What I’m about to say will more in likely have me banned from almost every bowling establishment in Berks County.
I have been confronted today about my recent writing about the Jay Lanes Fire. The owner of Jay Lanes Ed Satkowski contacted Jim Reitnour about my piece crying foul that it makes him look bad. Despite everything in the post proven to be factual Jim asked me to edit its content, because it would risk alienating The Friday Night Dixie Cedar League, and also asked not to write anything else about it.
After sitting around thinking about this for the past couple of hours I decided that I must respectfully decline Jim Reitnour’s request. Part of the reason this blog network was founded was to expose hard facts that in some cases can be a pill that is hard to swallow for some people. Facts that locally I am critical of The Reading Eagle for not reporting. Just because this particular case hits the back doorstep of one of us, we need to prove that we are not going to go the do as I say, not as I do route, but to do as I say, and do as I do route. If we lower ourselves to the same level as the people who gave us the reason to start The Berks Blog Network in the first place, then this project would be a failure.
As for Jay Lanes, they have lost a customer tonight. I’m a bowler first, and a patron second. I respect the rules, and conduct of the game. Something that along with Berks Lanes, Limerick Bowl, and now Jay Lanes could care less about. Tomorrow night I will be bowling in a three way roll off for first place. The manager of Berks Lanes Brad Bixler has attempted to strong arm the league in conducting the roll off his way which would put the top two teams at a disadvantage.
As for Jay Lanes they are no better in my book. One of the biggest rules in USBC is gambling. Jay Lanes for years has been running an underground gambling operation with video poker machines in the bowling establishment that were located near the restrooms. Jay Lanes employees from Harry at the counter, to Donny the mechanic payout those machines under the counter. Several Bowlers that gamble on these machines range from known bowlers like Jim Anton, Shirley Boyer, and Chris Hetrich. I have also dropped a friendly line to the state tonight informing them of these actions, and stay tuned, because I’m sure the best is yet to come.
Jim Reitnour needs to do some soul searching, because he has also raised concerns about bowling establishments like Berks Lanes strong arming leagues, and their respective officers. As a league secretary Jim you need to put the game, and its integrity first before the establishment. It may not be the popular thing to do, but it is the moral and ethical thing to do. If Ed Satkowski wants to be that way then I’m sure the league can go to Ramma, or another house, or disband. Friends always put out a helping hand when they see the ones they know stray away, and this is one of those times. This is the biggest problem why the sport today has it problems, and these are the types of things that stereo type the game. Put yourself above that.
As for the rest of them you may think I’m a prick, an asshole, and sometimes a nice guy, but if there is one thing you can’t deny is that I’m fair. Ed Satkowski is a coward, and I wonder how the Mercury would like to hear a story about this?
August 25, 2006 at 11:41 pm
Amen
I bowl myself and I have to agree with everything you say Matt (politics aside of course).
I remember Jim Anton never had money to pay for his leagues, but would put over $200.00 in those damn machines. I can even remember when he sold me a ball, because he was trying to win his money back after a bad night.
Berks Lanes is the same way. Bixler is a cock sucker, and so is his poor excuse of a brother Mike. Remember Matty the old Berks Lanes motto you used to say to Brad Bixler? “Well as least I did not fuck the fat ferry Shawna” LOL
I have to say Bowl-O-Ramma is the best place to be that respects the game still. Ellis will only gain more leagues with the new lanes, and being the class act that he is.
I commend you Matt for having the guts to expose this.
Jim please listen to Matty, and prove to me that conservatives are not completly stupid. I know it’s wrong, Matty knows it’s wrong, and deep down I’m sure you know it’s wrong.
PEACE Y
H
August 26, 2006 at 1:04 am
No comment on anything other than to hear that it’s nice to hear someone call Ellis a class act.
August 26, 2006 at 3:27 am
The last time I was in Ramma it looks like the place is really starting to look great. One thing I can credit Ramma on is that they are doing everything in one shot unlike Berks Lanes when they expanded. Berks Lanes parking is not the best either. Even after they did all that work they still could not even repave the parking lot to make it look nice. Also the way the spaces are laid out is such a mess, and I can’t tell you how many times over the years I have seen somebody get into a fender bender in one way shape, or form.
If Ramma markets this right I believe they can start taking business from Berks. The overhead 32′ LCD monitors, the new lanes, and just just the cool looking modern style of the place will make Berks Lanes look like a scene from the Fred Flintstone bowling era.
I do agree with Chirs that Ellis is a class act, and Charlie at the counter is just one of the nicest guys you could talk to (I ought to know since my wife Marci can talk his ear off for hours lol
). Jim Reitnour and myself are forming a team at Ramma on Saturdays for the winter, and I am looking forward to feeling out the new lanes. The way Brad Bixler is acting and fixing the roll off over a grudge involving our team, and calling Brad on pushing around the league officers to accept Brad’s demands is sicking. I only went back to Berks this summer to warm up from taking a year off after my auto accident in New Holland, and was told how Steve Glass, and all his corruption was gone from the center. I later found out that all proved to be wrong.
August 26, 2006 at 4:03 am
Hey Matthew,
I wanted to say good for you, and it’s about time somebody has the balls to call them on it. I will be at your match later tonight, and wanted to let you know that I have printed out this post, and it will be in the bathrooms stall of Berks Lanes, and I will even tack it on the boarded up doors of Jay Lanes. Just in case it gets too hot for some people I will have plenty of hard copies to go around. I’m going to throw a few at Hiester Lanes, Hoffman, and Ramma.
THE WORD WILL GET OUT I PROMISE YOU!
