Johnny Campos
Ray Bluth, the last surviving member of the famed Budweiser bowling team that captivated a nation and set a record that stood for decades, died in his sleep on Friday, April 11, at the age of 97.
With his passing, the iconic five-man Budweiser team that helped define bowing’s golden era, is now together once again.
Bluth was a member of five halls of fame, including the United States Bowling Congress in 1973 for Superior Performance and in the inaugural Professional Bowlers Association class of 1975 along with a couple of his Budweiser teammates – Dick Weber and Don Carter.
The other two members on the Budweisers were Tom Hennessey and Pat Patterson. The group bowled a then-record 3,858 team series on March 12, 1958 on lanes 7-8 at Floriss Lanes in St. Louis. The record stood for almost 35 years.
Bluth was the high man on the team with an 834 set that included a 300 game. He struck on 33 of a possible 36 shots, which was the world record at the time.
“The camaraderie that that team had, it was like a brotherhood,” said Mike Bluth, one of Ray’s four children. “They were traveling on trains and planes together and playing gin. That was probably some of the best times of his life, I would say.
“When we were kids, every summer we always had to have the biggest station wagon because we would go on tour with them. We would be gone for four weeks at a time. He only had one or two bowling balls, so we had them in the back of the station wagon with a cooler full of baloney and bread. Then we’d drive across the country!”
At the time of his death, Bluth was in the house that he built in 1959, where he and Carol, his wife of 71 years, raised their four children.
“All four kids were there, along with about six grandkids and three great-grandkids,” Mike Bluth said. “And he passed away in his sleep, which was good.”
Ray Bluth, a St. Louis native, owned several bowling centers – most notably Crestwood Bowl – in his home area along with his family over the years. The family sold the final one a couple of years ago.
“He loved to play golf, and was playing until he was almost 93,” Mike said. “He was playing probably two or three times a week. Then he had some mini-strokes that he didn’t even know he had, and it affected his vision. He also couldn’t walk the courses anymore.”
Another St. Louis bowling great, Nelson Burton Jr., was just a youngster when he first saw Bluth bowl.
“I knew Ray probably from the time I was 13 or 14,” Burton recalled. “I went with my dad and watched Ray bowl in the St Louis City Match Game, which I believe he won. I bowled a lot with Ray in the Masters League, which is where the Budweisers shot the 3,858 on lanes 7-8 at Floriss Lanes. I bowled my first 300 two weeks after that when I was 16 on that same pair of lanes.”
Burton and Bluth also went to the same high school, St. Louis University High, an all-boys Jesuit school. But not at the same time.
“He was about 15 years ahead of me,” Burton said. “But I think he might have been the least known of the Budweiser team bowlers because he never did well on the PBA Tour.”
Bluth finished his career with around 50 top-five finishes on the PBA Tour, but finished second 16 times and third on 17 other occasions.
Of his top-five finishes, however, many of the tournaments did not have TV finals. Bluth only made nine telecasts, going 9-9 for his career.
He beat Burton, 236-205, in the title match to win the 1969 Buckeye Open in Toledo, Ohio. They met the following year in the title game of the same event, with Burton coming out on top.
“We are the only two people that went to the same high school that bowled for a PBA title against each other two years in a row,” Burton said. “I was the tournament leader both times. He beat me in 1969, and then I beat him the next year.”
Bluth’s other regular PBA title came in the 1964 Spokane PBA Open, when he finished 266 pins ahead of the field. It was his first victory after finishing second nine times and third 12.
In the ABC Masters, Bluth finished second in 1956 before beating Billy Golembiewski for the title in 1959.
Weber, Carter and Bluth all were charter members of the PBA when it was organized in 1958.
Bluth’s top earning years on Tour were 1962 and 1963, when he broke the $25,000 mark. During the PBA’s first six years of existence, he was among the top eight money winners each time.
He also won the 1964 George Young High Average award at 210.512.
