June 6, 2007 by Matt Heckman.

As some readers already know, I sustained an injury to my left knee on Sunday while Bowling at Bowl -O- Rama.  I will tell you right now, I’m doing fine despite the severe pain I’m enduring right now, and having to use crutches.  I go for an MRI later this afternoon to find out exactly how extensive the damage is, and will keep all of you updated.

The main issue I want to address however is what is almost religion in Berks County these days, especially in it’s bowling centers, and that’s the gossip.  Turns out a rumor is floating around that got started by Brad Bixler opening that asshole he calls a mouth, and has since passed onto the Jay Lanes Barbarians that I am purposely faking my injury to profit off of a potential law suit against Bowl -O- Rama.  I’m going to be clear right now.  I am not even considering any law suit against Bowl -O- Rama.  Lou Ellis and his staff have handled this matter very professionally by filling out an accident report on what happened.  I will tell you on that night several bowlers were sticking, especially an incident where another bowler actually went flying halfway across the lane after releasing his ball.  The staff did everything in their power to fix the problem, and despite my efforts using ez-slide on top of it, I still stuck, and the rest is history.  The only problem with synthetic approaches is that when you get a lot of humidity, you tend to stick.  Every bowler knows that and prepares for it, but sometimes these types of things happen.

Sadly like many Berks County Bowlers, they have to gossip, and blow the facts out of proportion to make themselves feel important in their petty lives.  For people like Brad Bixler who had sex with a 500lb fat ferry Shawna just proves how shallow his life is.  My only advice to Brad Bixler is that if that is the best he can do with women, he might might as well turn gay.
As for the Jay Lanes Barbarians, this is another example of people trying to make themselves feel important.  They still have a bug up their ass over the whole exposure of the poker machine scandal, and the fact that their bowling center burnt down at the same time accusing me of blaming Ed for trying to pull an insurance scam (which I never said by the way).

As for Bowl -O- Rama Lou, Charlie, and rest of the staff are doing a great job, and neither the center or its staff are at fault.  As we used to say before the era of political correctness, and petty law suits.  SHIT HAPPENS!  I will recover down the road and move on, and look forward to what lies ahead.

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August 26, 2006 by Matt Heckman.

Despite the strong arming of the league roll off by The Manager of Berks Lanes Brad Bixler in an attempt to put us at a disadvantage we came out on top tonight and took first place.  I have to tell you that this team was a team.  Not one bowler was the sole reason, but as a unit we overcame the odds.

After staying even in the first game, the second game we came back in full force.  After that the one guy running the counter Matt was so pissed off that he put his fist into the counter.  Third game was tight, but in the end we pulled off a great 10th frame finish and brought it home.

Despite this being a summer league and I usually don’t try much, it became personal after Brad Bixler started to attempt to defeat us using fake pre-bowl scores that had no printouts to prove anything.  Then when Brad still could not shake us out of first, during position round Brad put little kids right next to us open bowling, and cutting us off.  Despite that we took the one point needed for force the roll off.  Last, but not least Brad attempted to fix the roll off to defeat us that way, and tonight we shoved it up his ass.  Brad Bixler needs to learn how to screw things better.  The only thing Brad Bixler was ever good at screwing was that Ferry Shawna, and he did such a stellar job that he even knocked her up.  So on behalf of the team we would like to tell Brad Bixler to kiss our asses, because we are going to Bowl-O-Ramma for the winter where they still believe in fair play.

Now onto a serious note I want to put down some messages from the team on the outcome of tonight.

Vernon Niles would like to dedicate this victory to his wife who has been in the hospital, and not doing the best.

Ronnie Helbert wants to thank his team for stepping it up tonight.  This is his first championship win.

Marci Heckman who was not able to bowl the last few weeks due to problems she has been having with her 3rd pregnancy, and was under doctors orders not to bowl.  Marci took Female High Average tonight, and would like to Thank Jim Reitnour for filling in for her not just on Saturday Nights, but Thursday Nights at Bowl-O-Ramma.

Now for me.  I took Male High Game tonight, and I would also like to thank Jim Reitnour for filling in for Marci toward the end.  Marci’s pregnancy is going fine, but she has to be on bed rest for the time being.  I have to say I did not expect to come back to a summer league and win a championship considering when I started the league I was coming off of a year hiatus due to an automobile accident I had in September 2005.  I have to admit that I would still like to get more consistent, and still am getting used to changing my style a bit to adjust to the injury, but the fact I finished the league with a 192 average with a banged up knee I’m happy, because honestly I expected to bowl worse.  Lucky for me I had a team that stepped it up and picked up each other.

I would like to dedicate this victory to my cousin Stephen Levanti who sadly passed away a couple of weeks ago from prostate cancer.  Stephen was my confirmation sponsor when I was confirmed, and one of the things I knew him best for was that he tackled anything no matter how the odds were stacked against him.  To him odds were merely a bunch of numbers, and that was it.  Tonight after having the odds stacked against us, and in the process of me recovering from an injury, we overcame it.  If we all had Steve’s “It can be done” attitude, then we would all be better off today.

This one is for you Steve.

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August 25, 2006 by Matt Heckman.

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?

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August 13, 2006 by Matt Heckman.

As most of you locals out there already know Jay Lanes Bowling Alley in Douglasville, PA went up in smoke early Saturday Morning. Over 100 firefighters fought the two alarm blaze which has caused an estimated damage of $850,000, and will more in likely go up as the days progress. Most of the Bowling Alley is destroyed.

Now I want to bring up another side of this that won’t be reported. Both Jim Reitnour another blogger with the Berks Blog Network, and myself both knew the owner Ed Satkowski pretty well from both of us competing there for several years, and from what I have been hearing at Berks Lanes today about the gossip of Ed burning down the place to cover his losses kind of shocked me.

Now let’s come clean. Jim and I can both tell you that Ed has been running in red ink with the business for at least 5 years now. The Bar & Grill Flyns Inn made very little of no money there either. Now a ton of factors were the cause of this ranging from Douglas Township, and Berks County taxing Ed into submission, and the fact that the former Pottstown Bowling Association having a close connection with Albert Blough who owns CHB Sports which includes Limerick Bowl, and Berks Lanes were trying to destroy him there. Limerick and Jay Lanes were bitter rivals in the business.

This whole issue brought me to a conversation that Jim Reitnour, and I had with Ed about two years ago about the future of Jay Lanes. Ed seemed more and more stressed about the amusement tax being put on him harder and harder where his open bowling rates were getting hard to compete with Blough, and said he would more in likely have to call it quits in a couple of years. This was two years ago almost to the day when we had this discussion.

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