First World Series
Mookie Betts makes his first World Series
Boston Red Sox outfielder Mookie Betts grew up as a multi-sport athlete in Tennessee. He was a master of the three B’s: baseball, basketball and bowling. Betts won his first bowling tournament at the age of 8, a no-tap Thanksgiving turkey shoot in Murfreesboro, Tennessee. Betts first became a USBC member at the age of 10 in the Nashville USBC Youth association.
Betts’ mother, Diana Benedict, was not only Betts’ first Little League baseball coach, but she was the one who introduced him to the game of bowling as she is an avid bowler herself. In fact, the night before Betts was born, Benedict was at a bowling alley for league night.
Betts excelled in all the sports he participated in as a youth. In high school, Betts had a plus-200 average and bowled a 700 and 800 series in 2008. As a high school junior in 2010, Betts finished third in the Tennessee Secondary Schools Athletic Association state championships individual event. This, along with a 290 game and 827 series, propelled Betts to the Tennessee Boys’ Bowler of the Year award. In 2013, the year before he was called up to the major leagues, Betts bowled a USBC-certified 300 game.
Betts’ passion for bowling has not waned as a major league
baseball player. Betts still holds a USBC membership as a member of the
Nashville Area USBC and plans on competing in the PBA’s GEICO World Series of
Bowling in December at the National Bowling Stadium in Reno. Although this will
be Betts’ first World Series, we certainly hope it will not be his last, in
baseball or in bowling.
If you would like to watch Betts in action during the World Series of Bowling, you can find the television schedule here.
