Bob James, bowling

A perfect game is rare for a recreational bowler. Most bowlers can bowl a lifetime and never clip the 300 mark.

But Bob James is that rare bowler 10 times over.

James has rolled a perfect game 10 times in a bowling career that started when he was 17. James is 44 now..

"It feels good," says James. "It's the best."

James picked up the sport from his uncles, whom he started bowling with 26 years ago. Within a year, James was bowling competitively.

"It didn't take long for me to get competitive," James says.

James was born and raised in Cape Girardeau and attended Central High School. He has worked as a prosthetic technician for the past 12 years.

He competes at West Park Lanes in Cape Girardeau and bowls every Tuesday and Wednesday night during the winter league. He doesn't bowl in the summer, spring or fall.

Surely you have to practice a little to bowl ten perfect games, don't you? Not necessarily.

"It just comes naturally," he says.

Maybe it's a family thing. James has three brothers who bowl, along with uncles and a few cousins.

One cousin is leading him by two pins in the Tuesday night league, but his brothers haven't caught up yet.

"Not yet," James says. "But they will beat me one of these days. They're close right now. We are all good bowlers."

James has no plans to give up on the sport.

"As long as I'm still competitive,"James says, "I will play."

The competition is the hook for James, which may be why he doesn't ever practice. All he wants to do is compete.

"The competition is the fun part of it," he says.

The West Park Lanes league is run on a point system. Each night, every player bowls three games to try and get the maximum seven points. Each game is worth two points, while the person with the most pins owns the seventh point.

The league is split into two halves, with a winner in each half and a total winner at the end of the year.

James' five-man team is in the heat of the competition. James says that the second half may the better half for the squad.

"We are starting to play better," he says.

-- David Unterreiner