But Bluth earned some big money on the lanes outside of PBA competition. In 1964 he earned $22,240 on Make That Spare telecasts. He also earned $37,150 in eight seasons of Championship Bowling, which topped bigger names on the list, such as Weber, Harry “Tiger” Smith and Carmen Salvino.
Bluth also bowled two 300 games and two 800 series on national television, but not in PBA competition.
The Budweiser team added Bill Lillard to their original five bowlers to win the Classic Division team title in the 1962 American Bowling Congress Open Championships.
In 1974, Bluth and Carter bowled with Jim Godman, John Guenther and Bob Strampe on the Ebonite Corp. team to claim that year’s Classic Division title.
Bluth and Weber won the BPAA National Doubles title four times, finished second twice and third three times.
And he had all of his success with a unique approach that started with Bluth holding the bowling ball seemingly over his right eye, cupping it near his right shoulder and then putting the ball in motion with a short backswing and unleashing a powerful strike ball.
Some people called him “Peek-a-Boo” for his style, but Mike Bluth said his dad had a different nickname.
“Mostly it was Blooper or Bloops,” he said. “In fact, Carmen called him that the other day. They all had little nicknames back then for everybody.”
But Bluth’s physical game drew the attention of another PBA Hall of Famer.
“Oh, I could duplicate Ray’s style,” said Barry Asher, a 10-time PBA champion who bowled on Tour with Bluth and was close with the Bluth family over the years. “When I was a kid, I could just do it almost verbatim. Hell, I wanted to copy everybody!
“If I could take Ray Bluth’s precision and Salvino’s hand, I could be the best bowler I could be.”
The first time Asher met Bluth, however, things didn’t go well for him.
“When I was about 15 I got a spot in a tournament at Ocean Bowl on the Long Beach Pike,” Asher recalled. “I crossed with Ray, and then in April I bowled in San Jose, and I crossed with Don. So, yeah, it was my baptism of fire. Ray was intimidating, just by his demeanor. I was scared to death!”
They ended up being great friends. Asher would share texts and photos with both Ray and Mike Bluth, all the way until Ray’s death.
Another long-time St. Louis friend, Rich Orf, remembers that his dad, Ray, was always great friends with the Bluth family.
“When I talked with Ray, he talked to you like he was just a regular bowler,” Orf said. “He was just so down to earth. It really hit me how close he and my dad were when my father passed away.
“I knew Ray and Pops were really good friends, But Ray and Mike were two of the first ones to come in for the visitation. Ray knelt down and he was crying like a baby. It really hit home with me.”
Ray Orf, a PBA champion who became famous for rolling an 890 series in 1972 that was never sanctioned by the ABC, almost had a close encounter with the Budweisers on their historic night in 1958.
“My Pops was only 17 but was a member of one of the local teams, Pulaski Savings & Loan,” Orf said. “When you look in the history books, that’s the team the Budweisers were bowling that night. They had more than five guys and it was his night out. Somebody else needed a sub at a different bowling center, so my Pops ended up bowling there that night.
“Even without cell phones back then, word traveled fast. He and his buddies ended up partying well into the night with the Budweisers! So that was pretty cool!”
Not that Bluth was much of a party guy.
“Ray was just a straight arrow and was the glue that kept that team together,” Asher said. “He was smarter than all of them, too – financially and businesswise.”
But whatever success Bluth had on the lanes or as a proprietor, he wanted to be remembered for something else.
“My dad always said that his legacy was not bowling, it was his family,” Mike Bluth said. “With all of his kids, grandkids and great grandkids he had, he always called it the Bluth Dynasty. He was a great dad and a great family man. And family always came first for him.”
There have been no services planned yet to honor Bluth.
“It’s going to be in a couple of weeks,” Mike said. “His ashes will be in an urn where all of our grandparents are. He was a devout Catholic, so we’re going to do a mass and then maybe something afterwards. We’re thinking we might even do something at a bowling center.”
That would only be fitting for Blooper.
