his final edit, actually. I don\u2019t remember who wrote that.<\/span><\/span>\n
\n
With the stress, the tension of the night, his already high blood pressure had surpassed dangerous levels. Not long after, he had another stroke. When the doctor saw the scar tissue and heard about the night of dizziness, he explained to Fong that he had suffered what could very easily have been a fatal stroke. That night at the bowling alley, had things gone differently, he could have died.\n
\n
It also means that with the sweating and dizziness he was feeling in the third game, it\u2019s likely that Fong bowled the last few frames through the beginning of that stroke\u2014which makes the accomplishment that much more amazing.\n
\n
When he had his heart surgery, he was in the hospital for a week. Not many family members visited him. Nobody came from his haircutting days. But he didn\u2019t lack for visitors. Plenty of people from the bowling alley took the time to see him, not just teammates but also some longtime opponents. They asked him how he felt and encouraged him to get well quickly. And, one by one, they each mentioned that incredible night in January, when Bill Fong fell just one pin short of perfect.\u00a0<\/a>Did you ever think about ending the story here?<\/span>\u00a0I did. And that\u2019s also the kind of line that an editor might have just cut the rest and left it right there. I think when I was with him, especially watching him bowl where he\u2019s taking extensive notes, even after a strike. You know, especially after a strike. When I saw that, I think I was pretty convinced that I had the idea of ending it there. He\u2019s working hard to get back in groove. Because I like stories to work in perpetuity, I like endings that kind of signify that the story exists in perpetuity. Still ongoing. But I actually did think about that when I was looking at the piece.<\/span><\/span>\n
\n
Rehab was hard at first. The strokes took a lot of his strength. But within a few months\u2014earlier than doctors recommend\u2014Fong was back to his usual form, back to rolling five days a week. More recently, he\u2019s been sharper than ever. Since that night, Fong has rolled 10 more 300s and four series of at least 800.\n
\n
As they\u2019re talking about that night, one of his teammates poses the question: wouldn\u2019t Fong rather be alive with an 899 than dead with a 900? It\u2019s really a rhetorical question, but Fong takes a moment to consider it seriously. It takes him awhile, but eventually Fong says he\u2019d rather be alive.\u00a0<\/a>Would you have still done this story if he had bowled the 900?<\/span>I don\u2019t think so. I am a firm believer that the more interesting story is the miss. The imperfection, the loss. Almost winning and not winning is in some ways the perfect story, right? It\u2019s not the perfect experience by any means. It\u2019s a devastating human experience. But especially in the context of sports, where there isn\u2019t actually, generally going to be life and death, it really is the perfect story because that is the majority of us. That\u2019s the human experience.<\/span><\/span>\n
\n
\u201cWell,\u201d says Race, the Mister Rogers of the group, \u201cwe\u2019re sure happy to have you still here and bowling with us.\u201d\n
\n
Tonight, Fong struggles through the first few games. But in the final game of the night, he starts with three straight strikes. Then a fourth. Then a fifth. In the sixth frame, he throws it well but leaves the 10 pin standing, taunting him.\n
\n
After picking up the spare, Fong comes back to the table, shaking his head and looking at his teammates.\n
\n
\u201cI\u2019ve got to make adjustments,\u201d he says, and he begins making notes.\u00a0<\/a>Can you talk about why you had it end with him making adjustments?<\/span>\u00a0I really wanted the story to exist in a perpetuity. I want to be ending to kind of signify that the story is ongoing. He is still struggling, he is still trying for perfection. When Joey, the filmmaker who made the documentary, got in touch with me, and he asked, \u201cIs he still trying for 900? Do you think he\u2019ll try for a 900 when I\u2019m there?\u201d He\u2019s trying for a 900 every day, man. This is the kind of thing that he\u2019s always, always working for.<\/span><\/span>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Michael J. Mooney staked his claim in the world of narrative journalism with two stories that ran just weeks apart in the summer of 2012. In June, Mooney, a staff writer at D magazine, published a searing account of a 62-year-old woman who survived being tortured and raped for 12 days by her former neighbor. (You can read a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"topics":[],"authors":[171],"issue":[],"class_list":["post-1256","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-annotation-tuesday","authors-matt-tullis"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nAnnotation Tuesday: Michael J. Mooney and the Most Amazing Bowling Story Ever - Nieman Storyboard<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/niemanstoryboard.org\/2015\/03\/03\/annotation-tuesday-michael-j-mooney-and-the-most-amazing-bowling-story-ever\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Annotation Tuesday: Michael J. Mooney and the Most Amazing Bowling Story Ever - Nieman Storyboard\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Michael J. Mooney staked his claim in the world of narrative journalism with two stories that ran just weeks apart in the summer of 2012. In June, Mooney, a staff writer at D magazine, published a searing account of a 62-year-old woman who survived being tortured and raped for 12 days by her former neighbor. 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