Sport: Mr. Bowling

Don Carter is the Warren Spahn of bowling: he is a cautious, accurate pitcher, not an overpowering speedballer. As he shuffles lazily toward the alley, his right arm bent grotesquely at the elbow, the bowling ball cradled in his hands, he looks like a rookie waiter balancing a tray of martinis. Gently, he places the ball on the polished wood alley and watches as it meanders slowly toward the pins. The 60-ft. trip seems to take an eternity. But, more often than not, all the pins fall down

Carter has been bowling with just such effortless precision ever since he quit pro baseball in 1948—he was a Class-D farmhand for the old Philadelphia Athletics—to play the alleys seriously. Competing in a game that has more active competitors (28 million) than any other in the U.S. and that makes little distinction between amateurs and professionals. Don Carter has compiled a record that is probably unmatched in any sport. He has been voted "Bowler of the Year" five times.He has won the All-Star Tournament four times. He was a member of the crack St. Louis Budweisers bowling team, and he was twice the national doubles titleholder. Carter has won more major tournaments (25) than any other active bowler,and he has won more money ($120,000 in the past four years). In three ten-minute appearances on a weekly TV bowling show earlier this year, he picked up $27,000.

Last week in Chicago. 35-year-old Carter was pitted against tough Ray Bluth of St. Louis in the final round of the World's Invitational Bowling Tournament, for first-place prize money of $7,500. Trailing by 54 pins with two games to go, Carter staged a typically whirlwind finish, rolling games of 249 and 258 (to Bluth's 223 and 190). His 64-game average of 221 set a new scoring record for the tournament; the victory was his fourth in the five years that the tournament has been held. The only time Don Carter failed to win—in 1958—he finished second.