It was the holy grail of bowling, once.

Oct 8, 2018 - Most career 300-yard passing games (111) - Most 300-yard passing games in a season (13 in 2011) - Most consecutive 300-yard passing.

The quest led men and women to lace up footwear that would not be out of place at a circus and hurl heavy black balls 60 feet down an alley. They would do it again and again, hoping against the odds to someday knock down all 10 pins for a strike 12 consecutive times. That would mean a score of 300, the highest one could achieve: perfection.

Thirty years ago, throwing a 300 made you a bowling celebrity, the Paul Anka of your local alley. The American Bowling Congress in Greendale, Wis., would solemnly present you with a gold ring to signal your ascension into an elite club. The bowling alley would memorialize your feat with a plaque or a glass-encased shrine. And from that day forward, it was a safe bet you would never buy your own coffee ever again.

These days, you had better bring some change if you think a 300 game gets you a cup of joe, because you have lots of company.

Thanks largely to NASA-like advances in bowling-ball technology and the more liberal application of lubricants upon lane surfaces -- by bowling center proprietors seeking to enliven a game of fickle popularity -- the number of perfect games has exploded. Teenagers in youth leagues are throwing them. Retired people in senior leagues are throwing them. There is a bowling alley mechanic in Nassau County who has thrown perfect games with his right hand and his left.

The experience of Mike Serigano, the general manager of the AMF Babylon Lanes, provides perspective. When he began working at the center in 1987, four perfect games had been bowled in its 30-year existence. Since September alone, he said, the alley has had 93 perfect games. Perfect-game bowlers are so common now that the center displays their names for a few days, then takes them down with the same pomp a supermarket devotes to removing a sale sign for overripe fruit.

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'In fact, we're backed up,' said Mr. Serigano, who has a perfect game of his own. He said the names hanging over the lanes right now celebrate perfect games bowled in February.

The numbers are not peculiar to a bowling alley on Sunrise Highway. The American Bowling Congress, the governing body of the sport, reports that in the 1968-69 season, it recorded 905 perfect games in league and tournament matches; in the 1998-99 season, it recorded 34,470.

That figure represents about a 3,700 percent increase in 30 years. And it does not include the 1,708 perfect games recorded last year by the Women's International Bowling Congress and the Young American Bowling Alliance. The increase also comes at a time when the number of people who bowl regularly enough to register as members with these organizations has declined drastically, to about 3.5 million from 9 million in the last 20 years.

Granted, bowling a 300 game remains a feat to brag about, considering the millions of games played every year. Still, the trend vexes the game's leading experts, from Len Nicholson of Vacaville, Calif., who has dedicated his career to the study of bowling lane surfaces, to Bill Wasserberger of Muskegon, Mich., whose job title for the Brunswick company is: director of research and development, high-performance bowling balls.

They are in full agreement with Norm Ginsberg Jr., who at 25 is considered one of the top amateur bowlers on Long Island.

'Today, it's not that big an accomplishment,' Mr. Ginsberg said as he hammered away at a thumb mold for a ball at Norm's Bowlers Pro Shop in Levittown. 'It looks silly, because there are so many. It just mocks the game.'

Mr. Ginsberg has some standing in the matter; he has bowled 41 perfect games. So far.

The perfect-game epidemic has prompted years of discussion above the din of clattering balls and tenpins. Blame and a bit of sheepishness seem to frame the debate among industry monitors, bowling equipment manufacturers and bowling alley proprietors.

True, many people say, the bowler's technique has changed over the years, creating more ball revolution and, therefore, more action when the ball hits the pins.

Then there are the scientific advances in the design of the ball itself. Technicians have studied the bowling ball the way Hamlet studied Yorick's skull.

Thirty years ago, most bowling balls were hard rubber or plastic. Today, the companies that manufacture balls guard their formulations as though protecting state secrets. Bill Supper ('just like the meal!'), the president of Storm Bowling Products in Brigham City, Utah, said that companies use ground-up glass beads, ground-up ceramic or ground-up rubber, all in pursuit of a 'proprietary concoction' that will create a sublime marriage of traction and friction.

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Mr. Wasserberger said that he and Ray Edwards, his research partner at Brunswick, had focused in recent years on the interaction between bowling balls and the oil on the lanes. Now, he said, bowlers can choose balls that respond best to the specific lane conditions of their preferred bowling centers. He talked with gusto about 'proactive urethane,' the 'maximum coefficient of traction' and something called a 'flared ball track.'

He acknowledged that he and Mr. Edwards are a rare breed: men addicted to physics and bowling. His senior project in college was related to the 'static balance in bowling balls,' he said. He has also bowled four perfect games.

For all his life's dedication to the mysteries of the bowling ball, Mr. Wasserberger said he was convinced that the precipitous rise in perfect games -- and in overall averages -- was primarily due to changes in the oiling of lanes. And he belongs to a growing chorus.

About a decade ago, the American Bowling Congress relaxed its lane-dressing regulations to accommodate bowling center proprietors who complained that they did not have the time, money or equipment to meet the governing organization's exacting standards. The centers quickly learned that they could create high-score conditions by applying more oil down the middle of the lanes, which essentially guides balls to the pocket -- between the one and two pins for left-handers and between the one and three pins for right-handers.

'It's very similar to funneling,' said Mr. Nicholson, the pre-eminent 'oil man.'

The trend has not affected the Professional Bowlers Tour, which requires more demanding conditions. And it seems rooted in a basic philosophy of human nature: people who bowl well are more likely to return. But many purists say the changes have alienated the best amateur bowlers, who find the game too easy.

The American Bowling Congress, of course, has noticed the difference. In the old days, proprietors would have to rope off the lane upon which a perfect game was thrown until a representative of the congress arrived to confirm that indeed such a miracle had occurred. Then would come the gold ring.

Now the rings are made of something called Siladium, which bowlers describe as something like steel. And verification is done through a form whose most serious requirement is: 'Use dark ink.'

But the congress is addressing the issue with plans to create a 'sport level' of competition with less-forgiving lane conditions. Roger Dalkin, the organization's executive director, said the plan would allow more accomplished players to focus on the skill of ball placement, while retaining the more generous conditions for 'the 50 million who bowl and have a good time.'

And a good time is being had in Babylon.

Mr. Serigano recently took down the old board that long ago had been hung near the alley's entrance to honor the very elite: those who had bowled games of 300 and 299. He had his reasons: there was no more room on the board for all the names; 299 games had become passe; and some prankster had been moving the letters around to spell out crude jokes.

Still, the dusty board provided a telling chronology of the 300-game revolution. Pointing to a name toward the top left-hand corner of the board, Mr. Serigano said that the lanes began to be oiled differently at about the time that that particular perfect game was bowled.

'And from here on down,' he said with a sweep of his hand, 'they started whacking them.'

He walked down the alley -- past the snack bar, past the sign that says 'Please, this bench is reserved for changing of shoes only' -- and stopped for a while to watch some members of the Tri-Rite Auto bowling team warm up.

'This guy just shot a 258,' he said, motioning to a smiling man whose score was being projected on an overhead screen. 'He's just practicing and he's throwing a 258.'

Later that night, down on Lane 38, there were more smiles when a bowler threw yet another perfect game. It was his second.