Bowling hall of fame leaving St. Louis

ST. LOUIS (AP) -- Back in their sport's heyday, bowlers like Dick Weber and Ray Bluth ruled America's lanes and living rooms. Calling St. Louis home was natural for their team -- the Buds, which was named for the city's iconic Budweiser beer.

So when bowling boosters sought a home for a museum and hall of fame to honor a game rooted in ancient civilization, the choice was obvious. The International Bowling Museum and Hall of Fame opened downtown nearly 25 years ago next to Busch Stadium in the shadow of the Gateway Arch.

But the 21st century hasn't been kind to a shrine celebrating a pastime whose appeal likely peaked in the 1950s and '60s. Come October, the museum shutters its doors in St. Louis and moves to a more modern bowling campus that will unite the industry's key trade groups in the Dallas suburb of Arlington, Texas.

"All of us are sad," said Craig Mathews Sr., a suburban fire district captain who edits The Bowling News, an industry paper based here. "This was the bowling capital of the world."

Emphasis on 'was.' Despite its location next to a baseball park that regularly sells out and in a city whose sports fans are considered among the nation's most devoted, attendance at the museum has hovered under 30,000 annually, said Executive Director Gerald Baltz.

And many of those comparatively few visitors are attracted by the St. Louis Cardinals' hall of fame, which shares space with the bowling museum.

Those woes were on full display before a recent midweek Cardinals game, when more than 40,000 fans packed Busch Stadium, but only a handful could be found in the bowling museum. The idle time allowed a museum employee working in a public area to take a nap as Baltz, accompanied by a reporter, walked past.

"Bowling is something that most people see as an activity they can do in their hometown," he said. "When you think about (the Pro Football Hall of Fame in) Canton or (the National Baseball Hall of Fame in) Cooperstown, you think of heroes to be admired, and a sport that is not something you can aspire to."

It's another loss to a city that is also watching the $52 million takeover of St. Louis-based Anheuser-Busch Cos. Inc. -- the maker of Budweiser -- by Belgian-based InBev SA. That deal, announced in July, is expected to close by the end of the year. InBev has said that it plans to use St. Louis as its North American headquarters and keep open all 12 of Anheuser-Busch's North American breweries.

The bowling museum was going to have to move to make way for a major commercial development next to the Cardinal's new Busch Stadium. It flirted briefly with relocating to that development, called Ballpark Village. But in the end, economics prevailed over sentimentality, with the museum set to be part of a development that will include the U.S. Bowling Congress, the sport's governing body for amateurs, and the Bowling Proprietors Association of America, an industry group for bowling alley owners.

The bowling campus is part of a larger entertainment district that includes the Six Flags over Texas amusement park and the Dallas Cowboys' new billion-dollar stadium. City, state and federal support for the entire project, including highway improvements, total nearly $600 million.

"They very much wanted us to join them," Baltz said. "We agreed it would be very good for us and the industry."

St. Louis isn't the only Midwestern city with a strong bowling legacy that will be affected by the move. The bowling congress' move from the Milwaukee area means the loss of nearly 200 jobs in a broad-shouldered city best known for its beer, bowling and bratwurst.

Those losses mirror shifts in population, prestige and economic influence, said Andrew Hurley, a University of Missouri-St. Louis history professor and author of "Diners, Bowling Alleys, and Trailer Parks: Chasing the American Dream in Postwar Consumer Culture."

"St. Louis, Milwaukee, Cleveland -- these were the real bowling centers in post-World War II society," Hurley said. "The Midwest in general, and individual working-class cities, were really the ones that supported the bowling industry."

The ascension of bowling in popular culture paralleled the upward mobility of working class families after the war, Hurley said, as smoke-filled saloons and surly pin boys gave way to suburban bowling centers suitable for family entertainment.

"It's a shame, in a way," he added. "Bowling is something that really resonated with St. Louisans. They could see a lot of their own history in the bowling museum. I'm not sure that can happen in Arlington, Texas."

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On the Net:

International Bowling Museum and Hall of Fame: http://www.bowlingmuseum.com