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Renowed Jersey Pinner Shoots 299-1366; Mikiel is Runner-up
PHOENIXVILLE.Pa., Mar. 20 - Another chapter in the biography of one of the East's outstanding ten-pin personalities was written here last night when William "Whitey" Munn, the man from New Jersey with a cigar in his mouth, went to the small town to make good.
Munn, long a headline performer along metropolitan New York's ten-pin trail, but who, during the current season had failed to produce anything startling in the way of strikes and spare sprees, despite an extensive campain in local sweepstakes and tournaments, showed a flash of his most brilliant form at Alfred Disanno Jr.'s newlt opened Phoenixville Recreation Center to annex top honors in the Phoenixville Classic, stellar attraction on a brilliant grand opening program.
Sophisticated metropolitan New Yorkers had heard little of Phoenixville, a small chester county town located on the banks of of the historic Schuykill River until Alfred Disanno, who plays a prominent role in business life of a small town of 12,000 population decided to renovate an abandoned theatre and open a de luxe bolwing academy. The business ingenuity of Disanno, who rose to a position of prominence in a towm noted for its huge iron and steel mills, boiler works, cotton mills, hosiery, shirts, pottery, building materials, paint and needle factories was all needed to put Phoenixville on the ten-pin map in indelible letters.
And Munn, big time ten-pin campaigner only a few minutes from Broadway was all that Disanno needed to make his show complete.
The man with the cigar in his mouth puffed his way to the top of the heap and a $500 prize by racking up a six game total of 1366 to take first place from Vince Mikiel, a buck private in Uncle Sam's Army, who on the previous night had taken the lead with a 1336 score.
Munn started off in a pacific manner but once the El Ropo began to cloud the cozy seven-ally establishment with billowy waves of smoke, the Elizabeth knight of the bakelite began warming to his task.
Pinning along at a steady clip which was to see him safely home, Munn began sighting the pocket with deadly aim. ever fearful of those disastrous splits, the Jersey jolter played it safe until he was within reach of the top, then took one grand fling. The net result of his do or die effort was a 299 game, one of the most spectacular performances ever witnessed in major tourney play in any part of the country.
Upon the completion of his six game series, Munn was the toast of the town.
Manager Cuthbert, of the newly opened establishment presented him with a specially engraved pin to fit the occasion and informed him overthe amplifying system that his check was in the mail and probably would beat him home as Whitey reserved a seat to watch the final squad on Sunday afternoon.
