Aw sad news indeed.

Whenever I think of Mark Roth, I think of myself as a clueless kid who preferred Earl Anthony to Mark. My dad took me to see the pro qualifying rounds at the local bowling alley, and Earl hid in a room away from everyone—I got his autograph at the end of the day but he only begrudgingly signed for me and the 2-3 other kids that were there. Meanwhile earlier in the day I was sitting next to my dad (probably loudly) commenting that Mark didn’t seem to really be bowling well at this tourney. My dad elbowed me to point out that Mark was sitting maybe 6 feet away. Shameless child that I was at the time, I marched up to him and asked for an autograph. He was so kind and gracious about it! Such a class act all the way!

Yup! Years later I also got to bowl with Norm Duke and Walter Ray Williams III in a pro-am—both were really fun to meet and gracious. The highlight for me was Norm complimenting me highly on coming thisclose to picking up a very tough split., but a close second was getting to see all the pros goofing off with each other and playing funny pranks.

To circle back to pinball, my love of pins started when I was maybe 5 or 6 and would try to find pins with leftover credits on them. I remember the alley had Spirit of 76 at one point, don’t remember the other titles though.