1980s: Pin Boys
Pin boys in the 1980s and earlier were essential to the joys of heading to the local bowling alley for a night of friendly competition. Standing in the back of the alley, behind the pins and the bowling lane, would be a person waiting to reset the pins and return the bowling ball to its owner.
But by the late 1980s, these jobs were all but gone as automated pinsetters replaced humans, leaving some people relieved and claiming pin boys were “too often indolent, unreliable, and impertinent,” Robert Peterson, a former pin boy, wrote in a 1988 op-ed for Sports Illustrated. Peterson argued against pinsetters, saying his experience as a pin boy showed they were far more reliable than a machine, writing that on any given night, a pin boy “could have retrieved 1,500 pins.”
At the time, Peterson said bowling alleys were considered only slightly more respectable than pool halls in the eyes of the public, and acknowledged that the automated pinsetter was changing that, but it detracted from the personal touch of a pin boy.
“No doubt the automatic pinspotter represents progress,” he wrote, adding, “although in a contest for speed and efficiency over a three-game series, I would put my money on a pinboy.”