KEEP UP THE FIGHT :0
August 26, 2006 at 7:56 am
By far the most trueful statement about Berks County Bowling centers I have read. Being at all the houses I have to agree as well. I just sent on online tip to the state about this as well, and I included the poker machines that were in the bar as well. If we are to make the sport decent again, it is things like this that have to be taken.
Good Call Matt…..
August 26, 2006 at 11:39 am
Matt,
Did you see that puppet movie, Team America?
They said there are three types of people - dicks, assholes, or pussies.
Sometimes I think you are a dick, occasionally an asshole, but never a pussy… and this piece certainly proves it.
Right on.
August 26, 2006 at 12:19 pm
“Sometimes I think you are a dick, occasionally an asshole, but never a pussy… and this piece certainly proves it.
Right on. ”
LOL I don’t know if I should say thank you or not. I do respect your view however, and welcome your comment. Stefan for example talks about how corporations are very backstabing. I do believe that part of that can be a person’s character. If you think about how most people are brought up today it makes sense why most companies seek the cheap labor, etc.
I’ll give you another example. When I used to play little league baseball as a kid I can always remember sportmanship, and respect while you compete. Now in this day in age with sports, steroids, T.O. in faking injuries and hurting the Cowboys (I’m an Eagles fan and please don’t puke to the fact that we can relate to the Cowboys just in this case) perverts the idea that you have to back stab, cut throats, like, cheat, steal, etc. to be successfull. One successfull example was S. Truent Carrey’s book about old fashioned business values, and yes he may be the Chick Fil A guy, but his book actually has a lot of great points to it destroying this myth that you have to be a crook to be a success.
Right now my oldest son is learning how to bowl, and I personally don’t want to see the antics that go on today like this played on him. If he were to get an ego like that I would be the first one to slap him upside his head, because you just don’t treat people that way.
August 26, 2006 at 3:34 pm
Well Matt, you certainly show courage with many of your articles, I give it up for you there. If you continue to raise your children using old fashion values, they will turn out just fine. It is amazing at how much we actually have in common, I was a great bowler in my youth, though I haven’t gone bowling in 25 years. I was involved in the junior league, I bowled at Colonial Hills. I have a wall full of trophies to show my success there. When I joined the Army, I never found the time to bowl again, and life is funny (strange) as I never made time since to bowl again.
Now, I wanted to express a few things about personalities and my fight against corporate control of our government. I was raised a Christian; my parents are Catholic, I attended a Catholic school for my first four years, and I even did the Sunday School thing at a Lutheran Church… these values are ingrained in my being. Yet they don’t have much sway in my opinion of corporations beyond the rampant greed taught to MBA’s. Like most adults, my views here are a product of my life’s experiences.
After being honorably discharged from the U.S. Army, I went to work at Stanley G. Flagg down in Pottstown, a pipe fitting plant. With the passage of NAFTA, the plant closed and my job was outsourced to Mexico, but I though that’s OK, I’ll take my Army college fund and finish my engineering degree. I took that degree and got the job I wanted at A.T.& T. which later became Lucent Technologies. Life was really good, but then after President Bush took office, he signed the PNTR (permanent normal trade relations) with Communist China. Lucent quickly shut down all U.S. operations and moved them to China. I was one of 18,500 people to lose their job here in Berks County. So you see, my beliefs are primarily the result of my life’s experiences.
I became aware that the current “Free Trade model” was going to outsource high tech jobs (like mine), not just low education factory jobs. This is unfair, because China is a communist nation, with an authoritarian government. We spent 45 years in a Cold War to defeat communism in Russia with their authoritarian government, but now we are strengthening communism is China. It is insane, and I believe we will fight another world war (or another Cold War) sometime down the road because of it. History suggests this, as Corporate America build up the Soviet Union in the 1920’s and Nazi Germany in the 1930’s. Transferring our technology to those nations did not sponsor democracy, lets face it, corporations simply don’t operate in a democratic fashion.
Now I have no hatred of business, I recognize the importance of our economy, but I do find corporations extremely dangerous to our government, our nation, and the world. The danger of corporations is in their indemnification, where the officers of the corporation can not be held liable for the harms their companies inflict on people, the environment, or anything else even though it is their decisions that create those harms. Our Founders understood this and place commonsense restrictions on corporations when they create our nation. They fought the American Revolution because the King would not protect us from the economic tyranny of his corporations. I fight to restore these restriction, to bar them from the political process, from government intrusion, to keep them where they belong… involved with business and nothing else!
Great resource for explaining this:
http://www.ratical.org/corporations
Most politicians are neither liberal or conservative, they are corporate, be they neo-conservatives or neo-liberals. This is what is ruining our nation, not true conservatives or true liberals. Just to point out two examples: President Clinton is a neo-liberal who pushed free trade to the detriment of organized labor and Americans in general. President Bush is a neo-conservative who pushes illegal immigration because that what Corporate America wants… cheap labor and this too is creating great harm to our society. I find it extremely ignorant for people to call Clinton (either of them) a liberal or Bush (any of them) a conservative. Then again, the Corporate Media (not liberal in the least) numbs the minds of so many people, what do you expect?
So keep up the fight, I certainly will, I never quit at anything. The more we take time to listen to each other (liberals and conservatives) and what we are trying to convey, the more we will understand there are far fewer differences between people. The Corporate Media works overtime to divide Americans against their own best self interests. We must be smarter than they give us credit, look past their lies, and find a way to make the world a better place for all our children. They are counting on us, because the Clinton’s and the Bush’s will only serve their own needs and those of wealth and power. Perseverance is the key.
September 16, 2006 at 7:23 pm
Got started in blogging recently and set up my poker site blog. Just learning as much as I can… could do with some useful links.
Jay