BOWLING : McCordic Stays Alive; Young Leads

For a moment Wednesday at Gable House Bowl in Torrance, pro bowler Pete McCordic recalled the perfect game that made him rich and famous.

Circumstances were perfect to jar his memory.

He had just scored two successive 269 games in the opening round of the AC Delco PBA tournament.

With four strikes in a row into the next game “it struck me that here I was again. On Lanes 15 and 16, the same pair where it happened six years ago. Was I going to get another one?”

An estimated 3 million viewers saw him roll that 300 in the nationally televised finals of the 1987 tournament. The bonus prize was $100,000, richest prize for a single game of bowling.

McCordic settled for a spare Wednesday after those four strikes and finished the opening round, happy to be 12th and among the leaders at 1,385.

The lead after six games belonged to Billy Young, a two-time PBA champion from Tulsa, in his eighth year on the PBA tour. Young, at 1,479, had games of 279, 211, 257, 266, 244 and 222.

Tournament favorites Wayne Webb, Dave Husted, defending champion Marc McDowell and Dave Ferraro were among the top 24 in the field of 160 players.

La Habra’s Mike Fowler, 1991 Southern California Bowler of the Year, was seventh and Wilmington’s Paul Varela 20th.

McCordic, signing autographs as he left the lanes, said bowling fans still remember his 300 game.

“They will stare at me and say ‘I saw your 300 on TV.’ Probably mostly asked is ‘Do you realize how nervous you were on that last ball?’ And I tell them I sure do because I was shaking.”

McCordic, 35, said: “It’s nice to be a celebrity if that’s what I am. But I wish for greater moments before I leave the tour. “

He has only two victories but has been second six times and third three times.

Because of mechanical problems on the lanes and a leak in the roof that affected two lanes, second-round play was delayed until late Wednesday.