FINALLY, HIS LITTLE CHARADE WAS EXPOSED. INSTEAD OF FIRING HIM, DAVE’S BOSSES SIMPLY ASKED THAT HE USE HIS OWN NAME WHEN HE BOWLED TOURNAMENTS. THEY FIGURED THAT THE PUBLICITY WOULD BE GOOD FOR BUSINESS.
was from Bavaria. Checking further, I learned that there is actually a town on the German-Czech border called Luby. It is a center of violin manufacturing. My personal take on this matter, however, is that Dave’s forebears were most likely from the Auld Sod, Irish to the bone. Whatever his ancestry, we do
know for certain that Dave grew up in Newark and became an excellent baseball player there. Sometime before the turn of the century, he moved to Chicago and married an Irish immigrant named Annie McKeon. She was still alive when I was a kid, and I can still recall her funny little brogue. Dave and Annie had five children: Grace, Irene, James, Forrest and J. Morton, my father and the long-time publisher of this
MANAGING TO COMPETE Dave Luby (bottom right) served as manager of Chicago’s Century team, leading them to the 1906 ABC Championships title.
magazine. Sadly, Irene and James died in childhood. Dave began bowling after injuries
cut short a promising baseball career. He bowled his first game at the Webster Alleys on Chicago’s north side and was hooked for life.
He became the manager of Chicago’s
Century team and led the club to victory in the 1906 American Bowling Congress Championships. In 1911, he teamed with Pete Howley to form the famous Randolph League. Dave’s Howard Majors won the league’s first championship.
Despite his ability as a manager and
competitor, Dave never actually won a major title on his own. He led the 1911 Chicago City tournament with an 1879 all-events total until the last day, when a one-armed bowler named Ned Nelson outscored him by one pin. Meanwhile, Dave supported his
family by selling shoes. As a salesman for M.D. Wells and Company, he traveled downstate Illinois, calling on shoe stores. There was plenty of bowling action
in towns ranging from Peoria to Spring- field, so Dave spent most of his on-the- road evenings on the lanes. He bowled frequently in downstate tournaments and began to win more and more prize money. Worried that his shoe company bosses might accuse him of malingering, he adopted the pseudonym Dave How- ard when he registered for tournaments. The Howard name began to appear with increasing frequency in the sports pages, and his nom de plume became a private joke in the bowling fraternity. Finally, his little charade was exposed.
Instead of firing him, Dave’s bosses simply asked that he use his own name when he bowled tournaments. They fig- ured that the publicity would be good for business.
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