Earl Anthony One of the all-time greats in bowling, Earl Anthony is a native of Tacoma. He has a biography now.

Earl Anthony, a native of Tacoma, was one of the all-time great bowlers. He was the first $1 million guy and the top championship winner in professional bowling for a while.

Even though the late Anthony reached the peak of his sport, no official biography has been published about him. Thus, veteran novelist and writer on bowling, Barry Sparks, set out to right what he saw as a flagrant injustice to one of the game’s towering heroes.

Sparks remarked, “I was shocked to learn there was no biography.” I found it to be a little surprising. There isn’t a single biography of the bowler who was perhaps the best of all time. It is quite likely that every one of the top five athletes in any given sport has a biography. There are no bios in bowling.

Anthony, who won 43 championships during his stellar career on the PBA Tour from 1970 to 1983, passed away in 2001 at the age of sixty-three. A group of bowlers and media representatives voted him The Greatest Player in the PBA’s 50-year history in 2008.

“EARL: The Greatest Bowler of All Time,” Sparks’ biography, was published last year. For the book, Sparks claimed to have spoken with over 100 persons, 29 of whom were PBA Hall of Famers.

Anthony’s initial goal was to play baseball professionally. Anthony, a left-handed pitcher who graduated from Lincoln High School, tried out for the minor league squad of the Baltimore Orioles. However, he was hurt, injuring his ankle while covering first base, and decided to return to Tacoma rather than sign a contract.

In 1960, Anthony obtained employment at West Coast Grocery, a wholesale wholesaler, where he performed graveyard shift forklift labor. He received an invitation to go bowling from several of his coworkers at approximately 7:30 a.m. after their shift finished.

Sparks remarked, “They’d get breakfast and go bowling.” Earl was a first-time bowler. He discovered he was not too bad at it.

Anthony is dubbed “bowling’s unlikeliest superstar” by Sparks. He wasn’t even interested in bowling until he was 21 years old, and he wasn’t a full-time player on the PBA Tour until he was 31.

Anthony began participating in local competitions in 1963, curious to see how he fared against the opposition.

“He outperformed a hundred other guys,” Sparks said.

Anthony developed a seven-year obsession with bowling, spending five to six hours a day practicing. The intensity of Anthony’s devotion and work ethic first struck Sparks during his biographical study.

Sparks stated, “He was getting ready for the professional circuit.” “He desired to be proficient at bowling on any kind of lane.” He would practice and hone a wide range of genres.

He would practice “shadow bowling,” rolling the ball down the alley to strike specific areas over and over for hours on end without any pins in play.

Sparks laughed and remarked, “That has to be the most boring thing to do.” The majority of individuals couldn’t practice in that manner for fifteen or thirty minutes. I found it quite astounding how much practice and dedication he put in. He practiced with a goal in mind. He was distinctive since he practiced in various lane situations.

After joining the PBA Tour, Anthony shot to prominence, winning 43 titles during his career. This record stood until 2006, five years after Anthony’s passing, when Walter Ray Williams, Jr. surpassed it.

Sparks claimed that throughout all of his interviews, Anthony’s peers frequently expressed the same things.

“He was among the most formidable rivals they had ever encountered,” Sparks remarked. “However, they would then say, ‘He was a true gentleman.'” That is rather good. You may receive one at times but not the other.

Earl understood how hard it was to win, so no matter how tight the match was, you could always count on him to look you in the eye, shake your hand, and offer congratulations. Whether you had ten titles or none at all, he knew who you were and addressed you by name. That is very unique.