X-Calibur

Steve Coopers masterpiece! In 1992 he asked his chemist if there could be a urethane bleeder and he said yes. This ball started it all. From Bowlers Journal 2002: "I think there is a different story as to how the reactive balls got into bowling. It was back in late '92 or early '93 as stated, Nu Line sent two bowling balls to the ABC labs to have them certified. One was a black ball (non reactive) and the other was pearlized (reactive) ABC did their inspection on the black ball and because the weight block, etc were the same they gave their infamous 'stamp' of approval to them both. They did not know the monster that they allowed into our sport until several months later. I got two 'samples' from my distributor, one black, and one pearlized. Drilled them both and the black one was nice...but oh that other one...when the lanes were nice it was incredible, when the lanes were broken down it sucked.......then came the Storm Teal, then Colombia's two reactives, I forget the name of the greenish one, but the cheep one, The Beast was an absolute monster for about $90. (the green one might have been power torque? or something like that)" "Steve Cooper who ran the Pro Shop at La Habra 300 lanes [home of Glenn Allison's real 900] was discussing the bleeder Yellow Dots with a Chemist and remarked that it was too bad a Urethane 'Bleeder ' couldn't be made. The chemist said 'why not' and the rest is history. I heard this from someone who knew Mr.Cooper well. It seemed like quite a few months before I saw the black XCaliber. I went to some sweepers back then where the centers did not yet know how to oil the lanes for the reactive balls and most of the bowlers used them anyway,believing in their "magic" . These bowlers were easy pickin's for anyone who put the reactives back in their bag. It wasn't long before every center learned how to oil the lanes to accommodate the cheater balls and the game's integrity continued it's downward spiral."