BOWLING / DANA HADDAD : Forkel Picked Himself Up and the Pins Began Falling Down

Eric Forkel doesn’t know if it was God or Mother Nature. And he doesn’t know if there was any veiled meaning for him in the catastrophic Northridge earthquake.

He just reacted.

A typical Valley resident, Forkel scrambled to avoid a death trap when he was awakened at 4:31 a.m. on Jan. 17 to hear the sound of splitting wood and see the walls of his Chatsworth townhome twisting.

“I wasn’t thinking,” Forkel said. “I thought the world was ending.”

He had packed his clothes and bowling gear the night before. That morning, he was to embark toward the first stop on the Professional Bowlers Assn. Winter Tour. It was in Lakewood--a quick sprint down the 405.

If something or somebody was telling him to get out of Southern California, well, then OK, Forkel thought. Why not? His condo--at the corner of Devonshire and Mason--was not far from “ground zero” and would soon be condemned.

“I can still bowl,” he thought.

Maybe he could still make it to Lakewood Jan. 18 for the first round of qualifying.

Forkel leaped out of bed, amid broken glass of a fallen chandelier, and ran into the hall.

“I didn’t put my shoes on and I felt something warm in my foot,” he said. “And I looked down and I was bleeding profusely.”

A clean cut--a half-inch deep on the bottom of his left foot behind the big toe--nearly severed some tendons and sent him to the hospital for stitches.

Sitting in a wheelchair while a doctor in the urgent-care ward closed the gash with surgical staples, Forkel faced another grim, more-immediate consequence of the quake: he couldn’t bowl.

Forkel was sidelined from the tour for a month, missing the first four stops. He spent two weeks on crutches, two more in rehabilitation and, with no income other than a nominal sponsor’s check, spent idle moments wondering how much more the injury would affect him when he finally could lace on a pair of bowling shoes.

“My nerves were on edge,” he said. “I was not a happy camper.”

Forkel, 33, was angry at the set of cards he had been dealt. His pro bowling career had been marked by one long struggle to make it to the PBA Tour (he was a rookie at 31), a major breakthrough in 1992 and another drop-off in ’93. He was eager to make a comeback in ’94.

Finally able to bowl in a tournament in Missouri in mid-February, Forkel took out his frustrations on the pins.

He made the stepladder finals March 5 in the PBA National Championship in Toledo, Ohio, finishing fifth. He took third in the U.S. Open in Troy, Mich., on April 9 and finished second at the Tournament of Champions in Akron, Ohio, later that month.

Three television appearances in 10 weeks put Forkel in the money.

“I made three shows,” Forkel said, astonishment in his voice. “That’s better than I’d ever done in the past.”

The 1978 Van Nuys High graduate became only the fifth man in tour history to reach the finals of each of the PBA’s three national championship events in one season.

“An amazing turn of events, considering what I went through,” said Forkel, who wore a doctor-prescribed non-friction sock on his left foot for several weeks.

Forkel has already earned well in excess of $100,000 (including bonuses) this year with eight events remaining. He currently ranks 10th on the tour in tournament earnings.

Forkel won’t forget the concern other bowlers showed by phoning him from Lakewood the day of the quake. Rich Wolfe of Virginia, Forkel’s roommate on the road, paid a personal visit.

“It was kind of nice, even though I was sutured up and had shots and felt lousy and couldn’t do anything,” Forkel said. “I didn’t want to deal with anybody.”

And about moving out of town, Forkel is waiting for a loan to be approved so he can build a home in Tucson, Ariz.

“I was planning to move there in about four or five years,” he said. “But I took a loss on the townhome, and I’m not going to take a loss there again. I basically got earthquaked out of California.”

*

By a single pin: One more pin and Barry Gurney could have pushed Tommy Evans to an extra frame in last week’s Showboat Senior Invitational in Las Vegas. Two more pins and Gurney of West Hills might have tripled his earnings in the $160,000 tournament--the biggest of the year on the PBA Senior Tour’s regular schedule.

Sometimes they fall. Sometimes they don’t.

Gurney, 53, lost to Evans in the third match of the televised step-ladder finals at Showboat Lanes, 236-235. Gurney was seeded second. Through 56 qualifying games, his average was 235, the exact number he rolled against Evans, who qualified third (234).

But the two extra pins fell for Evans, who went on to win the tournament and $24,000. Gurney finished third, taking home $8,000.

Near-misses are nothing new to Gurney. In 1993, he rolled a perfect game during qualifying and was ranked No. 1 in the final of the Springfield (Mo.) Open when he was beaten on TV.

*

Branham’s run: The fortunes of Arleta native George Branham III proved opposite those of Gurney last week. In Tuesday’s finals of the Sherwin-Williams Classic in Bedford, Ohio, Branham played the spoiler.

Qualifying fourth in the PBA regular tour event, Branham beat Mike Edwards of Oklahoma City then upset Tim Criss of Bel Air, Md., and Don Moser of San Jose before he fell in the final to Dave Husted of Milwaukie, Ore., 279-238.

Making his first televised appearance this year, Branham posted 257, 268 and 224 in his three victories and earned $14,000.