St. Louis Pioneer Press

Knocking pins instead of heads

BY RICHARD CHIN

First there was pingpong diplomacy.

Now there's bipartisan bowling.

That's because this Thursday, bowling centers around the country will be hosting the first Great American Meetup Bowl-Off, in which supporters of George Bush ("Team Red"), John Kerry ("Team Blue") and independent and third-party candidates ("Team Green") are invited to take a night off from stealing and defacing yard signs to roll a few frames with each other in an evening of friendly competition.

The event is the creation of Meetup.com -- a Web site that helps people organize local meetings devoted to a shared cause or interest -- and the bowling industry.

Bowling has a special significance for Meetup.com because the Web site itself was inspired by "Bowling Alone," a book by Harvard scholar Robert Putnam that explored problems created by increasing social isolation in American society.

Meetup.com sees itself as a tool to boost community involvement. And the bowl-off is being billed as a way of defusing tension in a highly polarized presidential race by letting people from different ends of the political spectrum walk in each other's rented shoes.

According to Meetup.com, the event "will set an example for the presidential campaign on how to keep the race for the White House 'out of the gutter' and will prove that Americans of opposing political views can stand -- and bowl -- together, united."

Meetup.com has former U.S. Sen. Bill Bradley helping to promote the event, and Al Franken has challenged rival talk radio host Bill O'Reilly to a 10-pin showdown on the bowl-off night with a news release titled "Does Bill O'Reilly Have the Balls?"

The Twin Cities have one of the most active bowl-off Meetup.com groups in the country, thanks to the effort of local organizer Sheldon Schwartz, a 35-year-old Web designer from St. Paul.

"With all the tough rhetoric, I thought it would be nice to just go bowl," Schwartz said.

Schwartz has reserved lanes at Elsie's Bowling Center, 729 Marshall St. N.E., Minneapolis, for the 9 p.m. event.

Teams of three will be organized for each candidate for the three-game tournament. The total number of fallen pins from each game will be added to the national score of games from all over the country.

Schwartz said he needs to recruit some Republican keglers.

As of late last week, mainly Kerry supporters have told Meetup.com that they're going to attend the Twin Cities event. A few say they plan to bowl for the green team. But no Bush bowlers have signed up.

"We need a lot of reds right now," Schwartz said.

For more information and to sign up for the Twin Cities bowl-off, visit bowloff.meet up.com/28.